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THE 


-NICENE FATHERS. 


TRANSLATIONS OF 





THE REV. ALEXANDER ROBERTS,. D.D., 


AND 


JAMES DONALDSON, LL.D., 


EDITORS. 


AMERICAN REPRINT OF THE EDINBURGH EDITION. 





REVISED AND CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED, WITH BRIEF PREFACES AND 
OCCASIONAL NOTES, 


BY 


A. CLEVELAND COXE, D.D. 


VOLUME I. 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. — JUSTIN MARTYR. — IRENAUS. 


4 NEW YORK: 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS. 
1926 


Theology |_ibrary 


CoryvricHr, 1885, BY 
THE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE PUBLISHING COMPANY. 





Printed in the United States of America 





THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS 


WITH 


JUSTIN MARTYR AND IRENAUS. 


AMERICAN EDITION. 


CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED, WITH BRIEF NOTES AND PREFACES, 


BY 


A. CLEVELAND COXE, D.D. 
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PREFACE, 


Tuis volume, containing the equivalent of three volumes of the Edinburgh series of the ANTE: 
NICENE FATHERS, will be found a library somewhat complete in itself. The Apostolic Fathers 
and those associated with them in the third generation, are here placed together in a handbook, 
which, with the inestimable Scriptures, supplies a succinct autobiography of the Spouse of Christ 
for the first two centuries. No Christian scholar has ever before possessed, in faithful versions of 
such compact form, a supplement so essential to the right understanding of the New Testament 
itself. It is a volume indispensable to all scholars, and to every library, private or public, in 
this country. 

The American Editor has performed the humble task of ushering these works into American 
use, with scanty contributions of his own. Such was the understanding with the public: they 
were to be presented with the Edinburgh series, free from appreciable colour or alloy. His duty 
was (1) to give historic arrangement to the confused mass of the original series; (2) to supply, 
in continuity, such brief introductory notices as might slightly popularize what was apparently 
meant for scholars only, in the introductions of the translators ; (3) to supply a few deficiencies by 
short notes and references ; (4) to add such references to Scripture, or to authors of general 
repute, as might lend additional aid to students, without clogging or overlaying the comments 
of the translators; and (5) to note such corruptions or distortions of Patristic testimony as 
have been circulated, in the spirit of the forged Decretals, by those who carry on the old impos- 
ture by means essentially equivalent. Too long have they been allowed to speak to the popular 
mind as if the Fathers were their own; while, to every candid reader, it must be evident that, 
alike, the testimony, the arguments, and the silence of the Ante-Nicene writers confound all 
attempts to identify the ecclesiastical establishment of “the Holy Roman Empire,” with “the 
Holy Catholic Church” of the ancient creeds. 

In performing this task, under the pressure of a virtual obligation to issue the first volume in 
the first month of the new year, the Editor has relied upon the kindly aid of an able friend, as 
typographical corrector of the Edinburgh sheets. It is only necessary to add, that he has 
bracketed all his own notes, so as to assume the responsibility for them; but his introduc- 
tions are so separated from those of the translators, that, after the first instance, he has 
not thought it requisite to suffix his initials to these brief contributions. He regrets that the 
most important volume of the series is necessarily the experimental one, and comes out under 
disadvantages from which it may be expected that succeeding issues will be free. May the Lord 
God of our Fathers bless the undertaking to all my fellow-Christians, and make good to them the 
promise which was once felicitously chosen for the motto of a similar series of publications : “ Yer 
shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teacher:.” 

ACG. 
Janvany 6, 1885. 


vi PREFACE. 


N.B. — The following advertisement of the original editors will be useful here : — 


Tux ANTE-NICENE CHRISTIAN LIBRARY is meant to comprise translations into English of all the extant 
works of the Fathers down to the date of the first General Council held at Nice in A.D. 325. The sole pro 
visional exception is that of the more bulky writings of Origen. It is intended at present only to embrace in the 
scheme the Contra Celsum and the De Principiis of that voluminous author; but the whole of his works will be 
included should the undertaking prove successful. 

The present volume has been translated by the Editors." Their object has been to place the English reader 
as nearly as possible on a footing of equality with those who are able to read the original. With this view they 
have fer the most part leaned towards literal exactness; and wherever any considerable departure from this has 
been made, a verbatim rendering has been given at the foot of the page. Brief introductory notices have been 
prefixed, and short notes inserted, to indicate varieties of reading, specify references, or elucidate any obscurity 
which seemed to exist in the text. 


EpINBURGH, 1867. 
4 ‘This refers to the firet volume cnly of the original series. 


INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 


[a.D. 100-200.] THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS are here understood as filling up the second century 
of our era. Irenzeus, it is true, is rather of the sub-apostolic period; but, as the disciple of 
Polycarp, he ought not to be dissociated from that Father’s company. We thus find ourselves con- 
ducted, by this goodly fellowship of witnesses, from the times of the apostles to those of Tertullian, 
from the martyrs of the second persecution to those of the sixth. Those were times of heroism, 
not of words ; an age, not of writers, but of soldiers ; not of talkers, but of sufferers. Curiosity is 
baffled, but faith and love are fed by these scanty relics of primitive antiquity. Yet may we well 
be grateful for what we have. These writings come down to us as the earliest response of con- 
verted nations to the testimony of Jesus. They are primary evidences of the Canon and the 
credibility of the New Testament. Disappointment may be the first emotion of the student who 
comes down from the mount where he has dwelt in the tabernacles of evangelists and apostles : 
for these disciples are confessedly inferior to the masters ; they speak with the voices of infirm 
and fallible men, and not like the New-Testament writers, with the fiery tongues of the Holy 
Ghost. Yet the thoughtful and loving spirit soon learns their exceeding value. For who does not 
close the records of St. Luke with longings to get at least a glimpse of the further history of the 
progress of the Gospel? What of the Church when its founders were fallen asleep? Was the 
Good Shepherd “ always ” with His little flock, according to His promise? Was the Blessed Com- 
forter felt in His presence amid the fires of persecution? Was the Spirit of Truth really able to 
guide the faithful into all truth, and to keep them in the truth ? 

And what had become of the disciples who were the first-fruits of the apostolic ministry? 
St. Paul had said, “The same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be adle to teach others 
also.” How was this injunction realized? St. Peter’s touching words come to mind, “I will 
endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.” 
Was this endeavour successfully carried out? To these natural and pious inquiries, the Apostolic 
Fathers, though we have a few specimens only of their fidelity, give an emphatic reply. If the 
cold-hearted and critical find no charm in the simple, childlike faith which they exhibit, ennobled 
though it be by heroic devotion to the Master, we need not marvel. Such would probably object : 
“ They teach me nothing ; I do not relish their multiplied citations from Scripture.” The answer \ 
is, “If you are familiar with Scripture, you owe it largely to these primitive witnesses to its Canon ; 
and its spirit. By their testimony we detect what is spurious, and we identify what is real. Is it 
nothing to find that your Bible is their Bible, your faith their faith, your Saviour their Saviour, your 
God their God?” Let us reflect, also, that, when copies of the entire Scriptures were rare and 
costly, these citations were “ words fitly spoken, — apples of gold in pictures of silver.” We are 
taught by them also that they obeyed the apostle’s precept, “Let the word of Christ dwell in 
you richly in all wisdom ; teaching and admonishing,” etc. Thus they reflect the apostolic care 


that men should be raised up able to teach others also. 
vii 


Vili INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 


Their very mistakes enable us to attach a higher value to: the superiority of inspired writers. 
They were not wiser than the naturalists of their day who taught them the history of the Pheenix 
and other fables ; but nothing of this sort is found in Scripture. The Fathers are inferior in kind 
as well as in degree ; yet their words are lingering echoes of those whose words were spoken “as 
the Spirit gave them utterance.” They are monuments of the power of the Gospel. They were 
made out of such material as St. Paul describes when he says, “Such were some of you.” But 
for Christ, they would have been worshippers of personified Lust and Hate, and of every crime. 
They would have lived for “ bread and circus-shows.” Yet to the contemporaries of a Juvenal 
they taught the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount. Among such beasts in human form 
they reared the sacred home ; they created the Christian family ; they gave new and holy mean- 
ings to the names of wife and mother; they imparted ideas unknown before of the dignity of 
man as man; they infused an atmosphere of benevolence and love ; they bestowed the elements 
of liberty chastened by law; they sanctified human society by proclaiming the universal brother- 
hood of redeemed man. As we read the Apostolic Fathers, we comprehend, in short, the mean- 
ing of St. Paul when he said prophetically, what men were slow to believe, “The foolishness of 
God is wiser than men ; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. . . . But God hath chosen 
the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of 
the world to confound the things which are mighty ; and base things of the world, and things 
which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things. 
that are.” 


A. C. C. 


DECEMBER, 1884. 


CONTENTS OF VOLUME I 


t PAGE 
PREFACE : 5 ; 0 : 6 ° ° . ° ° . . . : . v 
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE : 4 ; : < : ; ° . ° ° ° vii 

“Y. ST. CLEMENT. EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS . : ° ° ° ° e I 
Il. MATHETES. EPIsTLE To DIOGNETUS : ° . . ° ° . . 23 
VIII. POLYCARP. EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS . . ° . . . : 6 7 9 3t 
MARTYRDOM . 5 : 6 5 5 . . ° ° ° . ° . 37 
SeIVewAGNATLIUS, EPISTLE TO THE’ EPHESIANS «© <« . +. «© .» “0 «© «6 -» , 4§ 
EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS: SHORTER AND LONGER VERSIONS . ° . 49 

EPISTLE TO THE MAGNESIANS . : . ° ° ° ° . ° . - 59 

EPISTLE TO THE TRALLIANS . 5 3 ° . . ° 5 : : . 66 

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS . 6 3 5 ° ° 5 ° . . 5 gy! 

EPISTLE TO THE PHILADELPHIANS . ° . ° e . ° e . . 79 

EPISTLE TO THE SMYRNZANS . 5 < 2 5 ° . : . shir eee oO 

EPISTLE TO POLYCARP . 5 oh] Ves ° ° ° ° ° ° ° . 93 

APPENDIX. SYRIAC VERSION . . ° . ° ° ° . . . ee OT 

SPURIOUS EPISTLES . 9 c : . ° ° . . . . . : 105 
MARTYRDOM . : c . 5 ° ° ° es a ‘ ; 5 s. 127 

“V. BARNABAS. EPISTLE . ‘ F : : 6 : ° 6 é : O C 133 
VI. PAPIAS. FRAGMENTS é e : : 4 A A ° ee cy 
WV VII. JUSTIN MARTYR. THE Fins aie ; : A ; 6 5 J - 159 
THE SECOND APOLOGY c c ; . . . . . ° d - 188 

DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO, A JEW . . . ° . ° ° . . . 194 

THE DISCOURSE TO THE GREEKS : 5 . . ° . ° “ a 5 EFA 
HorTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS . . ° ow ite . : : 273 

ON THE SOLE GOVERNMENT OF GOD ; . ° ° . . . ‘ . 290 

ON THE RESURRECTION, FRAGMENTS . . ° . . . ° c : 294 

OTHER FRAGMENTS . 3 ; : : . . . ° . ° ; » 300 
MARTYRDOM . c 6 : 5 . ° e ° . . ° ° 393 


Beyviit TRENA:US, AGAINST HERESIES . 9 ». «© ‘ «© «© © 8 3» 9.# + 309 y 
FRAGMENTS ° e ve e e e e e e e e ° e . 568 

















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INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


TO THE 


FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT TO THE CORINTHIANS. 


[a.D. 30-100.] CLEMENT was probably a Gentile and a Roman. He seems to have been at 
Philippi with St. Paul (a.p. 57) when that first-born of the Western churches was passing 
through great trials of faith. There, with holy women and others, he ministered to the apostle 
_and to the saints. As this city was a Roman colony, we need not inquire how a Roman happened 
_ to be there. He was possibly in some public service, and it is not improbable that he had visited 

Corinth in those days. From the apostle, and his companion, St. Luke, he had no doubt learned 
the use of the Septuagint, in which his knowledge of the Greek tongue soon rendered him an 
adept. His copy of that version, however, does not always agree with the Received Text, as the 
reader will perceive. 

_ Acco-presbyter with Linus and Cletus, he succeeded them in the government of the Roman 
Church. I have reluctantly adopted the opinion that his Epistle was written near the close of his 
life, and not just after the persecution of Nero. It is not improbable that Linus and Cletus both 
perished in that fiery trial, and that Clement’s immediate succession to their work and place occa- 
sions the chronological difficulties of the period. After the death of the apostles, for the Roman 
imprisonment and martyrdom of St. Peter seem historical, Clement was the natural representa- 
tive of St. Paul, and even of his companion, the “apostle of the circumcision ; ” and naturally 
-he wrote the Epistle in the name of the local church, when brethren looked to them for advice. 
St. John, no doubt, was still surviving at Patmos or in Ephesus ; but the Philippians, whose inter- 
course with Rome is attested by the visit of Epaphroditus, looked naturally to the surviving 
friends of their great founder; nor was the aged apostle in the East equally accessible. All 
roads pointed towards the Imperial City, and started from its Miliarium Aureum. But, though 
Clement doubtless wrote the letter, he conceals his own name, and puts forth the brethren, who 
seem to have met in council, and sent a brotherly delegation (Chap. lix.). The entire absence of 
the spirit of Diotrephes (St. John, Ep. II. 9), and the close accordance of the Epistle, in humility 
and meekness, with that of St. Peter (Ep. I, v. 1-5), are noteworthy features. The whole will be 
found animated with the loving and faithful spirit of St. Paul’s dear Philippians, among whom the 

writer had learned the Gospel. : 

Clement fell asleep, probably soon after he despatched his letter. It is the legacy of one who 
reflects the apostolic age in all the beauty and evangelical truth which were the first-fruits of the 
Spirit’s presence with the Church. He shares with others the aureole of glory attributed by St. 
Paul (Phil. iv. 3), “His name is in the Book of Life.” 

-The plan of this publication does not permit the restoration, in this volume, of the recently 
discovered portions of his work. It is the purpose of the editor to present this, however, with 


-other recently discovered relics of: primitive antiquity, in a supplementary volume, should the. 
I 


2 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 


undertaking meet with sufficient encouragement. The so-called second Epistle of Clement is now 
known to be the work of another, and has been relegated to another place in this series. 

The following is the INrRODUCTORY Notice of the original editors and translators, Drs. Roberts 
and Donaldson : — 


Tue first Epistle, bearing the name of Clement, has been preserved to us in a single manu- 
script only. Though very frequently referred to by ancient Christian writers, it remained un- 
known to the scholars of Western Europe until happily discovered in the Alexandrian manuscript. 
This ms. of the Sacred Scriptures (known and generally referred to as Codex A) was presented 
in 1628 by Cyril, Patriarch of Constantinople, to Charles I., and is now preserved in the British 
Museum. Subjoined to the books of the New Testament contained in it, there are two writings 
described as the Epistles of one Clement. Of these, that now before us is the first. It is 
tolerably perfect, but there are many slight dacune, or gaps, in the ms., and one whole leaf is 
supposed to have been lost towards the close. These /acune, however, so numerous in some 
chapters, do not generally extend beyond a word or syllable, and can for the most part be easily 
supplied. 

Who the Clement was to whom these writings are ascribed, cannot with absolute certainty be 
determined. The general opinion is, that he is the same as the person of that name referred to 
by St. Paul (Phil. iv. 3). The writings themselves contain no statement as to their author. The 
first, and by far the longer of them, simply purports to have been written in the name of the 
Church at Rome to the Church at Corinth. But in the catalogue of contents prefixed to the Ms. 
they are both plainly attributed to one Clement; and the judgment of most scholars is, that, in 
regard to the first Epistle at least, this statement is correct, and that it is to be regarded as an 
authentic production of the friend and fellow-worker of St. Paul. This belief may be traced to 
an early period in the history of the Church. It is found in the writings of Eusebius (/7is¢. Eccl, 
iii. 15), of Origen (Comm. in Joan., i. 29), and others. The internal evidence also tends to 
support this opinion. The doctrine, style, and manner of thought are all in accordance with it; 
so that, although, as has been said, positive certainty cannot be reached on the subject, we may 
with great probability conclude that we have in this Epistle a composition of that Clement who 
is known to us from Scripture as having been an associate of the great apostle. 

The date of this Epistle has been the subject of considerable controversy. It is clear from 
the writing itself that it was composed soon after some persecution (chap. i.) which the Roman 
Church had endured ; and the only question is, whether we are to fix upon the persecution under 
Nero or Domitian. If the former, the date will be about the year 68; if the latter, we must 
place it towards the close of the first century or the beginning of the second. We possess no 
external aid to the settlement of this question. The lists of early Roman bishops are in hopeless 
confusion, some making Clement the immediate successor of St. Peter, others placing Linus, and 
others still Linus and Anacletus, between him and the apostle. The internal evidence, again, 
leaves the matter doubtful, though it has been strongly pressed on both sides. The probability 
seems, on the whole, to be in favour of the Domitian period, so that the Epistle may be dated 
about A.D. 97. 

This Epistle was held in very great esteem by the early Church. The account given of it by 
Eusebius (Hist. Eccl, iii. 16) is as follows: “There is one acknowledged Epistle of this Clement 
(whom he has just identified with the friend of St. Paul), great and admirable, which he wrote 
in the name of the Church of Rome to the Church at Corinth, sedition having then arisen in 
the latter Church. We are aware that this Epistle has been publicly read in very many churches 
both in old times, and also in our own day.” The Epistle before us thus appears to have been 
read in numerous churches, as being almost on a level with the canonical writings. And its place 
in the Alexandrian Ms., immediately after the inspired books, is in harmony with the position thus 
assigned it in the primitive Church. There does indeed appear a great difference between it and 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 3 





the inspired writings in many respects, such as the fanciful use sometimes made of Old-Testament 
statements, the fabulous stories which are accepted by its author, and the general diffuseness and 
feebleness of style by which it is distinguished. But the high tone of evangelical truth which 
pervades it, the simple and earnest appeals which it makes to the heart and conscience, and the 
anxiety which its writer so constantly shows to promote the best interests of the Church of 
Christ, still impart an undying charm to this precious relic of later apostolic times. 

[N.B.—A sufficient guide to the recent literature of the Clementine mss, and discoveries may 
be found in Zhe Princeton Review, 1877, p. 325, also in Bishop Wordsworth’s succinct but 
learned Church History to the Council of Nicea, p. 84. ‘The invaluable edition of the Pasres 
Apostolict, by Jacobson (Oxford, 1840), with a critical text and rich prolegomena and annota- 
tions, cannot be dispensed with by any Patristic inquirer. A.C. C.] 
























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THE FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT TO THE CORINTHIANS. 





CHAP. I.—THE SALUTATION. PRAISE OF THE 
CORINTHIANS BEFORE THE BREAKING FORTH OF 
SCHISM AMONG THEM. 


Tue Church of God which sojourns at Rome, 
to the Church of God sojourning at Corinth, to 
them that are called and sanctified by the will 
of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ: Grace 
unto you, and peace, from Almighty God through 
Jesus Christ, be multiplied. 

Owing, dear brethren, to the sudden and suc- 
cessive calamitous events which have happened 
to ourselves, we feel that we have been somewhat 
tardy in turning our attention to the points re- 
specting which you consulted us ;? and especially 
to that shameful and detestable sedition, utterly 
abhorrent to the elect of God, which a few rash 
and self-confident persons have kindled to such 
a pitch of frenzy, that your venerable and illus- 
trious name, worthy to be universally loved, has 
suffered grievous injury.3 For who ever dwelt 
even for a short time among you, and did not 
find your faith to be as fruitful of virtue as it was 
firmly established?+ Who did not admire the 
sobriety and moderation of your godliness in 
Christ? Who did not proclaim the magnificence 
of your habitual hospitality? And who did not 
rejoice over your perfect and well-grounded 
knowledge? For ye did all things without re- 
spect of persons, and walked in the command- 
ments of God, being obedient to those who had 
the rule over you, and giving all fitting honour to 
the presbyters among you. Ye enjoined young 
men to be of a sober and serious mind; ye 
instructed your wives to do all things with a 
blameless, becoming, and pure conscience, loving 
their husbands as in duty bound ; and ye taught 
them that, living in the rule of obedience, they 
should manage theirhousehold affairs becomingly, 
and be in every respect marked by discretion. 


CHAP. II]. — PRAISE OF THE CORINTHIANS CON- 
TINUED. 


Moreover, ye were all distinguished by humil- 
ity, and were in no respect puffed up with pride, 





I In the only known ms, of this Epistle, the title is thus given at 
the close. : : 

2 [Note the fact that the Corinthians asked this of their brethren, 
the personal friends of their apostle St. Paul. Clement's own name 
does not appear in this Epistle. ] 

3 Literally, ‘‘is greatly blasphemed.” | ee 

4 Literally, “ did not prove your all-vistuous and firm faith. 








but yielded obedience rather than extorted it,5 
and were more willing to give than to receive.® 
Content with the provision which God had made 
for you, and carefully attending to His words, ye 
were inwardly filled 7 with His doctrine, and His 
sufferings were before your eyes. Thus a pro- 
found and abundant peace was given to you all, 
and ye had an insatiable desire for doing good, 
while a full outpouring of the Holy Spirit was 
upon you all. Full of holy designs, ye did, with 
true earnestness of mind and a godly confidence, 
stretch forth your hands to God Almighty, be- 
seeching Him to be merciful unto you, if ye had 
been guilty of any involuntary transgression. 
Day and night ye were anxious for the whole 
brotherhood,’ that the number of God’s elect 
might be saved with mercy and a good con- 
science.? Ye were sincere and uncorrupted, and 
forgetful of injuries between one another. Every 
kind of faction and schism was abominable in 
your sight. Ye mourned over the transgressions 
of your neighbours: their deficiencies you | 
deemed your own. Ye never grudged any act 
of kindness, being “ ready to every good work.” '° 
Adorned by a thoroughly virtuous and religious 
life, ye did all things in the fear of God. The 
commandments and ordinances of the Lord were 
written upon the tablets of your hearts." 


CHAP. Ill. —THE SAD STATE OF THE CORINTHIAN 
CHURCH AFTER SEDITION AROSE IN IT FROM 
ENVY AND EMULATION. 


Every kind of honour and happiness ** was be- 
stowed upon you, and then was fulfilled that 
which is written, “My beloved did eat and 
drink, and was enlarged and became fat, and 
kicked.” "3 Hence flowed emulation and envy, 
strife and sedition, persecution and disorder, 
war and captivity. So the worthless rose up 
against the honoured, those of no reputation 





5 Eph. v. 21; 1 Pet. v. 5. ag 

6 Acts xx. 35. ewe Re) ‘ 

7 Literally, ‘« ye embraced it in your bowels.” [Conceae ae 
complaints of Photius (ninth century) against Clement, see ull’s 
Pale Fidei Nicene, Works, vol. v. p. 132.] 

8 x Pet. ii, 17. , 

9 So in the ee but many have suspected that the text is. here 
corrupt, Perhaps the best emendation is that which substitutes 
guvatcOijcews, “ compassion,” for cvverdycews, “ conscience,” 

to Tit. iti. r. 

Il Prov. vil. 3. 

12 Literally, ‘‘ enlargement.” 
13 Deut. xxxil. 15. 


6 


against such as were renowned, the foolish 
against the wise, the young against those ad- 
vanced in years. For this reason righteousness 
and peace are now far departed from you, inas- 
much as every one abandons the fear of God, 
und is become blind in His faith,’ neither walks 
in the ordinances of His appointment, nor acts 
a part becoming a Christian,? but walks after his 
own wicked lusts, resuming the practice of an 
unrighteous and ungodly envy, by which death 
itself entered into the world.3 


CHAP. IV. — MANY EVILS HAVE ALREADY FLOWED 
FROM THIS SOURCE IN ANCIENT TIMES. 


For thus it is written: “And it came to pass 
after certain days, that Cain brought of the fruits 
of the earth a sacrifice unto God ; and Abel also 
brought of the firstlings of his sheep, and of the 
fat thereof. And God had respect to Abel and 
to his offerings, but Cain and his sacrifices He 
did not regard. And Cain was deeply grieved, 
and his countenance fell. And God said to 
Cain, Why art thou grieved, and why is thy 
countenance fallen? If thou offerest rightly, 
but dost not divide rightly, hast thou not sinned? 
Be at peace : thine offering returns to thyself, and 
thou shalt again possess it. And Cain said to 
Abel his brother, Let us go into the field. And 
it came to pass, while they were in the field, 
that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and 
slew him.”4 Ye see, brethren, how envy and 
jealousy led to the murder of a brother. Through 
envy, also, our father Jacob fled from the face of 
Esau his brother.’ Envy made Joseph be per- 
secuted unto death, and to come into bondage.® 
Envy compelled Moses to flee from the face of 
Pharaoh king of Egypt, when he heard these 
words from his fellow-countryman, “ Who made 
thee a judge or a ruler over us? wilt thou kill 
me, as thou didst kill the Egyptian yester- 
day?” 7 On account of envy, Aaron and Miriam 
had to make their abode without the camp.® 
Envy brought down Dathan and Abiram alive to 
Hades, through the sedition which they excited 
against God’s servant Moses.? Through envy, 
David underwent the hatred not only of for- 
ses but was also persecuted by Saul king of 

srael.'° 





1 It seems necessary to refer avrov to God, in opposition to the | tu 


fwanslation given by Abp. Wake and others. 


4 Literally, “Christ; ” comp. 2 Cor. i. 21, Eph. iv. 20, 
3 Wisd. it. 24. 
4 Gen. iv. 3-8.. The writer here, as always, follows the reading 


of the Septuagint, which in this passage both alters and adds to the 
Hebrew text. e have given the rendering approved by the best 
critics; but some prefer to translate, as in our English version, ‘‘ unto 
thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.” See, for an 
ancient explanation of the passage, Irenzcus, Adv. Har., iv. 18, 3. 
5 Gen. xxvii. 41, etc. 
6 Gen. xxxvii. 
Hl Nu ii, 14. 
uM, xii, 14, 15. 
affirmed of Aaron. | 3 
9 Num. xvi. 33. 
4° y Kings xvii. 8, etc. 


[In our copies of the Septuagint this is not 











THE FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT. 


Bie eh ee 





CHAP. V.—NO LESS EVILS HAVE ARISEN FROM THE 
SAME SOURCE IN THE MOST RECENT TIMES. THE 
MARTYRDOM OF PETER AND PAUL. 


But not to dwell upon ancient examples, let 
us come to the most recent spiritual heroes." 
Let us take the noble examples furnished in our 
own generation. Through envy and jealousy, 
the greatest and most righteous pillars [of the 
Church] have been persecuted and put to 
death.? Let us set before our eyes the illustri- 
ous 3 apostles. Peter, through unrighteous envy, 
endured not one or two, but numerous labours ; 
and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, 
departed to the place of glory due to him. 
Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of 
patient endurance, after being seven times 
thrown into captivity,"* compelled’s to flee, and 
stoned. After preaching both in the east and 
west, he gained the illustrious reputation due to 
his faith, having taught righteousness to the 
whole world, and come to the extreme limit of 
the west,'© and suffered martyrdom under the 
prefects.'7. Thus was he removed from the world, 
and went into the holy place, having proved 
himself a striking example of patience. 


CHAP. VI. — CONTINUATION. 
MARTYRS. 


SEVERAL OTHER 


To these men who spent their lives in the 
practice of holiness, there is to be added a great 
multitude of the elect, who, having through envy 
endured many indignities and tortures, furnished 
us with a most excellent example. Through 
envy, those women, the Danaids'* and Dirce, 
being persecuted, after they had suffered terrible 
and unspeakable torments, finished the course 
of their faith with stedfastness,'? and though weak 
in body, received a noble reward. Envy has 
alienated wives from their husbands, and changed 
that saying of our father Adam, “This is now 
bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” 7° 
Envy and strife have overthrown great cities 
and rooted up mighty nations. 





1I Literally, ‘those who have been athletes.” 

12 Some fill up the /acuna here found in the MS. so as to read, 
“ have come to a grievous death,” 

13 Literally, good.” [The aon, of St. Peter is all that is 
thus connected with his arrival in Rome. His numerous labours 
were restricted to the Circraraora| 
14 Seven imprisonments of St. Paul are not referred to in Scrip- 


re. 

1$ Archbishop Wake here reads ‘“‘scourged.” We have followed 
pe most recent critics in filling up the numerous /acume in this 
chapter. 

16 Some think Rome, others Sfazn, and others even Britain, to 
be here referred to. [See note at end.] 

17 That is, under Tigellinus and Sabinus, in the last year of the 
Emperor Nero; but some think Helius and Polycletus referred to; 
and others, both here and in the preceding sentence, regard the words 
as denoting simply the wrtness borne by Peter and Paul to the truth 
of the gospel before the rulers of the earth, 

18 Some suppose these to have been the names of two eminent 
female martyrs under Nero; others regard the clause as an interpola- 
tion. [Many ingenious conjectures might be cited; but see Jacob- 
son’s valuable note, Patres A postol., vol. i. p. 30. 

19 Literally, ‘‘ have reached to the stedfast course of faith.” 


20 Gen. ii. 23. 


THE FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT. 7 








CHAP. VII.— AN EXHORTATION TO REPENTANCE. 


These things, beloved, we write unto you, not 
merely to admonish you of your duty, but also 
to remind ourselves. For we are struggling on 
the same arena, and the same conflict is assigned 
to both of us. Wherefore let us give up vain and 
fruitless cares, and approach to the glorious and 
venerable rule of our holy calling. Let us at- 
tend to what is good, pleasing, and acceptable 
in the sight of Him who formed us. Let us 
look stedfastly to the blood of Christ, and see 
how precious that blood is to God,' which, hav- 
ing been shed for our salvation, has set the grace 
of repentance before the whole world. Let us 
turn to every age that has passed, and learn 
that, from generation to generation, the Lord 
has granted a place of repentance to all such as 
would be converted unto Him. Noah preached 
repentance, and as many as listened to him were 
saved. Jonah proclaimed destruction to the 
Ninevites ;3 but they, repenting of their sins, 
propitiated God by prayer, and obtained salva- 
tion, although they were aliens [to the covenant ] 
of God. 


CHAP. VIII.— CONTINUATION RESPECTING REPENT- 
ANCE. 


The ministers of the grace of God have, by 
the Holy Spirit, spoken of repentance ; and the 
Lord of all things has himself declared with an 
oath regarding it, “ As I live, saith the Lord, I 
desire not the death of the sinner, but rather his 
repentance ;”4 adding, moreover, this gracious 
declaration, “ Repent, O house of Israel, of your 
iniquity. Say to the children of My people, 
Though your sins reach from earth to heaven, 
and though they be redder® than scarlet, and 
blacker than sackcloth, yet if ye turn to Me with 
your whole heart, and say, Father! I will listen 
to you, as to a holy? people.” And in another 
place He speaks thus: “ Wash you, and become 
clean; put away the wickedness of your souls 
from before mine eyes; cease from your evil 
ways, and learn to do well; seek out judgment, 
deliver the oppressed, judge the fatherless, and 
see that justice is done to the widow; and 
come, and let us reason together. He declares, 
Though your sins be like crimson, I will make 
them white as snow; though they be like scar- 
let, I will whiten them like wool. And if ye be 
willing and obey Me, ye shall eat the good of 
the land ; but if ye refuse, and will not hearken 
unto Me, the sword shall devour you, for the 





1 Someinsert “‘ Father.” " 

2 Gen. vii.; 1 Pet. iii. 20; 2 Pet. ii. 5. 

3 Jonah iii. 

4 Ezek. xxxiii. 11. 

5 Ezek. ih a 

6 Comp. Isa. 1. 18. 

a These words are not found in Scripture, ees chee are quoted 
again by Clem. Alex. (Paedag., i. 10) as-from Ezekiel. 





mouth of the Lord hath spoken these things.” § 
Desiring, therefore, that all His beloved should 
be partakers of repentance, He has, by His 
almighty will, established [these declarations]. 


CHAP. IX.— EXAMPLES OF THE SAINTS. 


Wherefore, let us yield obedience to His ex- 
cellent and glorious will; and imploring His 
mercy and loving-kindness, while we forsake all 
fruitless labours,? and strife, and envy, which 
leads to death, let us turn and have recourse to 
His compassions. Let us stedfastly contem- 
plate those who have perfectly ministered to His 
excellent glory. Let us take (for instance) 
Enoch, who, being found righteous in obedi- 
ence, was translated, and death was never known 
to happen to him.'e Noah, being found faithful, 
preached regeneration to the world through his 
ministry ; and the Lord saved by him the ani- 
mals which, with one accord, entered into the 
ark. 


CHAP. X.— CONTINUATION OF THE ABOVE. 


Abraham, styled “the friend,” ** was found 
faithful, inasmuch as he rendered obedience to 
the words of God. He, in the exercise of obe- 
dience, went out from his own country, and from 
his kindred, and from his father’s house, in order 
that, by forsaking a small territory, and a weak 
family, and an insignificant house, he might in- 
herit the promises of God. For God said to 
him, “Get thee out from thy country, and from 
thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, into 
the land which I shall show thee. And I will 
make thee a great nation, and will bless thee, 
and make thy name great, and thou shalt be 
blessed. And I will bless them that bless thee, 
and curse them that curse thee; and in thee 
shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” 
And again, on his departing from Lot, God said 
to him, “ Lift up thine eyes, and look from the 
place where thou now art, northward, and south- 
ward, and eastward, and westward ; for all the 
land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and 
to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed 
as the dust of the earth, [so that] if a man can 
number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed 
also be numbered.” *3 And again [the Scrip- 
ture] saith, “God brought forth Abram, and 
spake unto, him, Look up now to heaven, and 
count the stars if thou be able to number them ; 
so shall thy seed be. And Abram believed God, 
and it was counted to him for righteousness.” "4 
On account of his faith and hospitality, a son 


8 Isa, i. 16-20. 

9 Some read paratodoyiar, “ vain talk.” 

10 Gen. v. 24; Heb. xi. 5. Literally, “and his death was not 
found.” 

11 Ysa, xli. 8; 2 Chron. xx. 7; Judith vili. 19; James ii, 23. 

12 Gen. xii: 1-3. 

13 Gen. xiii. 14-16. 

14 Gen. xv. 5,6; Rom. iv. 3.° 





was given him in his old age ; and in the exer- 
cise of obedience, he offered him as a sacrifice 
to God on one of the mountains which He 
showed him. 


CHAP. XI.— CONTINUATION. LOT. 


On account of his hospitality and godliness, 
Lot was saved out of Sodom when all the coun- 
try round was punished by means of fire and 
brimstone, the Lord thus making it manifest 
that He does not forsake those that hope in 
Him, but gives up such as depart from Him to 
punishment and torture.2 For Lot’s wife, who 
went forth with him, being of a different mind 
from himself and not continuing in agreement 
with him [as to the command which had been 
given them], was made an example of, so as to 
be a pillar of salt unto this day.3 This was done 
that all might know that those who are of a 
double mind, and who distrust the power of 
God, bring down judgment on themselves,‘ and 
become a sign to all succeeding generations. 


CHAP. XII.— THE REWARDS OF FAITH AND HOS- 
PITALITY. RAHAB. 


On account of her faith and hospitality, Rahab 


the harlot was saved. For when spies were sent | 


by Joshua, the son of Nun, to Jericho, the king 
of the country ascertained that they were come 
to spy out their land, and sent men to seize 
them, in order that, when taken, they might be 
put to death: But the hospitable Rahab receiv- 
ing them, concealed them on the roof of her 
house under some stalks of flax. And when 
the men sent by the king arrived and said, 
“There came men unto thee who are to spy out 
our land ; bring them forth, for so the king com- 
mands,” she answered them, “The two men 
whom ye seek came unto me, but quickly de- 
parted again and are gone,” thus not discovering 
the spies to them. Then she said to the men, 
‘“‘T know assuredly that the Lord your God hath 
given you this city, for the fear and dread of you 
have fallen on its inhabitants. When therefore 
ye shall have taken it, keep ye me and the house 
of my father in safety.”” And they said to her, 
“Tt shall be as thou hast spoken to us. As 
soon, therefore, as thou knowest that we are at 
hand, thou shalt gather all thy family under thy 
roof, and they shall be preserved, but all that 
are found outside of thy dwelling shall perish.” 5 
Moreover, they gave her a sign to this effect, 
that she should hang forth from her house a 
scarlet thread. And thus they made it manifest 
that redemption should flow through the blood 
of the Lord to all them that believe and hope 





I Gen. xxi. 22; Heb. xi, 17. 

2 Gen, xix.; comp, 2 Pet. 1i. 6-9. 

3 So Joseph., Antzg., i, 11, ee bts Adv. Her., iv. 31. 
4 Literally, ‘“ become a judgment and sign.” 


5 Josh. ii.; Heb. xi, 31. 








THE FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT. 


in God.6 Ye see, beloved, that there was not 
only faith, but prophecy, in this woman. 


CHAP. XIII.— AN EXHORTATION TO HUMILITY. 


Let us therefore, brethren, be of humble 
mind, laying aside all haughtiness, and pride, 
and foolishness, and angry feelings; and let us 
act according to that which is written (for the 
Holy Spirit saith, “Let not the wise man glory 
in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory 
in his might, neither let the rich man glory in 
his riches ; but let him that glorieth glory in the 
Lord, in diligently seeking Him, and doing judg- 
ment and righteousness”7), being especially - 
mindful of the words of the Lord Jesus which 
He spake, teaching us meekness and long-suffer- 
ing. For thus He spoke: “Be ye merciful, 
that ye may obtain mercy ; forgive, that it may 
be forgiven to you ; as ye do, so shall it be done 
unto you; as ye judge, so shall ye be judged ; 
as ye are kind, so shall kindness be shown to 
you ; with what measure ye mete, with the same 
it shall be measured to you.”® By this precept 
and by these rules let us stablish ourselves, that 
we walk with all humility in obedience to His 
holy words. For the holy word saith, “On whom 
shall I look, but on him that is meek and peace- 
able, and that trembleth at My words?” 9 


CHAP. XIV. — WE SHOULD OBEY GOD RATHER THAN 
THE AUTHORS OF SEDITION. 


It is right and holy therefore, men and breth- 
ren, rather to obey God than to follow those 
who, through pride and sedition, have become the 
leaders of a detestable emulation. For we shall 
incur no slight injury, but rather great danger, 
if we rashly yield ourselves to the inclinations 
of men who aim at exciting strife and tumults, so 
as to draw us away from what is good. Let us 
be kind one to another after the pattern of the 
tender mercy and benignity of our Creator. For 
it is written, “‘ The kind-hearted shall inhabit the 
land, and the guiltless shall be left upon it, but 
transgressors shall be destroyed from off the face 
of it.”"? And again [the Scripture] saith, “I 
saw the ungodly highly exalted, and lifted up 
like the cedars of Lebanon: I passed by, and, 
behold, he was not; and I diligently sought his 
place, and could not find it. Preserve inno- 
cence, and look on equity: for there shall be a 
remnant to the peaceful man.” !! 





6 Others of the Fathers adopt the same allegorical interpretation, 
Or25 ae Mar., Dial. c. Tryph.,n. 111; Irenzus, Adv. Her., iv. 
20, |The whole matter of symbolism under the law must be more 
thoroughly studied if we would account for such strong language as 
is here applied to a poetical or rhetorical figure. ], 

7 Jer. 1x. 23, 24; 1 Cor. i. 3x; 2, Cor. x. 17. 

8 Gemp. Matt. vi. 12-15, vii. 2; Luke vi. 36-38. 

9 Isa. Ixvi. 2. 

10 Proy, ii. 21, 22. 

™ Ps. xxxvii. 35-37. ‘‘ Remnant” 


babl; fe i 
memory ox posterity of the righteous, on eapanbnae Osseo 


THE FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT. 


9 


CHAP. XV.—-WE MUST ADHERE TO THOSE WHO|of His sufferings openeth not His mouth. He 


CULTIVATE PEACE, NOT TO THOSE WHO MERELY 
PRETEND TO DO SO. 


Let us cleave, therefore, to those who culti- 
vate peace with godliness, and not to those who 
hypocritically profess to desire it. For [the 
Scripture] saith in a certain place, “This peo- 
ple honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart 
is far from Me.”' And again: ‘They bless 
with their mouth, but curse with their heart.” 2 
And again it saith, “ They loved Him with their 
mouth, and lied to Him with their tongue ; but 
their heart was not right with Him, neither were 
they faithful in His covenant.”3 ‘Let the de- 
ceitful lips become silent,” + [and “let the Lord 
destroy all the lying lips,5] and the boastful 
tongue of those who have said, Let us magnify 
our tongue ; our lips are our own; who is lord 
over us? For the oppression of the poor, and 
for the sighing of the needy, will I now arise, 
saith the Lord: I will place him in safety; I 
will deal confidently with him.” © 


CHAP. XVI. — CHRIST AS AN EXAMPLE OF HUMILITY. 


For Christ is of those who are humble-minded, 
and not of those who exalt themselves over His 
flock. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Sceptre of 
the majesty of God, did not come in the pomp 
of pride or arrogance, although He might have 
done so, but in a lowly condition, as the Holy 
Spirit had declared regarding Him. For He 
says, “ Lord, who hath believed our report, and 
to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We 
have declared [our message] in His presence: 
He is, as it were, a child, and like a root in 
thirsty ground ; He has no form nor glory, yea, 
we saw Him, and He had no form nor comeli- 
ness ; but His form was without eminence, yea, 
deficient in comparison with the [ordinary] 
form of men. He is a man exposed te stripes 
and suffering, and acquainted with the endur- 
ance of grief: for His countenance was turned 
away; He was despised, and not esteemed. 
He bears our iniquities, and is in sorrow for our 
sakes ; yet we supposed that [on His own ac- 
count] He was exposed to labour, and stripes, 
and affliction. But He was wounded for our 
transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities. 
The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, 
and by His stripes we were healed. All we, like 
sheep, have gone astray ; [every] man has wan- 
dered in his own way ; and the Lord has deliv- 
ered Him up for our sins, while He in the midst 


sey Ss AE ee 
, ’ 

I Isa. xxix. 13; Matt. xv. 8; Mark vii. 6. 

2 Ps, Ixii. 4. 

3 Ps, Ixxviti. 36, 37- 

4 Ps. xxxi. 18, : : 

5 These words within brackets are not found in the Ms., but have 
been inserted from the Septuagint by most editors. 

6 Ps, xii. 3-5. 








was brought as a sheep to the slaughter, and as 
a lamb before her shearer is dumb, so He open- 
eth not His mouth. In His humiliation His 
judgment was taken away; who shall declare 
His generation? for His life is taken from: the 
earth. For the transgressions of my people was 
He brought down to death. And I will give the 
wicked for His sepulchre, and the rich for His 
death,” because He did no iniquity, neither was 
guile found in His mouth. And the Lord is 
pleased to purify Him by stripes. If ye make 9 
an offering for sin, your soul shall see a long- 
lived seed. And the Lord is pleased to relieve 
Him of the affliction of His soul, to show Him 
light, and to form Him with understanding,’ to 
justify the Just One who ministereth well to 
many; and He Himself shall carry their sins. 
On this account He shall inherit many, and 
shall divide the spoil of the strong; because 
His soul was delivered to death, and He was 
reckoned among the transgressors, and He bare 
the sins of many, and for their sins was He de- 
livered.” 7" And again He saith, “I am a worm, 
and no man; a reproach of men, and despised 
of. the people. All that see Me have derided 
Me; they have spoken with their lips; they 
have wagged their head, [saying] He hoped in 
God, let Him deliver Him, let Him save Him, 
since He delighteth in Him.”™ Ye see, be- 
loved, what is the example which has been given 
us ; for if. the Lord thus humbled Himself, what 
shall we do who have through Him come under 
the yoke of His grace? 


CHAP. XVII.— THE SAINTS AS EXAMPLES OF 
HUMILITY. 


Let us be imitators also of those who in goat- 
skins and sheep-skins ‘3 went about proclaiming 
the coming of Christ ; I mean Elijah, Elisha, and 
Ezekiel among the prophets, with those others to 
whom a like testimony is borne [in Scripture]. 
Abraham was specially honoured, and was called 
the friend of God; yet he, earnestly regarding 
the glory of God, humbly declared, “I am but 
dust and ashes.” "+ Moreover, it is thus written 
of Job, “Job was a righteous man, and blame- 
less, truthful, God-fearing, and one that kept 
himself from all evil.”15 But bringing an accu-. 





7 The Latin of Cotelerius, adopted by Hefele and Dressel, trans- 
lates this clause as follows: “I will set free the wicked on account of 
His sepulchre, and the rich on account of His death ” 

8 The reading of the ms. is rs mAnyis, “‘ purify, 
from stripes.” We have adopted the emendation of Je 

9 Wotton reads, ‘‘ If He make.” 

10 Or, “22 Him with understanding,” if mAjoat should be read 
instead of mAdgat, as Grabe suggests. 

11 sa, liii, The reader will observe how often the text of the 
Septuagint, here quoted, differs from the Hebrew as represented by 
our authorized English version, 

12 Ps, xxii, 6-8. 

13 Heb. xi. 37- 

14 Gen, xvill. 27. 

15 Jobi. 1. 


or free, Him 
nius. 


10 





sation against himself, he said, ““ No man is free 
from defilement, even if his life be but of one 
day.” Moses was called faithful in all God’s 
house ;? and through his instrumentality, God 
punished Egypt with plagues and tortures. Yet 
he, though thus greatly honoured, did not adopt 
lofty language, but said, when the divine oracle 
came to him out of the bush, “ Who am I, that 
Thou sendest me? I am a man of a feeble 
voice and a slow tongue.”* And again he said, 
“T am but as the smoke of a pot.’’5 


CHAP. XVIII.— DAVID AS AN EXAMPLE OF HUMILITY. 


But what shall we say concerning David, to 
whom such testimony was borne, and of whom °® 
God said, “I have found a man after Mine own 
heart, David the son of Jesse; and in everlast- 
ing mercy have I anointed him?’”’7 Yet this 
very man saith to God, “ Have mercy on me, 
O Lord, according to Thy great mercy; and 
according to the multitude of Thy compassions, 
blot out my transgression. Wash me still more 
from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my 
sin. For I acknowledge my iniquity, and my sin 
is ever before me. Against Thee only have I 
sinned, and done that which was evil in Thy sight ; 


that Thou mayest be justified in Thy sayings, 


and mayest overcome when Thou® art judged. 
For, behold, I was conceived in transgressions, 
and in my sins did my mother conceive me. 
For, behold, Thou hast loved truth; the secret 
and hidden things of wisdom shast Thou shown 
me. Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and 
I shall be cleansed ; Thou shalt wash me, and I 
shall be whiter than snow. Thou shalt make me 
to hear joy and gladness ; my bones, which have 
been humbled, shall exult. Turn away Thy face 
from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. 
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a 
right spirit within me.? Cast me not away from 
Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from 
me. Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation, 
and establish me by Thy governing Spirit. I 
will teach transgressors Thy ways, and the un- 
godly shall be converted unto Thee. Deliver 
me from blood-guiltiness,'*? O God, the God otf 
my salvation: my tongue shall exult in Thy 
righteousness. O Lord, Thou shalt open my 
mouth, and my lips shall show forth Thy praise. 
For if Thou hadst desired sacrifice, I would have 
given it ; Thou wilt not delight in burnt-offerings. 





I Job xiv. 4,5. [Septuagint. 
2 a: xii. 7; Hehe ae } 

3 Some fill up the dacuna which here occurs in the ms. by 
“Tsrael.” 

4 Ex. iii. rx, iv. 10, 

5 This is not found in Scripture. 
ent’s version. Comp. Ps. cxix. 83.] 

Yr, aS some render, “‘ to whom.” 

7 Ps. Ixxxix. 21, 

® Or, “when Thou judgest.” 

9 Literally, ‘‘ in my inwards.” 

10 Literally, ‘‘ bloods.” 


[They were probably in Clem- 








THE FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT. 





The sacrifice [acceptable] to God is a bruised 
spirit; a broken and a contrite heart God will 
not despise.” ™ 


CHAP. XIX.— IMITATING THESE EXAMPLES, LET US 
SEEK AFTER PEACE, 


Thus the humility and godly submission of so 
great and illustrious men have rendered not only 
us, but also all the generations before us, better ; 
even as many as have received His oracles in 
fear and truth. Wherefore, having so many 
great and glorious examples set before us, let us 
turn again to the practice of that peace which 
from the beginning was the mark set before 
us ; ? and let us look stedfastly to the Father and 
Creator of the universe, and cleave to His mighty 
and surpassingly great gifts and benefactions of 
péace. Let us contemplate Him with our 
understanding, and look with the eyes of our 
soul to His long-suffering will. Let us reflect 
how free from wrath He is towards all His crea- 
tion. 


CHAP. XX.— THE PEACE AND HARMONY OF THE 
UNIVERSE. 


The heavens, revolving under His govern- 
ment, are subject to Him in peace. Day and 
night run the course appointed by Him, in no 
wise hindering each other. The sun and moon, 
with the companies of the stars, roll on in har- 
mony according to His command, within their 
prescribed limits, and without any deviation. 
The fruitful earth, according to His will, brings 
forth food in abundance, at the proper seasons, 
for man and beast and all the living beings upon 
it, never hesitating, nor changing any of the ordi- 
nances which He has fixed. The unsearchable 
places of abysses, and the indescribable arrange- 
ments of the lower world, are restrained by the 
same laws. The vast unmeasurable sea, gathered 
together by His working into various basins,*3 
never passes beyond the bounds placed around 
it, but does as He has commanded. For He 
said, “Thus far shalt thou come, and thy waves 
shall be broken within thee.” '¢ The ocean, im- 
passible to man, and the worlds beyond it, are 
regulated by the same enactments of the Lord. 
The seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and 
winter, peacefully give place to one another, 
The winds in their several quarters '5 fulfil, at the 
proper time, their service without hindrance. 
The ever-flowing fountains, formed both for en- 
joyment and health, furnish without fail their 
breasts for the life of men. The very smallest 


——- qq Oe 


ae ie LG “. 
iterally, coming partakers of many’ great and glorious 
deeds, let us_return to the aks of peace delivered ious from She be. 
ginning.” Comp. Heb. xii. x. 
13 Or, “ collections.” 
™% Job xxxviii. rz. 
15 Or, “‘ statieas.” 


THE FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT. 


11 


of living beings meet together in peace and con- | dren, hearken unto Me ; I will teach you the fear 


cord. All these the great Creator and Lord of 

all has appointed to exist in peace and har- 

mony; while He does good to all, but most 

abundantly to us who have fled for refuge to 

His compassions through Jesus Christ our Lord, 

2 whom be glory and majesty for ever and ever. 
men. 


CHAP. XXI. — LET US OBEY GOD, AND NOT THE 
AUTHORS OF SEDITION. 


Take heed, beloved, lest His many kindnesses 
lead to the condemnation of us all. [For thus 
it must be] unless we walk worthy of Him, and 
with one mind do those things which are good 
and well-pleasing in His sight. For [the Scrip- 
ture] saith in a certain place, “The Spirit of the 
Lord is a candle searching the secret parts of 
the belly.””: Let us reflect how near He is, and 
that none of the thoughts or reasonings in which 
we engage are hid from Him. It is right, there- 
fore, that we should not leave the post which 
His will has assigned us. Let us rather offend 
those men who are foolish, and inconsiderate, 
and lifted up, and who glory in the pride of 
their speech, than [offend] God. Let us rever- 
ence the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood was 
given for us; let us esteem those who have 
the rule over us;? let us honour the aged 3 
among us; let us train up the young men in the 
fear of God; let us direct our wives to that 
which is good. Let them exhibit the lovely 
habit of purity [in all their conduct] ; let them 
show forth the sincere disposition of meekness ; 
let them make manifest the command which 
they have of their tongue, by their manner‘ of 
speaking ; let them display their love, not by 
preferring 5 one to another, but by showing 
equal affection to all that piously fear God. 
Let your children be partakers of true Chris- 
tian training ; let them learn of how great avail 
humility is with God — how much the spirit of 
pure affection can prevail with Him — how ex- 
cellent and great His fear is, and how it saves 
all those who walk in® it with a pure mind. 
For He is a Searcher of the thoughts and de- 
sires [of the heart]: His breath is in us; and 
when He pleases, He will take it away. 


CHAP. XXII.— THESE EXHORTATIONS ARE CON- 
FIRMED BY THE CHRISTIAN FAITH, WHICH PRO- 
CLAIMS THE MISERY OF SINFUL CONDUCT. 


Now the faith which is in Christ confirms all 
these [admonitions]. For He Himself by the 
Holy Ghost thus addresses us: “ Come, ye chil- 


a 


1 Prov. xx. 27. 

2 Comp. Heb. xiii. 17; 1 Thess. v. 12, 13. 
3 Or, “‘ the poe { 

4 Some read, “ by their silence.” 

3 Comp. 1 Tim. v. 21. ue 

6 Some translate, ‘‘ who turn to His, 





of the Lord. What man is he that desireth life, 
and loveth to see good days? Keep thy tongue 
from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. De- 
part from evil, and do good; seek peace, and 
pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are upon the 
righteous, and His ears are [open] unto their 
prayers. The face of the Lord is against them 
that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of 
them from the earth. The righteous cried, and 
the Lord heard him, and delivered him out of 
all his troubles.”7 ‘Many are the stripes [ap- 
pointed for] the wicked ; but mercy shall com- 
pass those about who hope in the Lord.” ® 


CHAP. XXIII.—- BE HUMBLE, AND BELIEVE THAT 
CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN. 


The all-merciful and beneficent Father has 
bowels [of compassion] towards those that fear 
Him, and kindly and lovingly bestows His fa- 
vours upon those who come to Him with a 
simple mind. Wherefore let us not be double- 
minded ; neither let our soul be lifted? up on 
account of His exceedingly great and glorious 
gifts. Far from us be that which is written, 
“ Wretched are they who are of a double mind, 
and of a doubting heart ; who say, These things 
we have heard even in the times of our fathers ; 
but, behold, we have grown old, and none of 
them has happened unto us.”?° Ye foolish 
ones! compare yourselves to a tree: take [for 
instance] the vine. First of all, it sheds its 
leaves, then it buds, next it puts forth leaves, 
and then it flowers; after that comes the sour 
grape, and then follows the ripened fruit. Ye 
perceive how in a little time the fruit of a tree 
comes to maturity. Of a truth, soon and sud- 
denly shall His will be accomplished, as the 
Scripture also bears witness, saying, “‘ Speedily 
will He come, and will not tarry ;” ** and, “The 
Lord shall suddenly come to His temple, even 
the Holy One, for whom ye look.” ” 


CHAP. XXIV. — GOD CONTINUALLY SHOWS US IN 
NATURE THAT THERE WILL BE A RESURRECTION. 


Let us consider, beloved, how the Lord con- 
tinually proves to us that there shall be a future 
resurrection, of which He has rendered the Lord 
Jesus Christ the first-fruits 3 by raising Him from 
the dead. Let us contemplate, beloved, the res- 
urrection which is at all times taking place. Day 
and night declare to us a resurrection. The 
night sinks to sleep, and the day arises ; the 
day [again] departs, and the night comes on. 





7 Ps, xxxiv. 11-17. 

8 Ps, xxxii. 10. : ” 

9 Or, as some render, “ neither let us have any doubt of. 

10 Some regard these words as taken from an apocr al book, 
others as derived from a fusion of James i. 8 and 2 Pet. iii. 3, 4. 

11, Hab. ii, 3; Heb. x. 37. 

12 Mal. iii. 1. A 

33 Comp. x Cor. xv. 90; Col. i, 18. 


12 





Let us behold the fruits [of the earth], how the 
sowing of grain takes place. The sower* goes 
forth, and casts it into the ground ; and the seed 
being thus scattered, though dry and naked when 
it fell upon the earth, is gradually dissolved. 
Then out of its dissolution the mighty power of 
the providence of the Lord raises it up again, and 
from one seed many arise and bring forth fruit. 


XXV. — THE PHCENIX AN EMBLEM OF OUR 


RESURRECTION. 


Let us consider that wonderful sign [of the 
resurrection] which takes place in Eastern lands, 
that is, in Arabia and the countries round about. 
There is a certain bird which is called a phoenix. 
This is the only one of its kind, and lives five 
hundred years. And when the time of its disso- 
lution draws near that it must die, it builds itself 
a nest of frankincense, and myrrh, and other 
spices, into which, when the time is fulfilled, 
it enters and dies. But as the flesh decays a 
certain kind of worm is produced, which, being 
nourished by the juices of the dead bird, brings 
forth feathers. Then, when it has acquired 
strength, it takes up that nest in which are the 
bones of its parent, and bearing these it passes 
from the land of Arabia into Egypt, to the city 
called Heliopolis. 
the sight of all men, it places them on the altar 
of the sun, and having done this, hastens back 
to its former abode. The priests then inspect 
the registers of the dates, and find that it has 
returned exactly as the five hundredth year was 
completed.? 


CHAP. 


CHAP. XXVI.— WE SHALL RISE AGAIN, THEN, AS 
_ THE SCRIPTURE ALSO TESTIFIES. 


Do we then deem it any great and wonderful 
thing for the Maker of all things to raise up 
again those that have piously served Him in the 
assurance of a good faith, when even by a bird 
He shows us the mightiness of His power to 
fulfil His promise?’ For [the Scripture] saith 
in a certain place, “ Thou shalt raise me up, and 
I shall confess unto Thee ;”’4 and again, “ I laid 
me down, and slept; I awaked, because Thou 
art with me;”5 and again, Job says, “Thou 
shalt raise up this flesh of mine, which has suf- 
fered all these things.” © 


CHAP. XXVII.—IN THE HOPE OF THE RESURREC- 
TION, LET US CLEAVE TO THE OMNIPOTENT AND 
OMNISCIENT GOD. 


Having then this hope, let our souls be bound 


™ Comp, Luke viii. 5. 

2 This fable respecting the phcenix is mentioned by Herodotus (ii. 
73) and by Pliny (Wad. Hzst., x. 2), and is used as above by Ter- 
tullian (De Resurr., §13) and by others of the Fathers. 

: pees “the mig tiness of His ae 

‘Ss, XXvlil. 7, Or from some apoc’ 
5 Comp, Ps, ii. 6. ae 
6 Job xix. 25, 26. 


THE FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT. 





And, in open day, flying in’ 


to Him who is faithful in His promises, and just 
in His judgments. He who has commanded us 
not to lie, shall much more Himself not le ; for 
nothing is impossible with God, except to lie.’ 
Let His faith therefore be stirred up again within 
us, and. let us consider that all things are nigh 
unto Him. By the word of His might® He estab- 
lished all things, and by His word He can over- 
throw them. “Who shall say unto Him, What 
hast thou done? or, Who shall resist the power 
of His strength?” When and as He pleases 
He will do all things, and none of the things 
determined by Him shall pass'away.’? All things 
are open before Him, and nothing can be hidden 
from His counsel. “The heavens * declare the 
glory of God, and the firmament showeth His 
handy-work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and 
night unto night showeth knowledge. And there 
are no words or speeches of which the voices are 
not heard.” 


CHAP. XXVIII.—GOD SEES. ALL THINGS: THERE- 
FORE LET US AVOID TRANSGRESSION. 


Since then all things are seen and heard [by 
God], let us fear Him, and forsake those wicked 
works which proceed from evil desires ; '3 so that, 
through His mercy, we may be protected from 
the judgments to come. For whither can any of 
us flee from His mighty hand? Or what world 
will receive any of those who run away from. 
Him? For the Scripture saith in a certain place,: 
“Whither shall I go, and where shall I be hid 
from Thy presence? If I ascend into heaven, 
Thou art there ; if I go away even to the utter- 
most parts of the earth, there is Thy right hand ; 
if I make my bed in the abyss, there is Thy 
Spirit.” ** Whither, then, shall any one go, or 
where shall he escape from Him who compre- 
hends all things? 


CHAP. XXIX. — LET US ALSO DRAW NEAR TO GOD 
IN PURITY OF HEART. 


Let us then draw near to Him with holiness of. 
spirit, lifting up pure and undefiled hands unto 
Him, loving our gracious and merciful Father, 
who has made us partakers in the blessings of 
His elect.'5 For thus it is written, “When the 
Most High divided the nations, when He scat- 
tered '© the sons of Adam, He fixed the bounds 
of the nations according to the number of the 
angels of God. His people Jacob became the 
portion of the Lord, and Israel the lot of His 





7 Comp. Tit. i. 2; Heb. vi. 18, 
® Or, “ majesty.” 
9 Wisd. xii. 12, xi. 22. : 
10 Comp. Matt. xxiv. 35. 
It Literally, ‘‘ If the heavens,” etc. 
12 Ps, xix, 1-3. 
13 Literally, “ abominable lusts of evil deeds,” 
= be aan 10, 
iterally, ‘‘ has made us to Himself a of election.” 
% Literally, “sowed abroad.” on é 


THE FIRST EPISTLE’ OF CLEMENT. 


13 





inheritance.”* And in another place [the Scrip- 
ture] saith, “ Behold, the Lord taketh unto Him- 
self a nation out of the midst of the nations, as 
a man takes the first-fruits of his threshing-floor ; 
and from that nation shall come forth the Most 
Holy.? 


CHAP. XXX.— LET US DO THOSE THINGS THAT 
PLEASE GOD, AND FLEE FROM THOSE HE HATES, 
THAT WE MAY BE BLESSED. 


Seeing, therefore, that we are the portion of 
the Holy One, let us do all those things which 
pertain to holiness, avoiding ail evil-speaking, 
all abominable and impure embraces, together 
with all drunkenness, seeking after change,3 all 
abominable lusts, detestable adultery, and exe- 
crable pride.: “ For God,” saith [the Scripture], 
“resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the 
humble.’ Let us cleave, then, to those to 
whom grace has been given by God. Let us 
clothe ourselves with concord and humility, ever 
exercising self-control, standing far off from all 
whispering and evil-speaking, being justified by 
our works, and not our words. For [the Scrip- 
ture] saith, “He that speaketh much, shall also 
hear much in answer. And does he that is ready 
in speech deem himself righteous? Blessed is 
he that is born of woman, who liveth but a short 
time: be not given to much speaking.” 5 Let 
our praise be in God, and not of ourselves; for 
God hateth those that commend themselves. 
Let testimony to our good deeds be borne by 
others, as it was in the case of our righteous fore- 
fathers. Boldness, and arrogance, and audacity 
belong to those that are accursed of God; but 
moderation, humility, and meekness to such as 
are blessed by Him. 


CHAP. XXXI. — LET US SEE BY WHAT MEANS WE 
MAY OBTAIN THE DIVINE BLESSING. 


Let us cleave then to His blessing, and con- 
sider what are the means © of possessing it. Let 
us think 7 over the things which have taken place 
from the beginning. For what reason was our 
father Abraham blessed? was it not because he 
wrought righteousness and truth through faith? ® 
Isaac, with perfect confidence, as if knowing 
what was to happen,? cheerfully yielded himself 
as a sacrifice.*° Jacob, through reason * of his 
brother, went forth with humility from his own 
Jand, and came to Laban and served him ; and 
eee a Sa Oe 

I Deut xxxii. 8, 9. soo 

2 Formed apparently from Num. xvii. 2 l 
Literally, the closing words are, “‘ the holy of holies. 

3 Some translate, “‘ youthfu lusts,” 

4 Prov. iii. 34; James iv. 6; x Pet. v. 5. ’ F 

5 Job xi. 2, 3. e translation is doubtful. [But see Septuagint. ] 

6 Literally, ‘‘ what are the ways of His blessing. 

7 Literally, ‘ unroll.” 

8 Comp. Jamesii.21. | - 

9 Some translate, ‘‘ knowing what was to come. 

10 Gen, xxii. 

31 So Jacobson: Wotton reads, 


and 2 Chron, xxxi. 14. 
” 


“ fleeing from his brother.” 











there was given to him the sceptre of the twelve 
tribes of Israel. 


CHAP, XXXII. — WE ARE JUSTIFIED NOT BY OUR 
OWN WORKS, BUT BY FAITH, 


Whosoever will candidly consider each par- 
ticular, will recognise the greatness of the gifts 
which were given by him. For from him "3 have 
sprung the priests and all the Levites who min- 
ister at the altar of God. From him also [was 
descended] our Lord Jesus Christ according to 
the flesh.1# From him [arose] kings, princes, 
and rulers of the race of Judah. Nor are his 
other tribes in small glory, inasmuch as God 
had promised, “Thy seed shall be as the stars of 
heaven.” 5 All these, therefore, were highly 
honoured, and made great, not for their own 
sake, or for their own works, or for the right- 
eousness which they wrought, but through the 
operation of His will. And we, too, being called 
by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by 
ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or under- 
standing, or godliness, or works which we have 
wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith 
through which, from the beginning, Almighty 
God has justified all men ; to whom be glory for 
ever and ever. Amen. 


CHAP. XXXIII.— BUT LET US NOT GIVE UP THE 
PRACTICE OF GOOD WORKS AND LOVE. GOD HIM- 
SELF IS AN EXAMPLE TO US OF GOOD WORKS. 


What shall we do, then, brethren? Shall we 
become slothful in well-doing, and cease from 
the practice of love? God forbid that any such 
course should be followed by us! But rather 
let us hasten with all energy and readiness of 
mind to perform every good work. For the 
Creator and Lord of all Himself rejoices in His 
works. For by His infinitely great power He 
established the heavens, and by His incompre- 
hensible wisdom He adorned them. He also 
divided the earth from the water which sur- 
rounds it, and fixed it upon the immoveable 
foundation of His own will. The animals also 
which are upon it He commanded by His own 
word" into existence. So likewise, when He had 
formed the sea, and the living creatures which 
are in it, He enclosed them [within their proper 
bounds] by His own power. Above all,’7 with 
His holy and undefiled hands He formed man, 
the most excellent [of His creatures], and truly 
great through the understanding given him— 
the express likeness of His own image. For 





12 The meaning is here very doubtful. Some translate, ‘‘ the gifts 
which were given to Jacob by Elim,” i.e., God. 

13 MS, avrov, referring to the gifts: we have followed the emenda< 
tion a’rod, adopted by most editors. Some refer the word to God 
and not Facob. 

14 Comp. Rom. ix. 5. 

15 Gen. xxii. 17, xxviii. 4. 

16 Or, ‘ commandment.” 

17 Or, “in addition to all-” 


{4 THE FIRST EPIST 
bea 
thus says God: “Let us make man in Our 
image, and after Our likeness. So God made 
man; male and female He created them.’’! 
Having thus finished all these things, He ap- 
proved them, and blessed them, and said, “ In- 
crease and multiply.”? We see,3 then, how all 
righteous men have been adorned with good 
works, and how the Lord Himself, adorning 
Himself with His works, rejoiced. Having 
therefore such an example, let us without delay 
accede to His will, and let us work the work of 
righteousness with our whole strength. 


CHAP. XXXIV. — GREAT IS THE REWARD OF GOOD 
WORKS WITH GOD. JOINED TOGETHER IN HAR- 
MONY, LET US IMPLORE THAT REWARD FROM HIM. 


The good servant‘ receives the bread of his 
labour with confidence ; the lazy and slothful 
cannot look his employer in the face. It is 
requisite, therefore, that we be prompt in the 
practice of well-doing; for of Him are all 
things. And thus He forewarns us: “ Behold, 
the Lord [cometh], and His reward is before 
His face, to render to every man according to 
his work.” 5 He exhorts us, therefore, with our 
whole heart to attend to this,° that we be not 
lazy or slothful in any good work. Let our 
boasting and our confidence be in Him. Let 
us submit ourselves to His will. Let us consider 
the whole multitude of His angels, how they 
stand ever ready to minister to His will. For 
the Scripture saith, “Ten thousand times ten 
thousand stood around Him, and thousands of 
thousands ministered unto Him,’ and cried, 
Holy, holy, holy, [is] the Lord of Sabaoth ; the 
whole creation is full of His glory.”® And let 
us therefore, conscientiously gathering together 
in harmony, cry to Him earnestly, as with one 
mouth, that we may be made partakers of His 
great and glorious promises. For [the Scrip- 
ture] saith, “ Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
neither have entered into the heart of man, the 
things which He hath prepared for them that 
wait for Him.” 9 








CHAP. XXXV.—IMMENSE IS THIS REWARD. HOW 
SHALL WE OBTAIN IT? 


How blessed and wonderful, beloved, are the 
gifts of God! Life in immortality, splendour in 
righteousness, truth in perfect confidence,’° faith 
in assurance, self-control in holiness! And all 
these fall under the cognizance of our under- 





1 Gen. i, 26, 27. 

2 Gen. i, 28. 

3 Or, “‘let us consider.” 

4 Or, “ labourer,” 

5 Isa, xl. ro, Ixii. 11; Rev. xxii. 12. 

6 The text here seems to be corrupt. Some translate, “He 
warns us with all His heart to this end, that,” etc. 

7 Dan. vii. 10. 

8 Isa. vi. 3. 

9 x Cor. il. 9. 

% Some translate, “in liberty.” 


LE OF CLEMENT. 

ae i 
standings [now]; what then shall those things 
be which are prepared for such as wait for Him? 
The Creator and Father of all worlds,’ the Most 
Holy, alone knows their amount and theif 
beauty. Let us therefore earnestly strive to be 
found in the number of those that wait for Him, 
in order that we may share in His promised 
gifts. But hew, beloved, shall this be done? 
If our understanding be fixed by faith towards 
God ; if we earnestly seek the things which are 
pleasing and acceptable to Him; if we do the 
things which are in harmony with His blameless 
will; and if we follow the way of truth, casting 
away from us all unrighteousness and iniquity, 
along with all covetousness, strife, evil practices, 
deceit, whispering, and evil-speaking, all hatred 
of God, pride and haughtiness, vainglory and 
ambition. For they that do such things are 
hateful to God ; and not only they that do them, 
but also those that take pleasure in them that 
do them.’ For the Scripture saith, “ But to the 
sinner God said, Wherefore dost thou declare 
my statutes, and take my covenant into thy 
mouth, seeing thou hatest instruction, and cast- 
est my words behind thee? When thou sawest 
a thief, thou consentedst with him, and didst 
make thy portion with adulterers. Thy mouth 


‘has abounded with wickedness, and thy tongue 


contrived "5 deceit. Thou sittest, and speakest 
against thy brother ; thou slanderest '® thine own 
mother’s son. These things thou hast done, 
and I kept silence; thou thoughtest, wicked 
one, that I should be like to thyself. But I wih 
reprove thee, and set thyself before thee. Con- 
sider now these things, ye that forget God, lest 
He tear you in pieces, like a lion, and there be 
none to deliver. The sacrifice of praise will 
glorify Me, and a way is there by which I will 
show him the salvation of God.” 17 


CHAP. XXXVI.—ALL BLESSINGS ARE GIVEN TO US 
THROUGH CHRIST. 


This is the way, beloved, in which we find our 
Saviour,'® even Jesus Christ, the High Priest of 
all our offerings, the defender and helper of our 
infirmity. By Him we look up to the heights of 
heaven. By Him we behold, as in a glass, His 
immaculate and most excellent visage. By Him 
are the eyes of our hearts opened. By Him our 
foolish and darkened understanding blossoms +» 
up anew towards His marvellous light. By Him 
the Lord has willed that we should taste of im- 


II Or, ‘‘ of the ages.” 

12 The reading is doubtful: some have adidogeviay, “ want of a 
hospitable spirit.” [So Jacobson. ] 

13 Rom. i. 32. 

14 Literally, “‘ didst run with.” 

15 Literally, “‘ didst weave.” 

“a ed . layest a snare for.” 

s. 1. 16-23. The reader will observe how the Septuagint fol 

lowed by Clement differs from the Hebrew. : 

18 Literally, ‘ that which saves us.” 

%® Or, “ rejoices to behold.” 





mortal knowledge,! “who, being the brightness 
of His majesty, is by so much greater than the 
angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a 
more excelient name than they.”? For it is thus 
written, “Who maketh His angels spirits, and 
His ministers a flame of fire.”3 But concerning 
His Son‘ the Lord spoke thus: “Thou art my 
Son, to-day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, 
and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine in- 
heritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth 
for Thy possession.” 5 And again He saith to 
Him, “Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make 
Thine enemies Thy footstool.’’® But who are 
His enemies? All the wicked, and those who 
set themselves to oppose the will of God.” 


CHAP. XXXVII. — CHRIST IS OUR LEADER, AND WE 
HIS SOLDIERS. 


Let us then, men and brethren, with all energy 
act the part of soldiers, in accordance with His 
holy commandments. Let us consider those 
who serve under our generals, with what order, 
obedience, and submissiveness they perform the 
things which are commanded them. All are not 
prefects, nor commanders of a thousand, nor of 
a hundred, nor of fifty, nor the like, but each 
one in his own rank performs the things com- 
manded by the king and the generals. The 
great cannot subsist without the small, nor the 
small without the great. There is a kind of 
mixture in all things, and thence arises mutual 
advantage. Let us take our body for an ex- 
ample. The head is nothing without the feet, 
and the feet are nothing without the head; yea, 
the very smallest members of our body are neces- 
sary and useful to the whole body. But all 
work '° harmoniously together, and are under one 
common rule *! for the preservation of the whole 
body... 


CHAP. XXXVIII.— LET THE MEMBERS OF THE 
CHURCH SUBMIT THEMSELVES, AND NO ONE 
EXALT HIMSELF ABOVE ANOTHER. 


Let our whole body, then, be preserved in 
Christ Jesus ; and let every one be subject to his 
neighbour, according to the special gift’? be- 
stowed upon him. Let the strong not despise 
the weak, and let the weak show respect unto 
the strong. Let the rich man provide for the 





Cr, “ knowledge of immortality.” 
2 Heb. i. 3, 4. 

3-Ps. civ. 4; Heb. i. 7. 

4 Some render, “to the Son.” 

5 Ps, ii. 7, 8; Heb. i. 5. 

6 Ps. cx. 1; Heb i. 13. : 3 
7 Some read, “ who oppose their own will to that of God. 

8 Literally, “‘ in these oats is use.” 

9 x Cor. xil. 12, etc. 

%© Literally, rs all breathe eee 

{ Literall use one subjection.” 4 eee 
ja Literally, “ according as he has been placed in his charism.” 


THE FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT. 








15 





wants of the poor; and let the poor man bless 
God, because He hath given him one by whom 
his need may be supplied. Let the wise man 
display his wisdom, not by [mere] words, but 
through good deeds. Let the humble not bea 
testimony to himself, but leave witness to Lx 
borne to him by another.'s Let him that is pure 
in the flesh not grow proud * of it, and boast, 
knowing that it was another who bestowed on 
him the gift of continence. Let us consider, 
then, brethren, of what matter we were made, — 
who and what manner of beings we came into 
the world, as it were out of a sepulchre, and 
from utter darkness.*5 He who made us and 
fashioned us, having prepared His bountiful gifts 
for us before we were born, introduced us into 
His world. Since, therefore, we receive all these 
things from Him, we ought for everything to give 
Him thanks; to whom be glory for ever and 
ever. Amen. 


CHAP. XXXIX.— THERE IS NO REASON FOR SELF- 
CONCEIT. 


Foolish and inconsiderate men, who have 
neither wisdom *® nor instruction, mock and 
deride us, being eager to exalt themselves in 
their own conceits. For what can a mortal man 
do? or what strength is there in one made out 
of the dust? For it is written, “There was no 
shape before mine eyes, only I heard a sound,'? 
and a voice [saying], What then? Shall a man 
be pure before the Lord? or shall such an one 
be [counted] blameless in his deeds, seeing He 
does not confide in His servants, and has 
charged '* even His angels with perversity? The 
heaven is not clean in His sight: how much less 
they that dwell in houses of clay, of which also 
we ourselves were made! He smote them as a 
moth; and from morning even until evening 
they endure not. Because they could furnish no 
assistance to themselves, they perished. He 
breathed upon them, and they died, because 
they had no wisdom. But call now, if any one 
will answer thee, or if thou wilt look to any of 
the holy angels; for wrath destroys the foolish 
man, and envy killeth him that is in error. I 
have seen the foolish taking root, but their habi- 
tation was presently consumed. Let their sons 
be far from safety ; let them be despised '9 before 
the gates of those less than themselves, and 
there shall be none to deliver. For what was 
prepared for them, the righteous shall eat ; and 
they shall not be delivered from evil.” 7° 








13 Comp. Prov. xxvii. 2. 

14 The s. is here slightly torn, and we are left to conjecture. 
1s Comp. Ps. cxxxix. 15. , . 

16 Literally, “and silly and uninstructed. 

17 Literally, “a breath.” 

18 Or, ‘has perceived.” i 

19 Some render, “‘ they perished at the gates. 

20 Job iv. 16-18, xv. 15, IV. 19-81, V. I> $e 


16 


THE FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT. 


ee eee 


CHAP. XL.— LET US PRESERVE IN THE CHURCH 
THE ORDER APPOINTED BY GOD. 


These things therefore being manifest to us, 
and since we look into the depths of the divine 
knowledge, it behoves us to do all things in 
[their proper] order, which the Lord has com- 
manded us to perform at stated times. He has 
enjoined offerings [to be presented] and service 
to be performed [to Him], and that not thought- 
lessly or irregularly, but at the appointed times 
and hours. Where and by whom He desires 
these things to be done, He Himself has fixed 
by His own supreme will, in order that all things 
being piously done according to His good pleas- 
ure, may be acceptable unto Him. Those, 
therefore, who present their offerings at the ap- 
pointed times, are accepted and blessed ; for 
inasmuch as they follow the laws of the Lord, 
they sin not. For his own peculiar services are 
assigned to the high priest, and their own proper 
place is prescribed to the priests, and their own 
special ministrations devolve on the Levites. 
The layman is bound by the laws that pertain to 
laymen. 


CHAP, XLI. — CONTINUATION CF THE SAME SUBJECT. 


Let every one of you, brethren, give thanks 
to God in his own order, living in all good con- 
science, with becoming gravity, and not going 
beyond the rule of the ministry prescribed to 
him. Not in every place, brethren, are the daily 
sacrifices offered, or the peace-offerings, or the 
sin-offerings and the trespass-offerings, but in 
Jerusalem only. And even there they are not 
offered in any place, but only at the altar before 
the temple, that which is offered being first care- 
fully examined by the high priest and the min- 
isters already mentioned. Those, therefore, who 
do anything beyond that which is agreeable to 
His will, are punished with death. Ye see,3 
brethren, that the greater the knowledge that 
has been vouchsafed to us, the greater also is 
the danger to which we are exposed. 


CHAP. XLII.—THE ORDER OF MINISTERS IN THE 
CHURCH, 


The apostles have preached the Gospel to us 
from ‘4 the Lord Jesus Christ ; Jesus Christ [has 
done so] from* God. Christ therefore was sent 
forth by God, and the apostles by Christ. Both 
these appointments,’ then, were made in an 
orderly way, according to the will of God. 
Having therefore received their orders, and 


t Some join kata xatpovs tetaypévous, “ at stated times,” to the 
next sentence. [1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2. 

2 Literally, “to His will.” [ omp. Rom. xv, 15, 16, Greek. ] 

3 Or, ‘‘consider,” [This chapter has been cited to prove the 
earlier date for this Epistle. But ai 
an ideal present. } 

4 Or, ‘‘ by the command of.” 

$ Literally, ‘‘both things were done.” 


e reference to Jerusalem may be 














being fully assured by the resurrection of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, and established ® in the word 
of God, with full assurance of the Holy Ghost, 
they went forth proclaiming that the kingdom of 
God was at hand. And thus preaching through 
countries and cities, they appointed the first-fruits 
[of their labours], having first proved them by 
the Spirit,7 to be bishops and deacons of those 
who should afterwards believe. Nor was this any 
new thing, since indeed many ages before it was 
written concerning bishops and deacons. For 
thus saith the Scripture in a certain place, “I 
will appoint their bishops * in righteousness, and 
their deacons ? in faith.” *° 


CHAP. XLII. — MOSES OF OLD STILLED THE CON- 
TENTION WHICH AROSE CONCERNING THE PRIESTLY 
DIGNITY. 


And what wonder is it if those in Christ who 
were entrusted with such a duty by God, ap- 
pointed those [ministers] before mentioned, 
when the blessed Moses also, “a faithful servant 
in all his house,” '* noted down in the sacred 
books all the injunctions which were given him, 
and when the other prophets also followed him, 
bearing witness with one consent to the ordi- 
nances which he had appointed? For, when 
rivalry arose concerning the priesthood, and the 
tribes were contending among themselves as to 
which of them should be adorned with that glo- 
rious title, he commanded the twelve princes of 
the tribes to bring him their rods, each one be- 
ing inscribed with the name ® of the tribe. And 
he took them and bound them [together], and. 
sealed them with the rings of the princes of the 
tribes, and laid them up in the tabernacle of. 
witness on the table of God. And having shut 
the doors of the tabernacle, he sealed the keys, 
as he had done the rods, and said to them, Men 
and brethren, the tribe whose rod shall blossom 
has God chosen to fulfil the office of the priest- 
hood, and to minister unto Him. And when 
the morning was come, he assembled all Israel, 
six hundred thousand men, and showed the 
seals to the princes of the tribes, and opened 
the tabernacle of witness, and brought forth the 
rods. And the rod of Aaron was found not 
only to have blossomed, but to bear fruit upon 
it.3 What think ye, beloved? Did not Moses: 
know beforehand that this would happen? Un- 
doubtedly he knew; but he acted thus, that 
there might be no sedition in Israel, and that 


© Or, ‘‘ confirmed by.” 

7 Or, “ having tested them in spirit.” 

8 Or, ‘‘ overseers.” 

9 Or, “‘ servants,” 

10 Isa. lx. 17, Sept.; but the text is here altered by Clement. The 
LXX. have “I will give thy rulers in peace, and thy overseeys in 
righteousness.” 

11 Num. xii. ro; Heb. ili. 5. 

12 Literally, ‘‘ every tribe being written according to its name.” 

13 See Num. xvii. 


—o 


THE FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT. 


F7 





the name of the true and only God might be| against them. Exposed to such sufferings, they 


glorified ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. 
Amen. 


CHAP, XLIV. — THE ORDINANCES OF THE APOSTLES, 
THAT THERE MIGHT BE NO CONTENTION RE- 
SPECTING THE PRIESTLY OFFICE. 


Our apostles also. knew, through our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and there would be strife on ac- 
count of the office’ of the episcopate. For this 
reason, therefore, inasmuch as they had obtained 
a perfect fore-knowledge of this, they appointed 
those [ministers] already mentioned, and after- 
wards gave instructions,? that when these should 
fall asleep, other approved men should succeed 
them in their ministry. We_are_of opinion," 
therefore, that those appointed by them,3 or 
afterwar other €minent_men, with the_con- 
gent of the whol nd who fave blame- 
le served the flock of Christ in a humble, 
peaceable, and disinterested spirit, and have for 
a long time possessed the good opinion of all, 
cannot be justly dismissed from the ministry. 
For our sin will not be small, if we eject from 
the episcopate ¢ those who have blamelessly and 
holily fulfilled its duties. Blessed are those 
presbyters who, having finished their course be- 
fore now, have obtained a fruitful and perfect 
departure [from this world] ; for they have no 
fear lest any one deprive them of the place now 
appointed them. But we see that ye have re- 
moved some men of excellent behaviour from 
the ministry, which they fulfilled blamelessly and 
with honour. 





CHAP. XLV.—IT IS THE PART OF THE WICKED 
TO VEX THE RIGHTEOUS. 


Ye are fond of contention, brethren, and full 
of zeal about things which do not pertain to 
salvation. Look carefully into the Scriptures, 
which are the true utterances of the Holy Spirit. 
Observe © that nothing of an unjust or counter- 
feit character is written in them. There’7 you 
will not find that the righteous were cast off by 
men who themselves were holy. The righteous 
were indeed persecuted, but only by the wicked. 
They were cast into prison, but only by the un- 
holy ; they were stoned, but only by transgress- 












ors; they were slain, but only by the accursed, 
and such as had conceived an unrighteous envy 


endured them gloriously. For what shall we 
say, brethren? Was Daniel® cast into the den 
of lions by such as feared God? Were Ananias, 
and Azarias, and Mishael shut up in a furnace ? 
of fire by those who observed ’° the great and 
glorious worship of the Most High? Far from 
us be such a thought! Who, then, were they 
that did such things? The hateful, and those 
full of all wickedness, were roused to such a 
pitch of fury, that they inflicted torture on those 
who served God with a holy and blameless pur- 
pose [of heart], not knowing that the Most 
High is the Defender and Protector of all such 
as with a pure conscience venerate "' His all-ex- 
cellent name; to whom be glory for ever and 
ever. Amen. But they who with confidence 
endured [these things] are now heirs of glory 
and honour, and have been exalted and made 
illustrious '? by God in their memorial for ever 
and ever. Amen. 


CHAP. XLVI. — LET US CLEAVE TO THE RIGHTEOUS : 
YOUR STRIFE IS PERNICIOUS. 


Such examples, therefore, brethren, it is right 
that we should follow;'3 since it is written, 
“Cleave to the holy, for those that cleave to 
them shall [themselves] be made holy.”"* And 
again, in another place, [the Scripture] ‘saith, 
“With a harmless man thou shalt prove "5 thy- 
self harmless, and with an elect man thou shalt 
be elect, and with a perverse man thou shalt 
show °° thyself perverse.” ‘7 Let us cleave, there- 
fore, to the innocent and righteous, since these 
are the elect of God. Why are there strifes, 
and tumults, and divisions, and schisms, and 
wars among you? Have we not [all] one God 
and one Christ? Is there not one Spirit of 
grace poured out upon us? And have we not 
one calling in Christ? '? Why do we divide and 
tear to pieces the members of Christ, and raise 
up strife against our own body, and have reached 
such a height of madness as to forget that “we 
are members one of another?’ ?° Remember 
the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, how?" He 
said, “Woe to that man [by whom" offences 
come]! It were better for him that he had 
never been born, than that he should cast a 
stumbling-block before one of my elect. Yea, 


. 


it were better for him that a millstone should be 





I Literally, ‘on account of the title of the oversight.” Some 
understand this to mean, ‘‘in regard to the dignity of the episco- 
pate; ” and others simply, ‘‘ on account of the oversight.” 

2’ The meaning of this passage is much controverted. Some ren- 
der, “left a list of other approved persons; ” while others translate the 
unusual word érwwopuy, which causes the difficulty, by ‘‘ testamentary 
direction,” and many others deem the text corrupt. We have given 
what seems the simplest version of the text 4s it stands. [Comp. 
the versions of Wake, Chevallier, and others, ] 

3 i.e., the apostles. 

4 Or, “ oversight.” 4 

5 Literally, ‘‘ presented the offerings.” 

6 Or, ‘' Ye perceive.” 

7 Or, “‘ For.” 


8 Dan. vi. 16. 

9 Dan. iii. 20. 

10 Literally, ‘‘ worshipped.” 

11 Literally, ‘‘ serve.” 

12 Or, “lifted up.” ating 3 
13 Literally, “ To such examples it is right that we should cleave. 
14 Not found in Scripture. 

15 Literally, ‘‘ be.” 

16 Or, “ thou wilt overthrow.” 

17 Ps, xviii. 25, 26. 

18 Or, “ war.” Comp. James iv. 1. 

19 Comp. Eph. iv. 4-6. 

20 Rom. xvii. 5. 0 

21 This clause is wanting in the teat. 


18 


THE FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT. 


ce i ee RC eee 


hung about [his neck], and he should be sunk 
in the depths of the sea, than that he should 
cast a stumbling-block before one of my little 
ones.t Your schism has subverted [the faith of ] 
many, has discouraged many, has given rise to 
doubt in many, and has caused grief to us all. 
And still your sedition continueth. 


CHAP, XLVII.— YOUR RECENT DISCORD IS WORSE 
THAN THE FORMER WHICH. TOOK PLACE IN THE 
TIMES OF PAUL. 


Take up the epistle of the blessed Apostle 
Paul. What did he write to you at the time 
when the Gospel first began to be preached ?? 
Truly, under the inspiration 3 of the Spirit, he 
wrote to you concerning himself, and Cephas, 
and Apollos, because even then parties’ had 
been formed among you. But that inclination 
for one above another entailed less guilt upon 
you, inasmuch as your partialities were then 
shown towards apostles, already of high reputa- 
tion, and towards a man whom they had ap- 
proved. But now reflect who those are that have 
perverted you, and lessened the renown of your 
far-famed brotherly love. It is disgraceful, be- 
loved, yea, highly disgraceful, and unworthy of 
your Christian profession,® that such a thing 


should be heard of as that the most stedfast and | 


ancient Church of the Corinthians should, on 
account of one or two persons, engage in sedi- 
tion against its presbyters. And this rumour has 
reached not only us, but those also who are 
unconnected? with us; so that, through your 
infatuation, the f the Lord is blasphemed, 
while danger is also brought upon yourselves. 


CHAP. XLVIII.— LET US RETURN TO THE PRAC- 
TICE OF BROTHERLY LOVE. 


Let us therefore, with all haste, put an end 8 
to this [state of things]; and let us fall dows 
before the Lord, and beseech Him with tears, 
that He would mercifully 9 be reconciled to us, 
and restore us to our former seemly and holy 
practice of brotherly love. For [such conduct ] 
is the gate of righteousness, which is set open 
for the attainment of life, as it is written, “Open 
to me the gates of righteousness ; I will go in by 
them, and will praise the Lord: this is the gate 
of the Lord : the righteous shall enter in by it.” '° 
Although, therefore, many gates have been set 
open, yet this gate of righteousness is that gate 
in Christ by which blessed are all they that have 





™ Comp. Matt. xviii. 6, xxvi. 24; Mark ix. 42; Luke xvii. 2. 
2 Literally, “in the beginning of the Gospel.” [Comp. Philtpp. 
I 


mE; 
3 Or, “ spiritually.” 
4 x Cor. tii, 13, etc. 
$ Or, “inclinations for one above another.” 
6 Literally, ‘“‘ of conduct in Christ.” 
7 Or, “ aliens from us,” i.e., the Gentiles, 
® Literally, ‘ remove.” 
9 Literally, “‘ becoming merciful.” 
10 Ps. cxviil. 19, 20. 





entered in and have directed their way in holi- 
ness and righteousness, doing all things without 
disorder. Let a man be faithful: let him be 
powerful in the utterance of knowledge ; let him 
be wise in judging of words; let him be pure 
in all his deeds; yet the more he seems to be 
superior to others [in these respects], the more 
humble-minded ought he to be, and to seek the 
common good of all, and not merely his own 
advantage. 


CHAP. XLIX.— THE PRAISE OF LOVE. 


Let him who has love in Christ keep the com- 
mandments of Christ. Who can describe the 
[blessed] bond of the love of God? What man 
is able to tell the excellence of its beauty, as it 
ought to be told? The height to which love 
exalts is unspeakable. Love unites us to God. 
Love covers a multitude of sins.’ Love beareth 
all things, is long-suffering in all things.‘ There 
is nothing base, nothing arrogant in love. Love 
admits of no schisms : love gives rise to no sedi- 
tions : love does all things in harmony. By love 
have all the elect of God been made perfect ; 
without love nothing is well-pleasing toGod. In 
love has the Lord taken us to Himself. On ac- 
count of the Love he bore us, Jesus Christ our 
Lord gave His blood for us by the will of God ; 
His flesh for our flesh, and His soul for our 
souls.*3 


CHAP. L.— LET US PRAY TO BE THOUGHT WOR- 


THY OF LOVE. 


Ye see, beloved, how great and wonderful a 
thing is love, and that there is no declaring its 
perfection. Who is fit to be found in it, except 
such as God has vouchsafed to render so? Let 
us pray, therefore, and implore of His mercy, that 
we may live blameless in love, free from all 
human partialities for one above another. All 
the generations from Adam even unto this day 
have passed away; but those who, through the 
grace of God, have been made perfect in love, 
now possess a place among the godly, and shall 
be made manifest at the revelation ' of the king- 
dom of Christ. For it is written, “ Enter into 
thy secret chambers for a little time, until my 
wrath and fury pass away ; and I will remember 
a propitious ‘5 day, and will raise you up out of 
your graves.’’ "© Blessed are we, beloved, if we 
keep the commandments of God in the harmony 
of love ; that so through love our sins may be 
forgiven us. For it is written, “ Blessed are they 
whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sins 
are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin 





II James v. 20; x Pet, iv. 8. 

12 Comp. 1 Cor. xiii, 4, etc. é 

13 ae Irenzus, v, x; also Mathetes, Ep. to Diognetus, cap. ix.] 
14 Literally, ‘‘ visitation.” 

15 Or, “ good.” 

16 Tea. xxvi. 20. 


THE FIRST EPISTLE ‘OF’ CLEMENT. 


OBE a a a a a ec nem 








the Lord will not impute to him, and in whose 
mouth there is no guile.”* This blessedness 
cometh upon those who have been chosen by 
God through Jesus Christ our Lord; to whom 
be glory for ever and ever. Amen. 


CHAP. LI.— LET THE PARTAKERS IN STRIFE AC- 
KNOWLEDGE THEIR SINS. 


Let us therefore implore forgiveness for all 
those transgressions which through any [sug- 
gestion] of the adversary we have committed. 
And those who have been the leaders of sedition 
and disagreement ought to have respect? to the 
common hope. For such as live in fear and love 
would rather that they themselves than their 
neighbours should be involved in suffering. And 
they prefer to bear blame themselves, rather than 
that the concord which has been well and 
piously 3 handed down to us should suffer. For 
it is better that a man should acknowledge his 
transgressions than that he should harden his 
heart, as the hearts of those were hardened who 
stirred up sedition against Moses the servant of 
God, and whose condemnation was made mani- 
fest [unto all]. For they went down alive into 
Hades, and death swallowed them up. Pharaoh 
with his army and all the princes of Egypt, and 
the chariots with their riders, were sunk in the 
depths of the Red Sea, and perished,’ for no 
other reason than that their foolish hearts were 
hardened, after so many signs and wonders had 
been wrought in the land of Egypt by Moses the 
servant of God. 


CHAP. LIIl.— SUCH A CONFESSION IS PLEASING TO 
GOD. 


The Lord, brethren, stands in need of noth- 
ing; and He desires nothing of any one, except 
that confession be made to Him. For, says the 
elect David, “I will confess unto the Lord ; and 
that will please Him more than a young bullock 
that hath horns and hoofs. Let the poor see it, 
and be glad.”® And again he saith, “ Offer 7 
unto God the sacrifice of praise, and pay thy 
vows unto the Most High. And call upon Me 
in the day of thy trouble: I will deliver thee, 
and thou shalt glorify Me.” ® For “ the sacrifice 
of God is a broken spirit.” 9 


CHAP. LIII.—THE LOVE OF MOSES TOWARDS HIS 
PEOPLE. 


Ye understand, beloved, ye understand well 
the Sacred Scriptures, and ye have looked very 





1 Ps, xxxii. 1, 2. 

2 Or, “ look to.” 

3 Or, “‘ righteously.” 
4 Num. xvi. 

5 Ex. xiv. 

6 Ps. Ixix. 31, 32. 

7 Or, “ sacrifice.” 

8 Ps. 1. 14, 15. 

9 Ps. li. 17. 





19 


earmestly into the oracles of God. Call then 
these things to your remembrance. When Moses 
went up into the mount, and abode there, with 
fasting and humiliation, forty days and forty 
nights, the Lord said unto him, “ Moses, Moses, 
get thee down quickly from hence ; for thy peo- 
ple whom thou didst bring out of the land of 
Egypt have committed iniquity. They have 
speedily departed from the way in which I com- 
manded them to walk, and have made to them- 
selves molten images.” '° And the Lord said 
unto him, “I have spoken to thee once and 
again, saying, I have seen this people, and, be- 
hold, it is a stiff-necked people: let Me destroy 
them, and blot out their name from under 
heaven ; and I will make thee a great and won- 
derful nation, and one much more numerous than 
this." But Moses said, “ Far be it from Thee, 
Lord: pardon the sin of this people; else blot 
me also out of the book of the living.” ‘2 O mar- 
vellous '3 love! O insuperable perfection! The 
servant speaks freely to his Lord, and asks for- 
giveness for the people, or begs that he himself 
might perish ‘+ along with them. 





CHAP. LIV. — HE WHO IS FULL OF LOVE WILL INCUR 
EVERY LOSS, THAT PEACE MAY BE RESTORED TO 
THE CHURCH. 


Who then among you is noble-minded? who 
compassionate? who full of love? Let him de- 
clare, “If on my account : ssdition and disagree- 
ment and schisms have arisen, I will depart, I 
will_go away whithersoever ye desire, and I will 
do whatever the majority "5 commands ; only let 
the flock of Christ live on terms of peace with 
the presbyters set over it.” He that acts thus 
shall procure to himself great glory in the Lord ; 
and every place will welcome ° him. For “ the 
earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” ‘7 
These things they who live a godly life, that is 
never to be repented of, both have done and 
always will do. 


CHAP. LV.— EXAMPLES OF SUCH LOVE. 


To bring forward some examples from among 
the heathen: Many kings and princes, in times 
of pestilence, when they had been instructed by 
an oracle, have given themselves up to death, in 
order that by their own blood they might deliver 
their fellow-citizens [from destruction]. Many 
have gone forth from their own cities, that so 
sedition might be brought to an end within 





10 Ex, xxxii. 7, etc.; Deut. ix, r2, etc. 

11 Ex, xxxii. 9, etc. 

12 Ex. xxxii. 32. 

13 Or, ‘‘ mighty.” 

14 Literally, *‘ te wiped out.” ¢ 

15 Literally, ‘‘the multitude.” [Clement here puts words into the 
mouth of the Corinthian presbyters. It has been strangely quoted to 
strengthen a conjecture that he had humbly preferred Linus and 
Cletus when first called to preside. ] 

16 Or, “ receive.” 

17 Pe, xxiv. 1; 1 Cor. x. 26, 08, 


20 


THE FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT. 





them. We know many among ourselves who 
have given themselves up to bonds, in order that 
they might ransom others. Many, too, have 
surrendered themselves to slavery, that with the 
price ' which they received for themselves, they 
might provide food for others. Many women 
also, being strengthened by the grace of God, 
have performed numerous manly exploits. The 
blessed Judith, when her city was besieged, 
asked of the elders permission to go forth into 
the camp of the strangers; and, exposing her- 
self to danger, she went out for the love which 
she bare to her country and people then be- 
sieged ; and the Lord delivered Holofernes into 
the hands of a woman.?_ Esther also, being per- 
fect in faith, exposed herself to no less danger, 
in order to deliver the twelve tribes of Israel 
from impending destruction. For with fasting 
and humiliation she entreated the everlasting 
God, who seeth all things; and He, perceiving 
the humility of her spirit, delivered the people 
for whose sake she had encountered peril.3 


CHAP. LVI, —- LET US ADMONISH AND CORRECT ONE 
ANOTHER. 


Let us then also pray for those who have 
fallen into any sin, that meekness and humility 
may be given to them, so that they may submit, 
not unto us, but to the will of God. For in this 
way they shall secure a fruitful and perfect re- 
membrance from us, with sympathy for them, 
both in our prayers to God, and our mention of 
them to the saints.4 Let us receive correction, 
beloved, on account of which no one should 
feel displeased. Those exhortations by which 
we admonish one another are both good [in 
themselves] and highly profitable, for they tend 
to unite 5 us to the will of God. For.thus saith 
the holy Word: “ The Lord hath severely chast- 
ened me, yet hath not given me over to death.’ & 
“For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and 
scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.’ 7 
“The righteous,” saith it, “shall chasten me in 
mercy, and reprove me; but let not the oil of 
sinners make fat my head.”® And again he 
saith, ‘ Blessed is the man whom the Lord re- 
proveth, and reject not thou the warning of the 
Almighty. For He causes sorrow, and again 
restores [to gladness] ; He woundeth, and His 
hands make whole. He shall deliver thee in six 
troubles, yea, in the seventh no evil shall touch 
thee. In famine He shall rescue thee from 
death, and in war He shall free thee from the 





T Literally, “and having received their prices, fed others.” 
[Comp. Rom. xvi. 3, 4, and Phil. ii. 30.] 
2 quite yiil. 30. 
3 Esther vii., viii. 

4 Literally, ‘‘ there shall be to them a fruitful and perfect remem- 
brance, with compassions both towards God and the saints,” 

r, “they unite.” 

6 Ps. cxviii. 18. 

7 Prov. iii. 12; Heb. xii. 6. 

8 Ps, cxli. 5. 


power? of the sword. From the scourge of the 
tongue will He hide thee, and thou shalt not 
fear when evil cometh. ‘Thou shalt laugh at the 
unrighteous and the wicked, and shalt not be 
afraid of the beasts of the field. For the wild 
beasts shall be at peace with thee: then shalt 
thou know that thy house shall be in peace, and 
the habitation of thy tabernacle shall not fail.7° 
Thou shalt know also that thy seed shall be 
great, and thy children like the grass of the 
field. And thou shalt come to the grave like 
ripened corn which is reaped in its season, or 
like a heap of the threshing-floor which is gath- 
ered together at the proper time.” ™ Ye see, 
beloved, that protection is afforded to those that 
are chastened of the Lord; for since God is 
good, He corrects us, that we may be admon- 
ished by His holy chastisement. 


CHAP, LVII. — LET THE AUTHORS OF SEDITION SUB- 
MIT THEMSELVES. 


Ye therefore, who laid the foundation of this 
sedition, submit yourselves to the—presbyters, 
and receive correction so as to repent, bending 
the knees of your hearts. Learn to be subject, 
laying aside the proud and arrogant self-confi- 
dence of your tongue. For it is better for you 
that ye should occupy * a humble but honourable 
place in the flock of Christ, than that, being 
highly exalted, ye should be cast out from the 
hope of His people.'s For thus speaketh all- 
virtuous Wisdom : ' “ Behold, I will bring forth 
to you the words of My Spirit, and I will teach 
you My speech. Since I called, and ye did not 
hear ; I held forth My words, and ye regarded 
not, but set at naught My counsels, and yielded 
not at My reproofs ; therefore I too will laugh at 
your destruction ; yea, I will rejoice when ruin 
cometh upon you, and when sudden confusion 
overtakes you, when overturning presents itself 
like a tempest, or when tribulation and oppres- 
sion fall upon you. For it shall come to pass, 
that when ye call upon Me, I will not hear you; 
the wicked shall seek Me, and they shall not 
find Me. For they hated wisdom, and‘ did not 
choose the fear of the Lord; nor would they 
listen to My counsels, but despised My reproofs. 
Wherefore they shall eat the fruits of their own 
way, and they shall be filled with their own un- 
godliness.’”".” 2. 


ee 
9 Literally, ‘‘ hand.” 

to Literally, “err” or “sin.” 

II Job v. 17-26. 

® Literally, “to be found small and esteemed.” , 

13 Literally, “‘ His hope.” [It has been conjectured that éAmtdSo¢ 
should be éravacdos, and the reading, “‘ out of the fold of his people.” 
See Chevallier. ] : 

14 Prov. i. 23-31. [Often cited by this name in primitive writers. } 

15 Junius (Pat. Young), who examined the ms. before it was 
bound into its present form, stated that a whole leaf was here lost. 
The next letters that occur are umov, which have been supposed ta 
indicate elov or éAurov. Doubtless some passages quoted by the 
ancients from the Epistle of Clement, and not now found in it. oo 
curred in the portion which has thus been host. ie 


THE FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT. 





CHAP. LVIII.— BLESSINGS SOUGHT FOR ALL THAT 
CALL UPON GOD. 


May God, who seeth all things, and who is 
the Ruler of all spirits and the Lord of all flesh 
—who chose our Lord Jesus Christ and us 
through Him to be a peculiar' people — grant 
to every soul that calleth upon His glorious and 
holy Name, faith, fear, peace, patience, long-suf- 
fering, self-control, purity, and sobriety, to the 
well-pleasing of His Name, through our High 
Priest and Protector, Jesus Christ, by whom be 
to Him glory, and majesty, and power, and 
honour, both now and for evermore. Amen. 


CHAP. LIX.—THE CORINTHIANS ARE EXHORTED 
SPEEDILY TO SEND BACK WORD THAT PEACE 
HAS BEEN RESTORED. THE BENEDICTION. 


Send back speedily to us in peace and with 
joy these our messengers to you: Claudius 
Ephebus and Valerius Bito, with Fortunatus: 





1 Comp. Tit. ii. 14. 





21 








that they may the sooner announce to us the 
peace and harmony we so earnestly desire and 
long for [among you], and that we may the 
more quickly rejoice over the good order re-es- 
tablished among you. The grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ be with you, and with all everywhere 
that are the called of God through Him, by 
whom be to Him glory, honour, power, majesty, 
and eternal dominion,? from everlasting to ever- 
lasting. Amen. 





2 Literally, “an eternal throne,” 
3 Literally, ‘‘ From the ages to the ages of ages.” 
4 [Note St. Clement’s frequent doxologies. ] 
N.B.—The language of Clement concerning the Western 
rogress of St. Paul (cap. v.) is our earliest postscript to his Scripture 
biocrsby, It is sufficient to refer the reader to the great works of 
Conybeare and Howson, and of Mr. Lewin, on the Life and Epistles 
of St. Paul. See more especially the valuable note of Lewin (vol. 
il, p. 294) which takes notice of the opinion of some learned men, 
that the great Apostle of the Gentiles preached the Gospel in Britain. 
The whole subject of St. Paul's relations with British Christians is 
treated by Williams, in his Ant¢gutties of the C. AER with learning 
and in an attractive manner, But the reader will find more ready 
to his hand, perhaps, the interesting note of Mr. Lewin, on Claudia 
and Pudens (2 Tim x. 21), in his Life and Epistles of St, Pal, 
vol. : p. 392. See also Paley’s Hore Pauline, p. 40. ndon, 
1820, 


nn 
Pinte bisid i 


‘¢ 
PhS VF 


— 





INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


TO THE 


EPISTLE OF MATHETES TO DIOGNETUS. 


[a.D. 130.] THE anonymous author of this Epistle gives himself the title (Mathetes) “a 
aisciple* of the Apostles,” and I venture to adopt it as his name. It is about all we know of him, 
and it serves a useful end. I place his letter here, as a sequel to the Clementine Epistle, for 
several reasons, which I think scholars will approve: (1) It is full of the Pauline spirit, and 
exhales the same pure and primitive fragrance which is characteristic of Clement. (2) No 
theory as to its date very much conflicts with that which I adopt, and it is sustained by good 
authorities. (3) But, as a specimen of the persuasives against Gentilism which early Christians 
employed in their intercourse with friends who adhered to heathenism, it admirably illustrates the 
temper prescribed by St. Paul (2 Tim. ii. 24), and not less the peculiar social relations of con- 
verts to the Gospel with the more amiable and candid of their personal friends at this early 
period. 

Mathetes was possibly a catechumen of St. Paul or of one of the apostle’s associates. I 
assume that his correspondent was the tutor of M. Aurelius. Placed just here, it fills a /acuna in 
the series, and takes the place of the pseudo (second) Epistle of Clement, which is now relegated 
to its proper place with the works falsely ascribed to St. Clement. 

Altogether, the Epistle is a gem of purest ray; and, while suggesting some difficulties as to 
interpretation and exposition, it is practically clear as to argument and intent. Mathetes is, 
perhaps, the first of the apologists. 

Tue following is the original introductory notice of the learned editors and translators : — 


The following interesting and eloquent Epistle is anonymous, and we have no clue whatever 
as to its author. For a considerable period after its publication in 1592, it was generally ascribed 
to Justin Martyr. In recent times Otto has inserted it among the works of that writer, but 
Semisch and others contend that it cannot possibly be his. In: dealing with this question, we 
depend entirely upon the internal evidence, no statement as to the authorship of the Epistle 
having descended to us from antiquity. And it can scarcely be denied that the whole tone of the 
Epistle, as well as special passages which it contains, points to some other writer than Justin. 
Accordingly, critics are now for the most part agreed that it is not his, and that it must be ascribed 
to one who lived at a still earlier date in the history of the Church. Several internal argu- 
ments have been brought forward in favour of this opinion. Supposing chap. xi. to be genuine, 
it has been supported by the fact that the writer there styles himself “a disciple of the apostles.” 
But there is great suspicion that the two concluding chapters are spurious ; and even though 

2 GrogréAwy yerdpevos maGyThs. Cap. xi. 


%3 


24 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 


admitted to be genuine, the expression quoted evidently admits of a different explanation from 
that which implies the writer’s personal acquaintance with the apostles: it might, indeed, be 
adopted by one even at the present day. More weight is to be attached to those passages in 
which the writer speaks of Christianity as still being a mew thing in the world. Expressions to 
this effect occur in several places (chap. i.,, ii., ix.), and seem to imply that the author lived very 
little, if at all, after the apostolic age. There is certainly nothing in the epistle which is incon- 
sistent with this opinion; and we may therefore believe, that in this beautiful composition w - 
possess a genuine production of some apostolic man who lived not later than the beginning of the 
second century. 

The names of Clement of Rome and of Apollos have both been suggested as those of the 
probable author. Such opinions, however, are pure fancies, which it is perhaps impossible to 
refute, but which rest on nothing more than conjecture. Nor can a single word be said as to the 
person named Diognetus, to whom the letter is addressed. We must be content to leave both 
points in hopeless obscurity, and simply accept the Epistle as written by an earnest and intelli- 
gent Christian to a sincere inquirer among the Gentiles, towards the close of the apostolic age. 

It is much to be regretted that the text is often so very doubtful. Only three mss. of the 
Epistle, all probably exhibiting the same original text, are known to exist; and in not a few pas- 
sages the readings are, in consequence, very defective and obscure. But notwithstanding this 
drawback, and the difficulty of representing the full force and elegance of the original, this 
Epistle, as now presented to the English reader, can hardly fail to excite both his deepest interest 
and admiration. 

[N.B.— Interesting speculations concerning this precious work may be seen in Bunsen’s 
Hippolytus and his Age, vol. i. p. 188. The learned do not seem convinced by this author, but 
I have adopted his suggestion as to Diognetus the tutor of M. Aurelius. ] 


THE EPISTLE OF MATHETES TO DIOGNETUS. 


CHAP. I.— OCCASION OF THE EPISTLE. 


Since I see thee, most excellent Diognetus, 
exceedingly desirous to learn the mode of wor- 
shipping God prevalent among the Christians, 
and inquiring very carefully and earnestly con- 
cerning them, what God they trust in, and what 
form of religion they observe,’ so as all to look 
down upon the world itself, and despise death, 
while they neither esteem those to be gods that 
are reckoned such by the Greeks, nor hold to 
the superstition of the Jews; and what is the 
_ affection which they cherish among themselves ; 
and why, in fine, this new kind or practice [of 
piety] has only now entered into the world,? and 
not long ago; I cordially welcome this thy de- 
sire, and I implore God, who enables us both to 
speak and to hear, to grant to me so to speak, 
that, above all, I may hear you have been edi- 
fied,3 and to you so to hear, that I who speak 
may have no cause of regret for having done so. 


CHAP. Il. —THE VANITY OF IDOLS. 


Come, then, after you have freed‘* yourself 
from all prejudices possessing your mind, and 
laid aside what you have been accustomed to, 
as something apt to deceive 5 you, and being 
made, as if from the beginning, a new man, inas- 
much as, according to your own confession, you 
are to be the hearer of a new [system of] doc- 
trine ; come and contemplate, not with your eyes 
only, but with your understanding, the substance 
and the form® of those whom ye declare and 
deem to be gods. Is not one of them a stone 
similar to that on which we tread? Is7 not a 
second brass, in no way superior to those vessels 
which are constructed for our ordinary use? Is 
not a third wood, and that already rotten? Is 
not a fourth silver, which needs a man to watch 
it, lest it be stolen? Is not a fifth iron, con- 
ee et Oe ee 

: Literal ae trusting in what God, etc., they look down.” 

3 coe ae “ that you by hearing may be edified.” 

4 Or, “ purified.” 

S Literally, ‘‘ which is deceiving.” 

6 Literally, ‘‘ of what substance, or of what form.” 


7 Some make this and the following clauses affirmative instead of 
beterrogative. 


sumed by rust? Is nota sixth earthenware, in 
no degree more valuable than that which is 
formed for the humblest purposes? Are not all 
these of corruptible matter?’ Are they not fab- 
ricated by means of iron and fire? Did not the 
sculptor fashion one of them, the brazier a sec- 
ond, the silversmith a third, and the potter a 
fourth? Was not every one of them, before 
they were formed by the arts of these [workmen] 
into the shape of these [gods], each in its ® own 
way subject to change? Would not those things 
which are now vessels, formed of the same ma- 
terials, become like to such, if they met with the 
same artificers? Might not these, which are 
now worshipped by you, again be made by men 
vessels similar to others? Are they not all deaf? 
Are they not blind? Are they not without life? 
Are they not destitute of feeling? Are they not 
incapable of motion? Are they not all liable to 
rot? Are they not all corruptible? These things 
ye call gods ; these ye serve ; these ye worship ; 
and ye become altogether like to them. For 
this reason ye hate the Christians, because they 
do not deem ¢hese to be gods. But do not ye 
yourselves, who now think and suppose [such to 
be gods], much more cast contempt upon them 
than they [the Christians do]? Do ye not muck 
more mock and insult them, when ye worship 
those that are made of stone and earthenware, 
without appointing any persons to guard them ; 
but those made of silver and gold ye shut up by 
night, and appoint watchers to look after them 
by day, lest they be stolen? And by those gifts 
which ye mean to present to them, do ye not, if 
they are possessed of sense, rather punish [than 
honour] them? But if, on the other hand, they 
are destitute of sense, ye convict them of this 
fact, while ye worship them with blood and the 
smoke of sacrifices, Let any one of you suffer 
such indignities !9 Let any one of you endure 
to have such things done to himself! But not a 
single human being will, unless compelled to it, 





8 The text is here corrupt. Several attempts at emendation have 
been made, but without any marked success. . " 
9 Some read, “ Who of you would tolerate these things?” etc, 


a5 


26 


endure such treatment, since he is endowed with 
sense and reason. A stone, however, readily 
bears it, seeing it is insensible. Certainly you 
do not show [by your * conduct] that he [your 
God] is possessed of sense. And as to the fact 
that Christians are not accustomed to serve such 
gods, I might easily find many other things to 
say; but if even what has been said does not 
seem to any one sufficient, I deem it idle to say 
anything further. 


CHAP. III. — SUPERSTITIONS OF THE JEWS. 


And next, I imagine that you are most desir- 
ous of hearing something on this point, that the 
Christians do not observe the same forms of 
divine worship as do the Jews. The Jews, then, 
if they abstain from the kind of service above 
described, and deem it proper to worship one 
God as being Lord of all, [are right] ; but if 
they offer Him worship in the way which we 
have described, they greatly err. For while the 
Gentiles, by offering such things to those that 
are destitute of sense and hearing, furnish an 
example of madness ; they, on the other hand, 
by thinking to offer these things to God as if He 
needed them, might justly reckon it rather an 
act of folly than of divine worship. For He 
that made heaven and earth, and all that is there-: 
in, and gives to us all the things of which we 
stand in need, certainly requires none of those 
things which He Himself bestows on such as 
think of furnishing them to Him. But those 
who imagine that, by means of blood, and the 
smoke of sacrifices and burnt-offerings, they 
offer sacrifices [acceptable] to Him, and that 
by such honours they show Him respect, — these, 
by? supposing that they can give anything to 
Him who stands in need of nothing, appear to 
me in no respect to differ from those who studi- 
ously confer the same honour on things destitute 
of sense, and which therefore are unable to en- 
joy such honours. 


CHAP. IV.— THE OTHER OBSERVANCES OF THE JEWS. 


But as to their scrupulosity concerning meats, 
and their superstition as respects the Sabbaths, 
and their boasting about circumcision, and their 
fancies about fasting and the new moons, which 
are utterly ridiculous and unworthy of notice, — 
I do not; think that you require to learn any- 
thing from me. For, to accept some of those 
things which have been formed by God for the 
use of men as properly formed, and to reject 
others as useless and redundant, — how can this 


_ ! The text is here uncertain, and the sense obscure. The mean- 
ing seems to be, that by sprinkling their gods with blood, etc., they 
tended to prove that these were not possessed of sense. 

® The text is here very doubtful. We have followed that adopted 
by most critics. 


3 Otto, resting on ms. authority, omits the negative, but the sense 
insertion, : 


Qeems to require its 





THE EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS. 


be lawful? And to speak falsely of God, as if 
He forbade us to do what is good on the Sabbath- 
days, — how is not this impious? And to glory 
in the circumcision ¢ of the flesh as a proof of 
election, and as if, on account of it, they were 
specially beloved by God, — how is it not a sub- 
ject of ridicule? And as to their observing 
months and days,’ as if waiting upon® the stars 
and the moon, and their distributing,” according 
to their own tendencies, the appointments of 
God, and the vicissitudes of the seasons, some 
for festivities, and others for mourning, — who 
would deem this a part of divine worship, and 
not much rather a manifestation of folly? I 
suppose, then, you are sufficiently convinced 
that the Christians properly abstain from the 
vanity and error common [to both Jews and 
Gentiles], and from the busy-body spirit and 
vain boasting of the Jews; but you must not 
hope to learn the mystery of their peculiar mode 
of worshipping God from any mortal. 


CHAP. V.— THE MANNERS OF THE CHRISTIANS. 


For the Christians are distinguished from other 
men neither by country, nor language, nor the 
customs which they observe. For they neither 
inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a pecul- 
iar form of speech, nor lead a life which is 
marked out by any singularity. The course of 
conduct which they follow has not been devised 
by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive 
men; nor do they, like some, proclaim them- 
selves the advocates of any merely human 
doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as bar- 
barian cities, according as the lot of each of 
them has determined, and following the customs 
of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and 
the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display 
to us their wonderful and confessedly striking 9 
method of life. They dwell in their own coun- 
tries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they 
share in all things with others, and yet endure 
all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land 
is to them as their native country, and every 
land of their birth as a land of strangers. They 
marry, as do all [others] ; they beget children ; 
but they do not destroy their offspring.*° They 


4 Literally, “ lessening.” 
omp. Gal. iv. ro. 

_ © This seems to refer to the practice of the Jews in fixing the be- 
ginning of the day, and consequently of the Sabbath, from the rising 
of the stars. They used to say, that when three stars of moderate 
magnitude appeared, it was night; when two, it was twilight; and 
when only one, that day had not yet departed. Itthus came to pass 
(according to their night-day (vux@yjmepov) reckoning), that who- 
soever engaged in work on the evening of Friday, the beginning of 
the Sabbath, after three stars of moderate size were visible, was eld 
to have sinned, and had to present a trespass-offering; and so on, ac- 
cording to the fanciful rule described. 

7 Otto supplies the /acuna which here occurs in the MSS. so as to 
read Aba ‘ 
great festivals of the Jews are here referred to on 
hand, and the day of mee on the other. Sean 
9 Literally, ““ paradoxical.” 
8° Literally, “‘ cast away foctuses.” 


THE EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS. 


27 


have a common table, but not a common bed.'| the more in number.'* God has assigned them 


They are in the flesh, but they do not live after 
the flesh.2 They pass their days on earth, but 
they are citizens of heaven. They obey the 
prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass 
the laws by their lives. They love all men, and 
are persecuted by all. They are unknown and 
condemned ; they are put to death, and restored 
to life They are poor, yet make many rich ;5 
they are in lack of all things, and yet abound 
in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their 
very dishonour are glorified. They are evil 
spoken of, and yet are justified; they are re- 
viled, and bless ;° they are insulted, and repay 
the insult with honour; they do good, yet are 
punished as evil-doers. When punished, they 
rejoice as if quickened into life; they are as- 
sailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are per- 
secuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate 
them are unable to assign any reason for their 
hatred. 


CHAP, VI. — THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANS TO THE 
WORLD. 


To sum up all in one word—what the soul 
is in the body, that are Christians in the world. 
The soul is dispersed through all the members 
of the body, and Christians are scattered through 
all the cities of the world. The soul dwells in 
the body, yet is not of the body; and Chris- 
tians dwell in the world, yet are not of the 
world.? The invisible soul is guarded by the 
visible body, and Christians are known indeed 
to be in the world, but their godliness remains 
invisible. The flesh hates the soul, and wars 
against it,® though itself suffering no injury, be- 
cause it is prevented from enjoying pleasures ; 
the world also hates the Christians, though in 
nowise injured, because they abjure pleasures. 
The soul loves the flesh that hates it, and [loves 
also] the members; Christians likewise love 
those that hate them. The soul is imprisoned 
in the body, yet preserves9 that very body ; and 
Christians are confined in the world as in a 
prison, and yet they are the preservers? of the 
world. Tbe immortal soul dwels in_8- mot” 
tabernacle ; an ristians dwell as sojourners 
in corruptible [bodies], looking for an incorrup- 
tible dwelling *° in the heavens. The soul, when 
but ill-provided with food and drink, becomes 
better; in like manner, the Christians, though 
subjected day by day to punishment, increase 
ees fen a 


1 Otto omits “‘ bed,” which: is an emendation, and gives the sec- 
end “common” the sense of unclean. 

8 Comp. 2 Cor. x. 3. 

3 Comp. Phil. iii. 20. 

4 Comp. 2 Cor. vi. 9. : 

5 Comp. 2 Cor. vi. 10. 

6 Comp. 2 Cor. iv. 12. 

7 John xvii. x1, 14, 16. 

8 Comp. x Pet. fi. 11. 

9 Literally, ‘‘ keeps together.” 

1@ Literally, ‘‘ incorruption.” 





this illustrious position, which it were unlawful 
for them to forsake. 


CHAP, VII.— THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST. 


For, as I said, this was no mere earthly inven- 
tion which was delivered to them, nor is it a 
mere human system of opinion, which they 
judge it right to preserve so carefully, nor has a 
dispensation of mere human mysteries been com- 
mitted. to them, but truly God Himself, who is 
almighty, the Creator of all things, and invisible, 
has sent from heaven, and placed among men, 
[Him who is] the truth, and the holy and in- 
comprehensible Word, and has firmly estab- 
lished Him in their hearts. He did not, as one 
might have imagined, send to men any servant, 
or angel, or ruler, or any one of those who bear 
sway over earthly things, or one of those to 
whom the government of things in the heavens 
has been entrusted, but the very Creator and 
Fashioner of all things—by whom He made 
the heavens— by whom he enclosed the sea 
within its proper bounds — whose ordinances ” 
all the stars" faithfully observe — from whom 
the sun ™ has received the measure of his daily 
course to be observed '5—whom the moon obeys, 
being commanded to shine in the night, and 
whom the stars also obey, following the moon 
in her course; by whom all things have been 
arranged, and placed within their proper limits, 
and to whom all are subject — the heavens and 
the things that are therein, the earth and the 
things that are therein, the sea and the things 
that are therein — fire, air, and the abyss — the 
things which are in the heights, the things which 
are in the depths, and the things which lie be- 
tween. This [messenger] He sent to them. 
Was it then, as one’® might conceive, for the 
purpose of exercising tyranny, or of inspiring 
fear and terror? By no means, but under the 
influence of clemency and meekness. As a king 
sends his son, who is also a king, so sent He 
Him; as God’? He sent Him; as to men He 
sent Him; as a Saviour He sent Him, and as 
seeking to persuade, not to compel us ; for vio- 
lence has no place in the character of God. As 
calling us He sent Him, not as vengefully pur- 
suing us; as loving us He sent Him, not as 
judging us. For He will yet send Him to judge 
us, and who shall endure His appearing? . . . 
Do you not see them exposed to wild beasts, 
ENE RS, AE Se a 


11 Or, “ though punished, increase in number daily.” 

12 Literally, ‘‘ mysteries.” 

13 Literally, ‘‘ elements.” , : 

14 The word “ sun,” though omitted in the Mss., should manifestly 
be inserted. y 2 

15 Literally, ‘‘ has received to observe. 

16 Literally, ‘‘ one of men,” 

17 “God” here refers tothe person sent, at: 

18 [Comp. Mal. iii. 2, The Old Testament ts frequently in mind, 
if not expressly quoted by Mathetes.] A considerable gap here 
oeeurs in the MSs. 


28 THE EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS. 

























































He permitted us to be borne along by unruly 
impulses, being drawn away by the desire of 
pleasure and various lusts. This was not that 
He at all delighted in our sins, but that He sim- 
ply endured them; nor that He approved the 
time of working iniquity which then was, but 
that He sought to form a mind conscious of 
righteousness,? so that being convinced in that 
time of our unworthiness of attaining life through 
our own works, it should now, through the kind- 
ness of God, be vouchsafed to us; and having 
made it manifest that in ourselves we were un- 
able to enter into the kingdom of God, we might 
through the power of God be made able. But 
when our wickedness had reached its height, 
and it had been clearly shown that its reward,’° 
punishment and death, was impending over us ; 
and when the time had come which God had 
before appointed for manifesting His own kind- 
ness and power, how" the one love of God, 
through exceeding regard for men, did not 
regard us with hatred, nor thrust us away, nor 
remember our iniquity against us, but showed 
great long-suffering, and bore with us,’? He Him- 
self took on Him the burden of our iniquities, 
He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the 
holy One for transgressors, the blameless One 
for the wicked, the righteous One for the un- 
righteous, the incorruptible One for the corrupti- 
ble, the immortal One for them that are mortal. 
For what other thing was capable of covering 
our sins than His righteousness? By what other 
one was it possible that we, the wicked and un- 
godly, could be justified, than by the only Son 
of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable 
operation! O benefits surpassing all expecta- 
tion ! that the wickedness of many should be hid 
in a single righteous One, and that the righteous- 
ness of One should justify many transgressors ! *3 
Having therefore convinced us in the former 
time ‘4 that our nature was unable to attain to 
life, and having now revealed the Saviour who is 
able to save even those things which it was [for- 
merly] impossible to save, by both these facts 
He desired to lead us to trust in His kind- 
ness, to esteem Him our Nourisher, Father, 
Teacher, Counsellor, Healer, our Wisdom, Light, 
Honour, Glory, Power, and Life, so that we 


should not be anxious "5 concerning clothing and 
food. 


that they may be persuaded to deny the Lord, 
and yet not overcome? Do you not see that 
the more of them are punished, the greater 
becomes the number of the rest? This does 
not seem to be the work of man: this is the 
power of God; these are the evidences of His 
manifestation. 


CHAP. VIII. — THE MISERABLE STATE OF MEN BE- 
FORE THE COMING OF THE WORD. 


' For, who of men at all understood before 
His coming what God is? Do you accept of 
the vain and silly doctrines of those who are 
deemed trustworthy philosophers? of whom 
some said that fire was God, calling that God to 
which they themselves were by and by to come ; 
and some water ; and others some other of the 
elements formed by God. But if any one of 
these theories be worthy of approbation, every 
one of the rest of created things might also be 
declared to be God.. But such declarations are 
simply the startling and erroneous utterances of 
deceivers ;* and no man has either seen Him, 
or made Him known,? but He has revealed 
‘Himself. And He has manifested Himself 
through faith, to which alone it is given to be- 
hold God. For God, the Lord and Fashioner 
of all things, who made all things, and assigned 
them their several positions, proved Himself not 
merely a friend of mankind, but also long-suffer- 
ing [in His dealings with them.] Yea, He was 
always of such a character, and still is, and will 
ever be, kind and good, and free from wrath, 
and true, and the only one who is [absolutely ] 
good ;3 and He formed in His mind a great and 
unspeakable conception, which He communi- 
cated to His Son alone. As long, then, as He 
held and preserved His own wise counsel in 
concealment, He appeared to neglect us, and 
to have no care over us. But after He revealed 
and laid open, through His beloved Son, the 
things which had been prepared from the begin- 
ning, He conferred every blessing’ all at once 
upon us, so that we should both share in His 
benefits, and see and be active® [in His ser- 
vice]. Who of us would ever have expected 
these things? He was aware, then, of all things 
in His own mind, along with His Son, according 
to the relation” subsisting between them. 


CHAP, IX.—-WHY THE SON WAS SENT SO LATE. 


As long then as the former time® endured, 9 The reading and sense are doubtful. 


10 Both the text and rendering are here somewhat doubtful, but 
the sense will in any case be much the same. 

11 Many variations here occur in the way in which the dacuna 
of the mss. is to be supplied. They do not, however, greatly affect 
the meaning. 

12 In the ms, “‘ saying” is here inserted, as if the words had been 
regarded as a quotation from Isa, liii. rz. 

13 [See Bossuet, who quotes it as from Justin Martyr (Tom. iii. 
p. 171). Sermon on the Circumcision. ] ; 

14 That is, before Christ appeared. 

15 Comp. Matt. vi. 25, etc. [Mathetes, in a single sentence, ex- 
pounds a mest practical text with comprehensive views. } - 





1 Literally, ‘‘ these things are the marvels and error.” 

2 Or, ‘“‘ known Him.” 

3 Comp. Matt. xix. 17. 

4 Literally, ‘in a mystery.” 

5 Literally, “‘ all things.” 

6 The sense is here very obscure. We have followed the text of 
Otto, who fills up the /acuna in the MS. as above, Others have, 
“to see, and to handle Him.” 

7 Literally, ‘ economically.” 

.. § Otto refers for a like contrast-between these two times to Rom, 
iii, 21-26, v. 20, and Gal. iv. 4. (Comp. Acts xvii. 3e.] 


THE EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS. 


— 


29 





CRAP. X.— THE BLESSINGS THAT WILL FLOW FROM 
FAITH. 


If you also desire [to possess] this faith, you 
likewise shall receive first of all the knowledge 
of the Father.t For God has loved mankind, 
on whose acconnt He made the world, to whom 
He rendered subject all the things that are in 
it,? to whom He gave reason and understanding, 
to whom alone He imparted the privilege of 
looking upwards to Himself, whom He formed 
after His own image, to whom He sent His 
only-begotten Son, to whom He has promised a 
kingdom in heaven, and will give it to those 
who have loved Him. And when you have 
attained this knowledge, with what joy do you 
think you will be filled? Or, how will you love 
Him who has first so loved you? And if you 
love Him, you will be an imitator of His kind- 
ness. And do not wonder that a man may be- 
come an imitator of God.- He can, if he is 
willing. For it is not by ruling over his neigh- 
bours, or by seeking to hold the supremacy over 
those that are weaker, or by being rich, and 
showing violence towards those that are inferior, 
that happiness is found; nor can any one by 
these things become an imitator of God. But 
these things do not at all constitute His majesty. 
On the contrary he who takes upon himself the 
burden of his neighbour ; he who, in whatsoever 
respect he may be superior, is ready to benefit 
another who is deficient; he who, whatsoever 
things he has received from God, by distributing 
these to the needy, becomes a god to those 
who receive [his benefits]: he is an imitator of 
God. Then thou shalt see, while still on earth, 
that God in the heavens rules over [the uni- 
verse] ; then thou shalt begin to speak the mys- 
teries of God; then shalt thou both love and 
admire those that suffer punishment because 
they will not deny God; then shalt thou con- 
demn the deceit and error of the world when 
thou shalt know what it is to live truly in heaven, 
when thou shalt despise that which is here es- 
teemed to be death, when thou shalt fear what 
is truly death, which is reserved for those who 
shall be condemned to the eternal fire, which 
shall afflict those even to the end that are com- 
mitted to it. Then shalt thou admire those who 
for righteousness’ sake endure the fire that is 
but for a moment, and shalt count them happy 
when thou shalt know [the nature of] that fire. 


CHAP. XI.— THESE THINGS ARE WORTHY TO BE 
KNOWN AND BELIEVED. 


I do not speak of things strange to me, nor 
do I aim at anything inconsistent with right 
Lan Se 


I Thus Otto supplies the Zacuma, others conjecture somewhat 


different supplements. ; « 
ae So Ba . Sylburgius and Otto read, “in the earth. 








reason ;3 but having been a disciple of the 
Apostles, I am become a teacher of the Gen- 


tiles. I minister the things delivered to me to 
those that are disciples worthy of the truth. 
For who that is rightly taught and begotten by 
the loving + Word, would not seek to learn accu- 
rately the things which have been clearly shown 
by the Word to His disciples, to whom the 
Word being manifested has revealed them, 
speaking plainly [to them], not understood in- 
deed by the unbelieving, but conversing with the 
disciples, who, being esteemed faithful by Him, 
acquired a knowledge of the mysteries of the 
Father? For which5 reason He sent the Word, 
that He might be manifested to the world ; and 
He, being despised by the people [of the Jews], 
was, when preached by the Apostles, believed on 
by the Gentiles. This is He who was from the 
beginning, who appeared as if new, and was 
found old, and yet who is ever born afresh in 
the hearts of the saints. This is He who, being 
from everlasting, is to-day called’ the Son; 
through whom the Church is enriched, and © 
grace, widely spread, increases in the saints, 
furnishing understanding, revealing mysteries, 
announcing times, rejoicing over the faithful, 
giving ® to those that seek, by whom the limits 
of faith are not broken through, nor the boun- 
daries set by the fathers passed over. Then the 
fear of the law is chanted, and the grace of the 
prophets is known, and the faith of the gospels 
is established, and the tradition of the Apostles 
is preserved, and the grace of the Church exults ; 
which grace if you grieve not, you shall know 
those things which the Word teaches, by whom 
He wills, and when He pleases. For whatever 
things we are moved to utter by the will of the 
Word commanding us, we communicate to you 
with pains, and from a love of the things that 
have been revealed to us. 


CHAP, XII. —— THE IMPORTANCE OF KNOWLEDGE TO 
TRUE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 


When you have read and carefully listened to 
these things, you shall know what God bestows 
on such as rightly love Him, being made [as ye 
are] a paradise of delight, presenting? in your- 
selves a tree bearing all kinds of produce and 
flourishing well, being adorned with various 
fruits. For in this place 7° the tree of knowledge 
and the tree of life have been planted ; but it is 
not the tree of knowledge that destroys — it 





3 Some render, “nor do I rashly seek to persuade others.” 

4 Some propose to read, “and becoming a friend to the Word.” 

5 It has been proposed to connect this with the recedigg sen- 
tence, and read, “have known the mysteries of the Father, viz., for 
what purpose He sent the Word.” 

6 [Comp. x Tim, iii. 16.] 

7 Or, ‘‘ esteemed.” 

8 Or, “given.” 

9 Literally, ‘bringing forth.” 
to That is, in Paradise, 


30 


THE EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS. 





is disobedience that proves destructive. Nor 
truly are those words without significance which 
are written, how God from the beginning planted 
the tree of life in the midst of paradise, reveal- 
ing through knowledge the way to life," and 
when those who were first formed did not use 
this [knowledge] properly, they were, through 
the fraud of the Serpent, stripped naked.?_ For 
neither can life exist without knowledge, nor is 
knowledge secure without life. Wherefore both 
were planted close together. The Apostle, per- 
ceiving the force [of this conjunction], and blam- 
ing that knowledge which, without true doctrine, 
is admitted to influence life,3 declares, ‘“‘ Knowl- 
edge puffeth up, but love edifieth.” For he 
who thinks he knows anything without true 
knowledge, and such as is witnessed to by life, 
knows nothing, but is deceived by the Serpent, 
as not‘ loving life. But he who combines knowl- 


I Literally, “ Terres, life.” 

2 Or, “‘ deprived of it. 

3 Literally, ¢ “knowledge without the truth of a command exer- 
cised to life.” See x Cor. viii. 1. 

4 The ms. is here defective, 
love of life.” 


Some read, “on account of the’ 


edge with fear, and seeks after life, plants in 
hope, looking for fruit. Let your heart be your 
wisdom ; and let your life be true knowledge 5 
inwardly received. Bearing this tree and dis- 
playing its fruit, thou shalt always gather® in 
those things which are desired by God, which 
the Serpent cannot reach, and to which decep- 
tion does not approach; nor is Eve then cor- 
rupted,’ but is trusted as a virgin; and salvation 
is manifested, and the Apostles are filled with 
understanding, and the Passover ® of the Lord 
advances, and the choirs? are gathered together, 
and are arranged in proper order, and the Word 
rejoices in teaching the saints, — by whom the 
Father is glorified: to whom be glory for ever. 
Amen.’° 


5 Or, “‘ true word, ” or “ reason.” 

‘© Or, “ reap,’ 

7 The meaning seems to be, that if the tree of true knowledge 
and ie be planted within you, you shall continue free from blemishes 


and 
. (This looks like a reference to the Apocalypse, Rev. v. 9., xix. 
Joy XX, 
9 Flere Bishop Wordsworth would read xAjpot, cites 1 Pet. v. 3,. 
and refers to Suicer (Lexicon) in voce xAqpos.] 
Io [Nete the Clement-like doxology.] 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


TO THE 


LESTER OF POLYCARP TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 


[a.D. 65-100-155.] The Epistle of Polycarp is usually made a sort of preface to those of 
Ignatius, for reasons which will be obvious to the reader. Yet he was born later, and lived toa 
much later period. They seem to have been friends from the days of their common pupilage 
under St. John; and there is nothing improbable in the conjecture of Usher, that he was the 
“angel of the church in Smyrna,” to whom the Master says, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I 
will give thee a crown of life.” His pupil Irenseus gives us one of the very few portraits of an 
apostolic man which are to be found in antiquity, in a few sentences which are a picture: “I 
could describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp sat and taught ; his going out and 
coming in; the whole tenor of his life; his personal appearance ; how he would speak of the 
conversations he had held with John and with others who had seen the Lord. How did he make 
mention of their words and of whatever he had heard from them respecting the Lord.” Thus he 
unconsciously tantalizes our reverent curiosity. Alas! that such conversations were not written 
for our learning. But there is a wise Providence in what is withheld, as well as in the inestimable 
treasures we have received. 

Irenzeus will tell us more concerning him, his visit to Rome, his rebuke of Marcion, and inciden- 
tal anecdotes, all which are instructive. The expression which he applied to Marcion is found in 
this Epistle. Other facts of interest are found in the Martyrdom, which follows in these pages. 
His death, in extreme old age under the first of the Antonines, has been variously dated ; but we 
may accept the date we have given, as rendered probable by that of the Paschal question, which 
he so lovingly settled with Anicetus, Bishop of Rome. 

The Epistle to the Philippians is the more interesting as denoting the state of that beloved 
church, the firstborn of European churches, and so greatly endeared to St. Paul. It abounds in 
practical wisdom, and is rich in Scripture and Scriptural allusions. It reflects the spirit of St. John, 
alike in its lamb-like and its aquiline features: he is as loving as the beloved disciple himself when 
he speaks of Christ and his church, but “ the son of thunder” is echoed in his rebukes of threat- 
ened corruptions in faith and morals. Nothing can be more clear than his view of the doctrines 
of grace; but he writes like the disciple of St. John, though in perfect harmony with St. Paul’s 
hymn-like eulogy of Christian love. 

The following is the original Inrropucrory NOTICE : — 


Tue authenticity of the following Epistle can on no fair grounds be questioned. It is abun- 
dantly established by external testimony, and is also supported by the internal evidence. Irenzeus 
says (Adv. Her., iii. 3) : “There is extant an Epistle of Polycarp written to the Philippians, 
most satisfactory, from which those that have a mind to do so may learn the character of his 

gt 


39 _ INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 





faith,” etc. This passage is embodied by Eusebius in his Zcclesiastical History (iv. 14) ; and in 
another place the same writer refers to the Epistle before us as an undoubted production of Poly- 
carp (Hist. Ecci,, iii. 36). Other ancient testimonies might easily be added, but are superfluous, 
inasmuch as there is a general consent among scholars at the present day that we have in this 
letter an authentic production of the renowned Bishop of Smyrna. 

Of Polycarp’s life little is known, but that little is highly interesting. Irenzeus was his disciple, 
and tells us that ‘“ Polycarp was instructed by the apostles, and was brought into contact with 
many who had seen Christ” (Adv. Her., iii. 3; Euseb. Hist. Eccl, iv. 14). There is also a very 
graphic account given of Polycarp by Irenzus in his Epistle to Florinus, to which the reader is 
referred. It has been preserved by Eusebius (/77s¢. Zccl., v. 20). 

The Epistle before us is not perfect in any of the Greek mss. which contain it. But the chap- 
ters wanting in Greek are contained in an ancient Latin version. While there is no ground for 
supposing, as some have done, that the whole Epistle is spurious, there seems considerable force 
in the arguments by which many others have sought to prove chap. xiii. to be an interpolation. 

The date of the Epistle cannot be satisfactorily determined. It depends on the conclusion 
we reach as to some points, very difficult and obscure, connected with that account of the martyr- 
dom of Polycarp which has come down to us. We shall not, however, probably be far wrong if 
we fix it about the middle of the second century. 


THE EPISTLE OF POLYCARP TO THE PHILIPPIANS.' 


Potycarp, and the presbyters? with him, to 
the Church of God sojourning at Philippi: 
Mercy to you, and peace from God Almighty, 
and from the Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour, be 
multiplied. 


CHAP. I, — PRAISE OF THE PHILIPPIANS, 


I have greatly rejoiced with you in our Lord 
Jesus Christ, because ye have followed the ex- 
ample 3 of true love [as displayed by God], and 
have accompanied, as became you, those who 
were bound in chains, the fitting ornaments of 
saints, and which are indeed the diadems of the 
true elect of God and our Lord; and because 
the strong root of your faith, spoken of in days * 
long gone by, endureth even until now, and 
bringeth forth fruit to our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
for our sins suffered even unto death, [but] 
“whom God raised from the dead, having loosed 
the bands of the grave.”5 ‘In whom, though 
now ye see Him not, ye believe, and believing, 
rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory ;”” © 
into which joy many desire to enter, knowing 
that “by grace ye are saved, not of works,” 7 
but by the will of God through Jesus Christ. 


CHAP. I1.—AN EXHORTATION TO VIRTUE, 


“Wherefore, girding up your loins,” ® “serve 
the Lord in fear” 9 and truth, as those who have 
forsaken the vain, empty talk and error of the 
multitude, and “ believed in Him who raised up 
our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and gave 
Him glory,” ° and a throne at His right hand. 
To Him all things *' in heaven and on earth are 
subject. Him every spirit serves. He comes 
as the Judge of the living and the dead.” His 





1 The title of this Epistle in most of the mss. is, ‘‘ The Epistle of 
St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, and holy martyr, to the Philippians.” 

2 Or, “ Polycarp, and these who with him are presbyters.” 

3 Literally, “‘ ye have received the patterns of true love.’ 

4 Phil. i. 5. 

5 Acts ii. evs Literally, ‘‘ having loosed the pains of Hades.” 

6 x Pet. i. 8. 

7 Eph. ii. 8, 9. ; 

8 Comp. 1 Pet. i. 13; Eph. vi. 14. 

9 Ps, il. 11. 

10 x Pet, i, a1. i 

11 Comp. r Pet. iii, 22; Phil. ii. 19. 

#4 Comp. Acts xvi. 37. 


blood will God require of those who do not be- 
lieve in Him.’ But He who raised Him up from 
the dead will raise ' up us also, if we do His will, 
and walk in His commandments, and love what 
He loved, keeping ourselves from all unright- 
eousness, covetousness, love of money, evil- 
speaking, falsewitness ; “‘ not rendering evil for 
evil, or railing for railing,” *5 or blow for blow, or 
cursing for cursing, but being mindful of what 
the Lord said in His teaching: “ Judge not, that 
ye be not judged ; *° forgive, and it shall be for- 
given unto you ;"7 be merciful, that ye may ob- 
tain mercy ;** with what measure ye mete, it shall 
be measured to you again;'? and once more, 
“ Blessed are the poor, and those that are perse- 
cuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the 
kingdom of God.” 7° 


CHAP. III.— EXPRESSIONS OF PERSONAL UNWORTHI- 
NESS. 


These things, brethren, I write to you con- 
cerning righteousness, not because I take any- 
thing upon myself, but because ye have invited 
me to doso. For neither I, nor any other such 
one, can come up to the wisdom ?? of the blessed 
and glorified Paul. He, when among you, ac- 
curately and stedfastly taught the word of truth 
in the presence of those who were then alive. 
And when absent from you, he wrote you a let- 
ter,?? which, if you carefully study, you will find 
to be the means of building you up in that faith 
which has been given you, and which, being 
followed by hope, and preceded by love towards 
God, and Christ, and our neighbour, “is the 
mother of us all.’ 23. For if any one be inwardly 





13 Or, “ who do not obey him.” = 

14 Comp. 1 Cor. vi. 14; 2 Cor. iv. 14; Rom, viii. 11. 

15 x Pet. ili. 9. 

16 Matt. vii. 1. ‘ 

17 Matt. vi. 12, 14; Luke vi. 37. 

18 Luke vi. 36. 

19 Matt, vii. 2; Luke vi. 38. 

20 Matt. v. 3, 10; Luke vi. 20. 

21 Comp. 2 Pet. iii. 15. 

22 The form is #/uraZ, but one Epistle is probably meant. '[So, 
even in English, “‘ letters” may be classically used for a single letter, as 
we say “ by these presents.” But even we might speak of St.: Paul 
as having written his Epistles ¢o «s, so, the Epistles to. Thessalonica 
and Corinth might more naturally still be referred to here]. 

23 Comp, Gal. iv. 26. 

33 


34 


THE EPISTLE OF POLYCARP. 





possessed of these graces, he hath fulfilled the 
command of righteousness, since he that hath 
love is far from all sin. 


CHAP. IV. — VARIOUS EXHORTATIONS. 


“But the love of money is the root of all 
evils.” ! Knowing, therefore, that “as we brought 
nothing into the world, so we can carry nothing 
out,” ? let us arm ourselves with the armour of 
righteousness ; 3 and let us teach, first of all, our- 
selves to walk in the commandments of the Lord. 
Next, [teach] your wives [to walk] in the faith 
given to them, and in love and purity tenderly 
loving their own husbands in all truth, and loving 
all [others] equally in all chastity ; and to train 
up their children in the knowledge and fear of 
God. Teach the widows to be discreet as re- 
spects the faith of the Lord, praying continually 4 
for all, being far from all slandering, evil-speak- 
ing, false-witnessing, love of money, and every 
kind of evil; knowing that they are the altar 5 
of God, that He clearly perceives all things, and 
that nothing is hid from Him, neither reasonings, 
nor reflections, nor any one of the secret things 
of the heart. 


CHAP. V. — THE DUTIES OF DEACONS, YOUTHS, AND 
VIRGINS. 


Knowing, then, that ““God is not mocked,” ® 
we ought to walk worthy of His commandment 
and glory. In like manner should the deacons 
be blameless before the face of His righteous- 
ness, as being the servants of God and Christ,” 
and not of men. They must not be slanderers, 
double-tongued,® or lovers of money, but tem- 
perate in all things, compassionate, industrious, 
walking according to the truth of the Lord, who 
was the servant? of all. If we please Him in 
this present world, we shall receive also the future 
world, according as He has promised to us that 
He will raise us again from the dead, and that 
if we live '° worthily of Him, “ we shall also reign 
together with Him,” *' provided only we believe. 
In like manner, let the young men also be blame- 
less in all things, being especially careful to pre- 
serve purity, and keeping themselves in, as with 
a bridle, from every kind of evil. For it is well 
that they should be cut off from ” the lusts that 
are in the world, since “every lust warreth against 
the spirit ;”*3 and “neither fornicators, nor ef- 





1 x Tim. vi, 10. 

2 x Tim. vi. 7. 

3 Comp. Eph. vi. rr. 

4 Comp. x Thess. v. 17. 

5 Some here read, “ altars.” 

© Gal. vi. 7. 

7 Some read, “ God in Christ.” 

8 Comp. 1 Tim. iii, 8. 

9 Comp. Matt. xx. 28. 

10 TloAtrevowmeda, referring to the whole conduct; comp. Phil. i. 27. 

II 2 Tim. ii. 12. 

12 Some read, avaxvmrecdat, “ to emerge from.” [So Chevallier 
bat met oo nor Jacobson. See the neat latter, ae les.] d 

i Pet, u. tx. : 


feminate, nor abusers of themselves with man- 
kind, shall inherit the kingdom of God,” nor 
those who do things inconsistent and unbecom- 
ing. Wherefore, it is needful to abstain from all 
these things, being subject to the presbyters and 
deacons, as unto God and Christ. The virgins 
also must walk in a blameless and pure con- 
science. / 


CHAP. VI.—THE DUTIES OF PRESBYTERS AND 


OTHERS. 


And let the presbyters be compassionate and 
merciful to all, bringing back those that wander, 
visiting all the sick, and not neglecting the widow, 
the orphan, or the poor, but always “ providing 
for that which is becoming in the sight of God and 
man ;’’'5 abstaining from all wrath, respect of per- 
sons, and unjust judgment ; keeping far off from 
all covetousness, not quickly crediting [an evil re- 
port] against any one, not severe in judgment, as 
knowing that we are all under a debt of sin. If 
then we entreat the Lord to forgive us, we ought 
also ourselves to forgive ; ‘© for we are before the 
eyes of our Lord and God, and “we must all 
appear at the judgment-seat of Christ, and must 
every one give an account of himself.” '7 Let us 
then serve Him in fear, and with all reverence, 
even as He Himself has commanded us, and as 
the apostles who preached the Gospel unto us, 
and the prophets who proclaimed beforehand 
the coming of the Lord [have alike taught us]. 
Let us be zealous in the pursuit of that which is 
good, keeping ourselves from causes of offence, 
from false brethren, and from those who in hy- 
pocrisy bear the name of the Lord, and draw 
away vain men into error. 


CHAP. VII.— AVOID THE DOCET/, AND PERSEVERE 
IN FASTING AND PRAYER. 


“‘For whosoever does not confess that Jesus 
Christ has come in the flesh, is antichrist ;””** and 
whosoever does not confess the testimony of the 
cross,’? is of the devil; and whosoever perverts 
the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts, and 
says that there is neither a resurrection nor a 
judgment, he is the first-born of Satan.2? Where- 
fore, forsaking the vanity of many, and their 
false doctrines, let us return to the word which 
has been handed down to us from?" the begin- 
ning ; “watching unto prayer,” 2? and persever- 
ing in fasting; beseeching in our supplications 
the all-seeing God “not to lead us into tempta- 





14 + Cor. vi. 9, 10. 

1S Rom. xii. 17; 2 Cor. viii. 31. 

16 Matt. vi. 12-14. 

17 Rom. xiv. 10-12; 2 Cor. v. 10. 

18 ; John iv. 3. : 

‘9 Literally, “the martyrdom of the cross,” which some render, 
“‘ His suffering on the cross.” ; 

20 [The original, perhaps, of Eusebius (7st. iv. cap. 14). It be 
came a common-place expression in the Church. ] ee 

21 Comp. Jude 3. 

eee bt aves 


THE EPISTLE OF POLYCARP. 





tion,””" as the Lord has said: “The spirit truly 
is willing, but the flesh is weak.’’? 


CHAP. VIII. — PERSEVERE IN HOPE AND PATIENCE. 


Let us then continually persevere in our hope, 
and the earnest of our righteousness, which. is 
Jesus Christ, “who bore our sins in His own 
body on the tree,” 3 “who did no sin, neither 
was guile found in His mouth,”’4 but endured 
all things for us, that we might live in Him.S 
Let us then be imitators of His patience; and 
if we suffer® for His name’s sake, let us glorify 
Him.” For He has set us this example ® in Him- 
self, and we have believed that such is the case. 


CHAP. IX. — PATIENCE INCULCATED. 


I exhort you all, therefore, to yield obedience 
to the word of righteousness, and to exercise all 
patience, such as ye have seen [set] before your 
eyes, not only in the case of the blessed Igna- 
tius, and Zosimus, and Rufus, but also in others 
among yourselves, and in Paul himself, and the 
rest of the apostles. [This do] in the assurance 
that all these have not run® in vain, but in faith 
and righteousness, and that they are [now] in 
their due place in the presence of the Lord, 
with whom also they suffered. For they loved 
not this present world, but Him who died for 
us, and for our sakes was raised again by God 
from the dead. 


CHAP. X.—EXHORTATION TO THE PRACTICE OF 


VIRTUE.”° 


Stand fast, therefore, in these things, and fol- 
low the example of the Lord, being firm and 
unchangeable in the faith, loving the brother- 
hood," and being attached to one another, joined 
together in the truth, exhibiting the meekness of 
the Lord in your intercourse with one another, 
and despising no one. When you can do good, 
defer it not, because “alms delivers from 
death.” *? Be all of you subject one to another," 
having your conduct blameless among the Gen- 
tiles,” '¢ that ye may both receive praise for your 
good works, and the Lord may not be blas- 
phemed through you. But woe to him by whom 
the name of the Lord is blasphemed !*5_ Teach, 
therefore, sobriety to all, and manifest it also in 
your own conduct. 





I Matt. vi. 13, xxvi. 41, 

2 Matt. xxvi. 41; Mark xiv. 38. 

3 x Pet. ii. 24. 

4 x Pet. ii. 22. 

$3 Comp. x John iv. 9g. $ 

6 Comp. Acts vy. 41; 1 Pet. iv. 16. 

7 Some read, “‘ we glorify Him.” 

8 Comp. 1 Pet. ii. 21. 

9 Comp. Phil. ii. 16; Gal. ii, 2. é 

10 This and the two following chapters are preserved only in a 
Latin version. [See Jacobson, ad ee.) 

11 Comp. 1 Pet. ii. 17. 

12 Tobit iv. 10, xii. 9. 

13 Comp. x Pet. v. 5. 

14 x Pet. ii. 12. 

15 Isa. lil. 5. 











35 


CHAP. XI. —- EXPRESSION OF GRIEF ON ACCOUNT OF 
VALENS. 


I am greatly grieved for Valens, who was once 
a presbyter among you, because he so little un- 
derstands the place that was given him [in the 
Church]. I exhort you, therefore, that ye ab- 
stain from covetousness,’® and that ye be chaste 
and truthful. “Abstain from every form of 
evil.” '7_ For if a man cannot govern himself in 
such matters, how shall he enjoin them on 
others? If a man does not keep himself from 
covetousness,’® he shall be defiled by idolatry, 
and shall be judged as one of the heathen. 
But who of us are ignorant of the judgment of 
the Lord? “Do we not know that the saints 
shall judge the world?” ** as Paul teaches. But 
I have neither seen nor heard of any such thing 
among you, in the midst of whom the blessed 
Paul laboured, and who are commended *9 in the 
beginning of his Epistle. For he boasts of you 
in all those Churches which alone then knew the 
Lord ; but we [of Smyrna] had not yet known 
Him. Iam deeply grieved, therefore, brethren, 
for him (Valens) and his wife; to whom may 
the Lord grant true repentance! And be ye 
then moderate in regard to this matter, and “do 
not count such as enemies,”?° but call them 
back as suffering and straying members, that ye 
may save your whole body. For by so acting 
ye shall edify yourselves." 





CHAP. XII. — EXHORTATION TO VARIOUS GRACES, 


For I trust that ye are well versed in the 
Sacred Scriptures, and that nothing is hid from 
you ; but to me this privilege is not yet granted.” 
It is declared then in these Scriptures, “Be ye 
angry, and sin not,” ?3 and, “ Let not the sun go 
down upon your wrath.”?4 Happy is he who 
remembers ?5 this, which I believe to be the case 
with you. But may the God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ Himself, 
who is the Son of God, and our everlasting 
High Priest, build you up in faith and truth, and 
in all meekness, gentleness, patience, long-suf- 
fering, forbearance, and purity; and may He 
bestow on you a lot and portion among His 
saints, and on us with you, and on all that are 
under heaven, who shall believe in our Lord 





16 Some think that zzcontinence on the Na of Valens and his 
wife is referred to. [For many reasons I am glad the translators have 
preferred the reading wAcovedias. The next word, chaste, sufficiently 
rebukes the example of Valens. For once I venture not to coincide 
with Jacobson’s comment. ] 

17 x Thess. v. 22. 

18 x Cor. vi. 2. ea 

19 Some read, ‘‘ named; ” comp. Phil. i. 5. 

20 2 Thess, iil. 15. 

21 Comp. 1 Cor. xii. 26. : , 

22 This passage is very obscure. Some render it as follows: “ But 
at present it is not granted unto me to practise that which is writter, 
Be ye angry,” etc. 

23 Ps. iv. 5. 

24 Eph, iv. 26, : 

28 Seme read, “ believes.” 


Jesus Christ, and in His Father, who “raised 
Him from the dead.' Pray for all the saints. 
Pray also for kings,? and potentates, and princes, 
and for those that persecute and hate you,3 and 
for the enemies of the cross, that your fruit may 
be manifest to all, and that ye may be perfect in 
Him. 


CHAP, XIII.— CONCERNING THE TRANSMISSION 
EPISTLES. 


Both you and Ignatius* wrote to me, that if 
any one went [from this] into Syria, he should 
carry your letter5 with him; which request I 
will attend to if I find a fitting opportunity, 
either personally, or through some other acting 
for me, that your desire may be fulfilled. The 
Epistles of Ignatius written by him® to us, and 
all the rest [of his Epistles] which we have by 
us, we have sent to you, as you requested. They 


OF 


I Gal. i. x. 

2 Comp. 1 Tim. ii. 2. 

3 Matt. v. 44. 

4 Comp. Ep. of Ignatius to Polycarp, chap. viii. 

5 Or, “letters.” 

6 Reference is here made to the two letters of Ignatius, one to 
Polycarp himself, and the other to the church at Smyrna. 






THE ‘EPISTLE? OF 7POLYCART. 





are subjoined to this Epistle, and by them ye 
may be greatly profited ; for they treat of faith 
and patience, and all things that tend to edifica- 
tion in our Lord. Any? more certain infor- 
mation you may have obtained respecting both 
Ignatius himself, and those that were® with him, 
have the goodness to make known ® to us, 


CHAP. XIV. — CONCLUSION. 


These things I have written to you by Cres- 
cens, whom up to the present ’® time I have 
recommended unto you, and do now recom- 
mend. For he has acted blamelessly among us, 
and I believe also among you. Moreover, ye 
will hold his sister in esteem when she comes 
to you. Be ye safe in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Grace be with you all.** Amen. 


7 Henceforth, to the end, we have only the Latin version. ‘ 
‘; 8 The Latin version reads ‘‘ are,” which has been corrected as 
above. 

9 Polycarp was aware of the death of Ignatius (chap. ix.), but 
was as yet Epparcety ignorant of the circumstances attending it. 
[Who can fail to be touched by these affectionate yet entirely calm 
expressions as to his martyred friend and brother? Martyrdom was 
the habitual end of Christ’s soldiers, and Polycarp ex ss | his own; 
hence his restrained and temperate words of interest. 

Io Some read, ‘‘ in this present Epistle.” 

II Others read, “‘ and in favour with all yours.” 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


TO THE 


EPISTLE CONCERNING THE MARTYRDOM OF POLYCARP. ~ 


INTERNAL evidence goes far to establish the credit which Eusebius lends to this specimen of the 
martyrologies, certainly not the earliest if we accept that of Ignatius as genuine. As an encycli- 
cal of one of “ the seven churches” to another of the same Seven, and as bearing witness to their 
aggregation with others into the unity of “the Holy and Catholic Church,” it is a very interesting 
witness, not only to an article of the creed, but to the original meaning and acceptation of the 
same. More than this, it is evidence of the strength of Christ perfected in human weakness ; and 
thus it affords us an assurance of grace equal to our day in every time of need. When I see in 
it, however, an example of what a noble army of martyrs, women and children included, suffered 
in those days “for the testimony of Jesus,” and in order to hand down the knowledge of the 
Gospel to these boastful ages of our own, I confess myself edified by what I read, chiefly because 
I am humbled and abashed in comparing what a Christian used to be, with what a Christian is, in 
our times, even at his best estate. 

That this Epistle has been interpolated can hardly be doubted, when we compare it with the 
unvarnished specimen, in Eusebius. As for the “fragrant smell” that came from the fire, many 
kinds of wood emit the like in burning; and, apart from Oriental warmth of colouring, there 
seems nothing incredible in the narrative if we except “ the dove” (chap. xvi.), which, however, 
is probably a corrupt reading,’ as suggested by our translators. The blade was thrust into the 
martyr’s 4ft side; and this, opening the heart, caused the outpouring of a flood, and not a mere 
trickling. But, though Greek thus amended is a plausible conjecture, there seems to have been 
nothing of the kind in the copy quoted by Eusebius. On the other hand, note the truly catholic 
and scriptural testimony: “We love the martyrs, but the Son of God we worship: it is impossi- 
ble for us to worship any other.” 

Bishop Jacobson assigns more than fifty pages to this martyrology, with a Latin version and 
abundant notes. To these I must refer the student, who may wish to see this attractive history in 
all the light of critical scholarship and, often, of admirable comment. 

The following is the original Inrropuctory NOTICE : — 


Tur following letter purports to have been written by the Church at Smyrna to the Church at 
Philomelium, and through that Church to the whole Christian world, in order to give a succinct 
account of the circumstances attending the martyrdom of Polycarp. It is the earliest of all the 
Martyria, and has generally been accounted both the most interesting and authentic. Not a few, 
however, deem it interpolated in several passages, and some refer it to a much later date than the 











£ See an ingenious conjecture in Bishop Wordsworth’s Hipfolytus and the Church of Rome, p. 318, C. 
37 


38 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 





middle of the second century, to which it has been commonly ascribed. We cannot tell how 
much it may owe to the writers (chap. xxii.) who successively transcribed it. Great part of it 
has been engrossed by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History (iv. 15) ; and it is instructive to 
observe, that some of the most startling miraculous phenomena recorded in the text as it now 
stands, have no place in the narrative as given by that early historian of the Church. Much 
discussion has arisen respecting several particulars contained in this Martyrium ; but into these 
disputes we do not enter, having it for our aim simply to present the reader with as faithful a 
translation as possible of this very interesting monument of Christian antiquity. 


THE ENCYCLICAL EPISTLE OF THE CHURCH AT SMYRNA 


CONCERNING THE MARTYRDOM OF THE HOLY POLYCARP., 





Tue Church of God which sojourns at Smyrna, 
to the Church of God sojourning in Philome- 
lium,’ and to all the congregations? of the Holy 
and Catholic Church in every place: Mercy, 
peace, and love from God the Father, and our 
Lord Jesus Christ, be multiplied. 


CHAP. I. —SUBJECT OF WHICH WE WRITE. 


We have written to you, brethren, as to what 
relates to the martyrs, and especially to the 
blessed Polycarp, who put an end to the perse- 
cution, having, as it were, set a seal upon it by 
his martyrdom. For almost all the events that 
happened previously [to this one], took place 
that the Lord might show us from above a mar- 
tyrdom becoming the Gospel. For he waited 
to be delivered up, even as the Lord had done, 
that we also might become his followers, while 
we look not merely at what concerns ourselves, 
- but have regard also to our neighbours. © For it 
is the part of a true and well-founded love, not 
only to wish one’s self to be saved, but also all 
the brethren. 


CHAP. II].— THE WONDERFUL CONSTANCY OF THE 
MARTYRS. 


All the martyrdoms, then, were blessed and 
noble which took place according to the will of 
God. For it becomes us who profess} greater 
piety than others, to ascribe the authority over 
all things to God. And truly, who can fail to 
admire their nobleness of mind, and their pa- 
tience, with that lové towards their Lord which 
they displayed ?— who, when they were so torn 
with scourges, that the frame of their bodies, 
even to the very inward veins and arteries, was 
laid open, still patiently endured, while even 





pte 

I Some read, ‘‘ Philadelphia,” but on inferior authority. \ Philome-, 
lium was a city of Phrygia. 

2 The word in the original is repouxiats, from which the English 
“‘ parishes ” is derived. « 

3 Literally, “‘ who are more pious.” : 

4 The account now returns to the illustration of the statement 
made in the first sentence. 





those that stood by pitied and bewailed them. 
But they reached such a pitch of magnanimity, 
that not one of them let a sigh or a groan escape 
them; thus proving to us all that those holy 
martyrs of Christ, at the very time when they 
suffered such torments, were absent from the 
body, or rather, that the Lord then stood by 
them, and communed with them. And, looking 
to the grace of Christ, they despised all the tor- 
ments of this world, redeeming themselves from 
eternal punishment by [the suffering of] a single 
hour. For this reason the fire of their savage 
executioners appeared cool to them. For they 
kept before their view escape from that fire 
which is eternal and never shall be quenched, 
and looked forward with the eyes of their heart 
to those good things which are laid up for such 
as endure ; things “ which ear hath not heard, 
nor eye seen, neither have entered into the 
heart of man,’’5 but were revealed by the Lord 
to them, inasmuch as they were no longer men, 
but had already become angels. And, in like 
manner, those who were condemned to the wild 
beasts endured dreadful tortures, being stretched 
out upon beds full of spikes, and subjected to 
various other kinds of torments, in order that, 
if it were possible, the tyrant might, by their 
lingering tortures, lead them to a denial [of 
Christ]. 


CHAP. II]. — THE CONSTANCY OF GERMANICUS. 
THE DEATH OF POLYCARP IS DEMANDED. 


For the devil did indeed invent many things 
against them; but thanks be to God, he could 
not prevail over all. For the most noble Ger- 
manicus strengthened the timidity of others by 
his own patience, and fought heroically® with 
the wild beasts. For, when, the proconsul 
sought to persuade him, and urged him”. to 





Sz Cor. ii. 9. . 
6 Or, “ illustriously.” 
7 Or, “ said to him.” 


39 


40 


THE MARTYRDOM OF POLYCARP. 


ee ea er ea ERT) i ne ree 


take pity upon his age, he attracted the wild 
beast towards himself, and provoked it, being 
desirous to escape all the more quickly from an 
unrighteous and impious world. But upon this 
the whole multitude, marvelling at the nobility 
of mind displayed by the devout and godly 
race of Christians,’ cried out, “ Away with the 
Atheists ; let Polycarp be sought out!” 


CHAP. IV.— QUINTUS THE APOSTATE. 


Now one named Quintus, a Phrygian, who 
was but lately come from Phrygia, when he 
saw the wild beasts, became afraid. This was 
the man who forced himself and some others 
to come forward voluntarily [for trial]. Him 
the proconsul, after many entreaties, persuaded 
to swear and to offer sacrifice. Wherefore, 
brethren, we do not commend those who give 
themselves up [to suffering], seeing the Gospel 
does not teach so to do.? 


CHAP. V.—THE DEPARTURE AND VISION OF 
POLYCARP. 


But the most admirable Polycarp, when he 
first heard [that he was sought for], was in no 
measure disturbed, but resolved to continue in 
the city. However, in deference to the wish of 
many, he was persuaded to leave it. He de- 
parted, therefore, to a country house not far dis- 
tant from the city. There he stayed with a few 
[friends], engaged in nothing else night and 
day than praying for all men, and for the 
Churches throughout the world, according to his 
usual custom. And while he was praying, a vis- 
ion presented itself to him three days before he 
was taken; and, behold, the pillow under his 
head seemed to him on fire. Upon this, turn- 
ing to those that were with him, he said to them 
prophetically, “I must be burnt alive.” 


CHAP. VI. — POLYCARP IS BETRAYED BY A SER- 
VANT. 


And when those who sought for him were at 
hand, he departed to another dwelling, whither 
his pursuers immediately came after him. And 
when they found him not, they seized upon two 
youths [that were there], one of whom, being 
subjected to torture, confessed. It was thus 
impossible that he should continue hid, since 
those that betrayed him were of his own house- 
hold. The Irenarch’ then (whose office is the 
same as that of the Cleronomus‘), by name 
Herod, hastened to bring him into the stadium. 
[This all happened] that he might fulfil his 





1 Literally, ‘the nobleness of the God-loving and God-fearing 
race of Christians.” 

2 Comp. Matt. x. 23. 

3 It was the duty of the Irenarch to apprehend all seditious 
troublers of the — peace, 

4 Some think that those magistrates bore this name that were 
elected by lot. 








special lot, being made a partaker of Christ, 
and that they who betrayed him might undergo 
the punishment of Judas himself. 


CHAP. VII. — POLYCARP IS FOUND BY HIS PURSUERS. 


His pursuers then, along with horsemen, and 
taking the youth with them, went forth at sup- 
per-time on the day of the preparation,’ with 
their usual weapons, as if going out against a 
robber.©. And being come about evening [to 
the place where he was], they found him lying 
down in the upper room of? a certain little 
house, from which he might have escaped into 
another place; but he refused, saying, “ The 
will of God® be done.”9 So when he heard 
that they were come, he went down and spake 
with them. And as those that were present 
marvelled at his age and constancy, some of 
them said, “ Was so much effort '° made to cap- 
ture such a venerable man?”*! Immediately 
then, in that very hour, he ordered that some- 
thing to eat and drink should be set before 
them, as much indeed as they cared for, while 
he besought them to allow him an hour to pray 
without disturbance. And on their giving him 
leave, he stood and prayed, being full of the 
grace of God, so that he could not cease ® for 
two full hours, to the astonishment of them that 
heard him, insomuch that many began to repent 
that they had come forth against so godly and 
venerable an old man. 


CHAP. VIII.— POLYCARP IS BROUGHT INTO THE 
CITY. 


Now, as soon as he had ceased praying, hav- 
ing made mention of all that had at any time 
come in contact with him, both small and great, 
illustrious and obscure, as well as the whole Cath- 
olic Church throughout the world, the time of his 
departure having arrived, they set him upon an 
ass, and conducted him into the city, the day 
being that of the great Sabbath. And the Iren- 
arch Herod, accompanied by his father Nicetes 
(both riding in a chariot 3), met him, and taking 
him up into the chariot, they seated themselves 
beside him, and endeavoured to persuade him, 
saying, “ What harm is there in saying, Lord 
Ceesar,"4 and in sacrificing, with the other cere- 
monies observed on such occasions, and so make 
sure of safety?” But he at first gave them no 
answer ; and when they continued to urge him, 


5 That is, on Friday. 

© Comp. Matt. xxvi. 55. 

7 Or, “in” 

8 Some read “ the Lord.” 

9 Comp. Matt vi. 10; Acts xxi. 14. 

to Or, “ diligence.” 

. tt Jacobson reads, “and [marvelling] that they had used so great 

diligence to capture,” etc. 

12 Or, ‘‘ be silent.” 

13 Jacobson deems these words an interpolation. 

™% Or, “Cesar is Lord,” all the Mss. having «vpvos instead of 
xvpté, as usually printed. 4 


THE MARTYRDOM OF POLYCARP. 


Al 


SSeS 


he said, “I shall not do as you advise me.” So 
they, having no hope of persuading him, began 
to speak bitter’ words unto him, and cast him 
with violence out of the chariot,? insomuch that, 
in getting down from the carriage, he dislocated 
his leg3 [by the fall]. But without being dis- 
turbed,* and as if suffering nothing, he went 
eagerly forward with all haste, and was conducted 
to the stadium, where the tumult was so great, 
that there was no possibility of being heard. 


-CHAP. IX.— POLYCARP REFUSES TO REVILE CHRIST, 


Now, as Polycarp was entering into the sta- 
dium, there came to him a voice from heaven, 
saying, “Be strong, and show thyself a man, O 
Polycarp!’’ No one saw who it was that spoke 
to him; but those of our brethren who were 
present heard the voice. And as he was brought 
forward, the tumult became great when they 
heard that Polycarp was taken. And when he 
came near, the proconsul asked him whether 
he was Polycarp. On his confessing that he was, 
bas proconsul] sought to persuade him to deny 

Christ], saying, “ Have respect to thy old age,” 
and other similar things, according to their cus- 
tom, [such as], “Swear by the fortune of Cesar ; 
repent, and say, Away with the Atheists.” But 
Polycarp, gazing with a stern countenance on all 
the multitude of the wicked heathen then in the 
stadium, and waving his hand towards them, 
while with groans he looked up to heaven, said, 
“« Away with the Atheists.”5 Then, the procon- 
sul urging him, and saying, “Swear, and I will 
set thee at liberty, reproach Christ ;” Polycarp 
declared, “ Eighty and six years have I served 
Him, and He never did me any injury: how then 
can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?” 


CHAP. X. — POLYCARP CONFESSES HIMSELF A CHRIS- 
TIAN. 


And when the proconsul yet again pressed 
him, and said, “ Swear by the fortune of Cesar,”’ 
he answered, ‘‘ Since thou art vainly urgent that, 
as thou sayest, I should swear by the fortune of 
Ceesar, and pretendest not to know who and 
what I am, hear me declare with boldness, I am 
a Christian. And if you wish to learn what the 
doctrines © of Christianity are, appoint me a day, 
and thou shalt hear them.”” The proconsul re- 
plied, “ Persuade the people.” But Polycarp 
said, “To thee I have thought it right to offer 
an account [of my faith] ; for we are taught to 
give all due honour (which entails no injury upon 
ourselves) to the powers and authorities which 
eens eee 


1 Or, “‘ terrible.” 

2 Or, “cast him down” 
above, an interpolation. 

3 Or, “‘ sprained his ankle.” 

4 Or, “ not turning back.” a. 

5 Referring the words to the heathen, and not to the Christians, 
as was desired. ; MES <* 

6 Or, “‘ an account of Christianity. 


simply, the following words being, as 








are ordained of God.7 But as for these, I do 
not deem them worthy of receiving any account 
from me.” 8 


CHAP, XI.—NO THREATS HAVE ANY 
POLYCARP. 


The proconsul then said to him, “I have wild 
beasts at hand ; to these will I cast thee, except 
thou repent.” But he answered, “Call them 
then, for we are not accustomed to repent of 
what is good in order to adopt that which is 
evil ;9 and it is well for me to be changed from 
what is evil to what is righteous.”?° But again 
the proconsul said to him, “I will cause thee to 
be consumed by fire, seeing thou despisest the 
wild beasts, if thou wilt not repent.” But Poly- 
carp said, “Thou threatenest me with fire which 
burneth for an hour, and after a little is extin- 
guished, but art ignorant of the fire of the 
coming judgment and of eternal punishment, 
reserved for the ungodly. But why tarriest 
thou? Bring forth what thou wilt.” 


EFFECT ON 


CHAP. XII. — POLYCARP IS SENTENCED TO BE 
BURNED. } 


While he spoke these and many other like 
things, he was filled with confidence and joy, 
and his countenance was full of grace, so that 
not merely did it not fall as if troubled by the 
things said to him, but, on the contrary, the 
proconsul was astonished, and sent his herald 
to proclaim in the midst of the stadium thrice, 
“ Polycarp has confessed that he is a Christian.” 
This proclamation having been made by the 
herald, the whole multitude both of the heathen 
and Jews, who dwelt at Smyrna, cried out with 
uncontrollable fury, and in a loud voice, “ This 
is the teacher of Asia,™! the father of the Chris- 
tians, and the overthrower of our gods, he who 
has been teaching many not to sacrifice, or to 
worship the gods.” Speaking thus, they cried 
out, and besought Philip the Asiarch* to let 
loose a lion upon Polycarp. But Philip answered 
that it was not lawful for him to do so, seeing 
the shows *3 of wild beasts were already finished. 
Then it seemed good to them to cry out with 
one consent, that Polycarp should be burnt 
alive. For thus it behooved the vision which 
was revealed to him in regard to his pillow to be 
fulfilled, when, seeing it on fire as he was pray- 
ing, he turned about and said prophetically to 
the faithful that were with him, “I must be burnt 
alive.” 





7 Comp. Rom, xiii. 1-7; Tit. iii, 1. 

8 Or, “of my making any defence to them.” ‘ ; 

9 Literally, ‘‘ repentance from things better to things worse is a 
change impossible to us.” 

10 ‘That is, to leave this world for a better. 

11 Some read, ‘“‘ungodliness,” but the above seems preferable. 

12 The Asiarchs were those who superintended all arrangements 
connected with the games in the several provinces. 

13 Literally, ‘‘ the baiting of dogs.” 


42 


CHAP. XIN.—THE FUNERAL PILE IS ERECTED. 


This, then, was carried into effect with greater 
speed than it was spoken, the multitudes imme- 
diately gathering together wood and fagots out 
of the shops and baths; the Jews especially, 
according to custom, eagerly assisting them in it. 
~ And when the funeral pile was ready, Polycarp, 
laying aside all his garments, and loosing his 
girdle, sought also to take off his sandals, —a 
thing he was not accustomed to do, inasmuch 
as every one of the faithful was always eager 
who should first touch his skin. For, on ac- 
count of his holy life, he was, even before his 
martyrdom, adorned? with every kind of good. 
Immediately then they surrounded him with 
those substances which had been prepared for 
the funeral pile. But when they were about also 
to fix him with nails, he said, “ Leave me as I 
am ; for He that giveth me strength to endure 
the fire, will also enable me, without your secur- 
ing me by nails, to remain without moving in 
the pile.” 


CHAP. XIV. —- THE PRAYER OF POLYCARP, 


They did not nail him then, but simply bound 
him. And he, placing his hands behind him, 
and being bound like a distinguished ram 
_ [taken] out of a great flock for sacrifice, and 
prepared to be an acceptable burnt-offering unto 
God, looked up to heaven, and said, “O Lord 
God Almighty, the Father of thy beloved and 
blessed Son Jesus Christ, by whom we have re- 
ceived the knowledge of Thee, the God of angels 
and powers, and of every creature, and of the 
whole race of the righteous who live before thee, 
I give Thee thanks that Thou hast counted me 
worthy of this day and this hour, that I should 
have a part in the number of Thy martyrs, in 
the cup3 of thy Christ, to the resurrection of 
eternal life, both of soul and body, through the 
incorruption [imparted] by the Holy Ghost. 
Among whom may I be accepted this day before 
Thee as a fat+ and acceptable sacrifice, accord- 
ing as Thou, the ever-truthful5 God, hast fore- 
ordained, hast revealed beforehand to me, and 
now hast fulfilled. Wherefore also I praise Thee 
for all things, I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, along 
with the everlasting and heavenly Jesus Christ, 
Thy beloved Son, with whom, to Thee, and the 
Holy Ghost, be glory both now and to all com- 
ing ages. Amen.’’® 





t Literally, ‘‘ good behaviour.” 

2 Some think this implies that Polycarp’s skin was believed to 
possess a miraculous efficacy. 

3 Comp. Matt. xx. 22, xxvi. 39; Mark x. 38. 

4 Literally, ‘‘in a fat,” etc., Es “ina rich”), 

5 Literally, ‘“‘ the not false and true God.” 

6 Eusebius (Ast. Eccé., iv. 15) has preserved a great portion 
of this Martyrium, but in a text considerabl differing from_that 
a have followed. “Here, instead of ‘‘ and,” he has “in the Holy 

ost. 











THE MARTYRDOM OF POLYCARP. 





CHAP. XV.—POLYCARP IS NOT INJURED BY THE 
FIRE. 


When he had pronounced this amen, and so 
finished his prayer, those who were appointed 
for the purpose kindled the fire. And as the 
flame blazed forth’in great fury,”7 we, to whom it 
was given to witness it, beheld a great miracle, 
and have been preserved that we might report 
to others what then took place. For. the fire, 
shaping itself into the form of an arch, like the 
sail of a ship when filled with the wind, encom- 
passed as by a circle the body of the martyr. 
And he appeared within not like flesh which is 
burnt, but as bread that is baked, or as gold and 
silver glowing in a furnace. Moreover, we per- 
ceived such a sweet odour [coming from the 
pile], as if frankincense or some such precious 
spices had been smoking ® there. 


CHAP. XVI. — POLYCARP IS PIERCED BY A DAGGER, 


At length, when those wicked men perceived 
that his body could not be consumed by the 
fire, they commanded an executioner to go near 
and pierce him through with a dagger. And on 
his doing this, there came forth a dove,? and a 
great quantity of blood, so that the fire was ex- 
tinguished ; and all the people wondered that 
there should be such a difference between the 
unbelievers and the elect, of whom this most 
admirable Polycarp was one, having in our own 
times been an apostolic and prophetic teacher, 
and bishop of the Catholic Church which is in 
Smyma. For every word that went out of his 
mouth either has been or shall yet be accom- 
plished. 


CHAP, XVII. — THE CHRISTIANS ARE REFUSED POLY- 
CARP’S. BODY. 


But when the adversary of the race of the 
righteous, the envious, malicious, and wicked one, 
perceived the impressive '° nature of his martyr- 
dom, and [considered] the blameless life he had 
led from the beginning, and how he was now 
crowned with the wreath of immortality, having 
beyond dispute received his reward, he did his 
utmost that not the least memorial of him should 
be taken away by us, although many desired to 
do this, and to become possessors '! of his holy 
flesh. For this end he suggested it to Nicetes, 
the father of Herod and brother of Alce, to go 
and entreat the governor not to give up his body 
to be buried, “lest,” said he, “ forsaking Him 





~ 


7 Literally, “a great flame shining forth.” 

8 Literally, ‘ breathing.” ‘ 

9 Eusebius omits all mention of the dove, and many have thought 
the text to be here corrupt. It has been proposed to read én’ apice 
tepa, ‘on the left hand side,” instead of mepigtepa, ‘a dove.” 

10 Literally, ‘‘ greatness.” 


11 The Greek, literally translated, is, ‘‘ and to ha i 
hie boi one ly is, = ve fellowship with 


THE MARTYRDOM OF POLYCARP. 


43 


oc aa re ae ae 


that was crucified, they begin to worship this 
one.” This he said at the suggestion and ur- 
gent persuasion of the Jews, who also watched 
us, as we sought to take him out of the fire, be- 
ing ignorant of this, that it is neither possible for 
us ever to forsake Christ, who suffered for the 
salvation of such as shall be saved throughout 
the whole world (the blameless one for sinners '), 
nor to worship any other. For Him indeed, as 
being the Son of God, we adore ; but the mar- 
tyrs, as disciples and followers of the Lord, we 
worthily love on account of their extraordinary ? 
affection towards their own King and Master, of 
whom may we also be made companions; and 
fellow-disciples ! 


CHAP. XVIII.— THE BODY OF POLYCARP IS BURNED. 


The centurion then, seeing the strife excited 
by the Jews, placed the body+ in the midst of 
the fire, and consumed it. Accordingly, we 
afterwards took up his bones, as being more 
precious than the most exquisite jewels, and 
more purified 5 than gold, and deposited them in 
a fitting place, whither, being gathered together, 
_ as opportunity is allowed us, with joy and rejoi- 
cing, the Lord shall grant us to celebrate the 
anniversary ° of his martyrdom, both in memory 
of those who have already finished their course,” 
and for the exercising and preparation of those 
yet to walk in their steps. 


CHAP. XIX. — PRAISE OF THE MARTYR POLYCARP. 


This, then, is the account of the blessed Poly- 
carp, who, being the twelfth that was martyred 
in Smyrna (reckoning those also of Philadel- 
phia), yet occupies a place of his own® in the 
memory of all men, insomuch that he is every- 
where spoken of by the heathen themselves. 
He was not merely an illustrious teacher, but also 
a pre-eminent martyr, whose martyrdom all de- 
sire to imitate, as having been altogether consis- 
tent with the Gospel of Christ. For, having 
through patience overcome the unjust governor, 
and thus acquired the crown of immortality, he 
now, with the apostles and all the righteous [in 
heaven], rejoicingly glorifies God, even the 
Father, and blesses our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
Saviour of our souls, the Governor of our bodies, 
and the Shepherd of the Catholic Church through- 
out the world.? 





1 This clause is omitted by Eusebius: it was probably interpolated 
by some transcriber, who had in his mind x Pet. ui. 18, 

2 Literally, ‘‘ unsurpassable.” 

3 Literally, “ fellow-partakers.”” 

4 Or, “him,” 

5 Or, ‘‘ more tried.” E 

6 Literally, ‘‘ the birth-day.” 

7 Literally, “ been athletes.” 

8 Literally, “ is alone remembered.” : 

9 Several additions are here made; One ms. has, ‘and the, all- 
holy and life-giving Spirit; ’’ while the old Latin version reads, ‘“‘and 
the Holy Spirit, by whom we know all things. 








CHAP. XX.— THIS EPISTLE IS TO BE TRANSMITTED 
TO THE BRETHREN. 


Since, then, ye requested that we would at 
large make you acquainted with what really took 
place, we have for the present sent you this 
summary account through our brother Marcus. 
When, therefore, ye have yourselves read this 
Epistle,'° be pleased to send it to the brethren at 
a greater distance, that they also may glorify the 
Lord, who makes such choice of His own ser- 
vants. ‘To Him who is able to bring us all by 
His grace and goodness" into his everlasting 
kingdom, through His only-begotten Son Jesus 
Christ, to Him be glory, and honour, and power, 
and majesty, for ever. Amen. Salute all the 
saints. They that are with us salute you, and 
ee who wrote this Epistle, with all his 

ouse. 


CHAP. XXI,— THE DATE OF THE MARTYRDOM. 


Now, the blessed Polycarp suffered martyr- 
dom on the second day of the month Xanthicus 
just begun,’ the seventh day before the Kalends 
of May, on the great Sabbath, at the eighth 
hour." He was taken by Herod, Philip the 
Trallian being high priest,’ Statius Quadratus 
being proconsul, but Jesus Christ being King 
for ever, to whom be glory, honour, majesty, and 
an everlasting throne, from generation to gener- 
ation. Amen. 


CHAP. XXII. — SALUTATION. 


We wish you, brethren, all happiness, while 
you walk according to the doctrine of the Gos- 
pel of Jesus Christ ; with whom be glory to God 
the Father and the Holy Spirit, for the salvation 
of His holy elect, after whose example*5 the 
blessed Polycarp suffered, following in whose 
steps may we too be found in the kingdom of 
Jesus Christ ! 

These things '° Caius transcribed from the copy 
of Irenzeus (who was a disciple of Polycarp ), 
having himself been intimate with Irenzus. 
And I Socrates transcribed them at Corinth 
from the copy of Caius. Grace be with you all. 

And I again, Pionius, wrote them from the 
previously written copy, having carefully searched 
into them, and the blessed Polycarp having 





10 Literally, “¢ having learned these things.” 

11 Literally, “ gift.” 

12 The translation is here very doubtful, Wake renders the words 
pnvos iarauévou, “ of the present month,” waite 

13 Great obscurity hangs over the chronology here indicated. 
the Smyrnzans began the month Xanthicus 
on the 25th of March. But the seventh day before the Kalends of 
May isthe 25th of April. Some, therefore, read 'AmptAAtwr instead of 
Maiwv. The great Sabbath is that before the passover. The “ eighth 
hour” may correspond either to our 8 A.M, or 2 P.M. 

14 Called before (chap. xii.) Asiarch. 

15 Literally, ‘‘ according as.” 

16 What follows is, of course, 


According to Usher, 


no part of the original Epistle. 


44 THE MARTYRDOM OF POLYCARP. 

Neen eee eee eee eee ee ee ceaemERiRURrN Gans Gea SEATTLE 
manifested them to me through a revelation,|Lord Jesus Christ may also gather me along 
even as I shall show in what follows. I have|with His elect into His heavenly kingdom, to 
collected these things, when they had almost|whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be 
faded away through the lapse of time, that the! glory for ever and ever. Amen. 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


To THE 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE EPHESIANS. 


[a.D. 30-107.] THE seductive myth which represents this Father as the little child whom the 
Lord placed in the midst of his apostles (St. Matt. xviii. 2) indicates at least the period when 
he may be supposed to have been born. That he and Polycarp were fellow-disciples under St. 
John, is a tradition by no means inconsistent with anything in the Epistles of either. His subse- 
quent history is sufficiently indicated in the Epistles which follow. 

Had not the plan of this series been so exclusively that of a mere revised reprint, the writings 
of Ignatius themselves would have made me diffident as to the undertaking. It seems impossible 
for any one to write upon the subject of these precious remains, without provoking controversy. 
This publication is designed as an Eirenicon, and hence “ few words are best,” from one who 
might be supposed incapable of an unbiassed opinion on most of the points which have been 
raised in connection with these Epistles. I must content myself therefore, by referring the studi- 
ous reader to the originals as edited by Bishop Jacobson, with a Latin version and copious annota- 
tions. That revered and learned divine honoured me with his friendship ; and his precious edition 
has been my frequent study, with theological students, almost ever since it appeared in 1840. It 
is by no means superannuated by the vigorous Ignatian literature which has since sprung up, and 
to which reference will he made elsewhere. But I am content to leave the whole matter, without 
comment, to the minds of Christians of whatever school and to their independent conclusions. It 
is a great thing to present them in a single volume with the shorter and longer Epistles duly com- 
pared, and with the Curetonian version besides. One luxury only I may claim, to relieve the 
drudging task-work of a mere reviser. Surely I may point out some of the proverbial wisdom of 
this great disciple, which has often stirred my soul, as with the trumpet heard by St. John in Pat- 
mos. In him, indeed, the lions encountered a lion, one truly begotten of “ the Lion of the tribe of 
Judah.” Take, then, as a specimen, these thrilling injunctions from his letter to Polycarp, to 
whom he bequeathed his own spirit, and in whom he well knew the Church would recognize a sort 
of survival of St. John himself. If the reader has any true perception of the rhythm and force 
of the Greek language, let him learn by heart the originals of the following aphorisms : — 

1. Find time to pray without ceasing. 
. Every wound is not healed with the same remedy. 
. The times demand thee, as pilots the haven. 
. The crown is immortality." 
. Stand like a beaten anvil. 
. It is the part of a good athlete to be bruised and to prevail. 


Nn & &W NHN 


pe ee 
——————— 


3 Does not this seem a pointed allusion to Rev. ii. 10? 8 E170 ws axpwy ruTTomavos. 


45 


46 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 


EGE 5! Sete SSS eee ee aan NT 
7. Consider the times: look for Him who is above time. 
8. Slight not the menservants and the handmaids. 
9. Let your stewardship define your work. 
10. A Christian is not his own master, but waits upon God. 

Ignatius so delighted in his name Theophorus (sufficiently expounded in his own words to 
Trajan or his official representative), that it is worth noting how deeply the early Christians felt 
and believed in (2 Cor. vi. 16) the indwelling Spirit. 

Ignatius has been censured for his language to the Romans, in which he seems to crave mar- 
tyrdom. But he was already condemned, in law a dead man, and felt himself at liberty to glory 
in his tribulations. Is it more than modern Christians often too lightly sing ?— 








“Let cares like a wild deluge come, 
And storms of sorrow fall,” etc. 


So the holy martyr adds, “ Only let me attain unto Jesus Christ.” 

The Epistle to the Romans is utterly inconsistent with any conception on his part, that Rome 
was the see and residence of a bishop holding any other than fraternal relations with himself. It 
is very noteworthy that it is devoid of expressions, elsewhere made emphatic,’ which would have 
been much insisted upon had they been found herein. Think what use would have been made of 
it, had the words which he addresses to the Smyrnzeans (cap. viii.) to strengthen their fidelity to 
Polycarp, been found in this letter to the Romans, especially as in this letter we first find the 
use of the phrase “Catholic Church” in patristic writings. He defines it as to be found “ where 
Jesus Christ is,” words which certainly do not limit it to communion with a professed successor of 
St. Peter. 

The following is the original Inrropucrory NOTICE : — 


Tue epistles ascribed to Ignatius have given rise to more controversy than any other docu- 
ments connected with the primitive Church. As is evident to every reader on the very first glance 
at these writings, they contain numerous statements which bear on points of ecclesiastical order 
that have long divided the Christian world ; and a strong temptation has thus been felt to allow 
some amount of prepossession to enter into the discussion of their authenticity or spuriousness. 
At the same time, this question has furnished a noble field for the display of learning and acuteness, 
and has, in the various forms under which it has been debated, given rise to not a few works of the 
very highest ability and scholarship. We shall present such an outline of the controversy as may 
enable the reader to understand its position at the present day. 

There are, in all, fifteen Epistles which bear the name of Ignatius. These are the following: 
One to the Virgin Mary, two to the Apostle John, one to Mary of Cassobelz, one to the Tarsians, 
one to the Antiochians, one to Hero, a deacon of Antioch, one to the Philippians; one to the 
Ephesians, one to the Magnesians, one to the Trallians, one to the Romans, one to the Philadel- 
phians, one to the Smyrnzans, and one to Polycarp. The first three exist only in Latin: all the 
yest are extant also in Greek. 

It is now the universal opinion of critics, that the first eight of these professedly Ignatian 
letters are spurious. ‘They bear in themselves indubitable proofs of being the production of a later 
age than that in which Ignatius lived. Neither Eusebius nor Jerome makes the least reference to 
them ; and they are now by common consent set aside as forgeries, which were at various dates, 
and to serve special purposes, put forth under the name of the celebrated Bishop of Antioch. 

But after the question has been thus simplified, it still remains sufficiently complex. Of the 
seven Epistles which are acknowledged by Eusebius (A/is¢. 2cc/., iii. 36), we possess two Greek 
recensions, a shorter and a longer. It is plain that one or other of these exhibits a corrupt text, and 








: See To the Tralltans, cap. 13. Much might have been made, had it been found here, out of the reference to Christ the High Priest 
(Philadelphians, cap. g). 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 47 








_ scholars have for the most part agreed to accept the shorter form as representing the’ genuine letters 
of Ignatius. This was the opinion generally acquiesced in, from the time when critical: editions 
of these Epistles began to be issued, down to our own day. Criticism, indeed, fluctuated a good 
deal as to which Epistles should be accepted and which rejected. Archp. Usher (1644), Isaac 
Vossius (1646), J. B. Cotelerius (1672), Dr. T. Smith (1709), and others, edited the writings 
ascribed to Ignatius in forms differing very considerably as to the order in which they were 
arranged, and the degree of authority assigned them, until-at.length, from about the beginning of 
the eighteenth century, the seven Greek Epistles, of which a translation is here given, came to be _ 
generally accepted in their shorzer form as the genuine writings of Ignatius. i 

Before this date, however, there had not been wanting some who refused: to acknowledge the 
authenticity of these Epistles in either of the recensions in which they were then known to exist. 
By far the most learned and elaborate work maintaining this position was that of Daillé (or Dal- 
. leus), published in 1666. ‘This drew forth in reply the celebrated Vinadicie. of ‘Bishop Pearson, 
which appeared in 1672. It was generally supposed that this latter work had established*on an 
. immoveable foundation the genuineness of the shorter form of the Ignatian Epistles ; and, as we 
have stated above, this was the conclusion almost universally accepted down to our own day. The 
only considerable exception to this concurrence was presented by Whiston, who laboured to main- 
tain in his Primitive. Christianity Revived (1711) the superior claims of the longer recension of 
the Epistles, apparently influenced in doing so by the support which: he thought they furnished to 
the kind of Arianism which he had adopted. 

_But although the shorter form of the Ignatian letters had been. generally accepted in preference 
to the longer, there was still a pretty prevalent opinion among scholars, that even.it could not be 
regarded as absolutely free from interpolations, or as of undoubted authenticity. Thus said Lard- 
ner, in his Credibility of the Gospel History (1743) : “I have carefully compared the two editions, 
and am very well satisfied, upon that comparison, that the larger are-an interpolation of the smaller, 
and not the smaller-an epitome-.or abridgment of the larger. . . . But whether the smaller them- 
_ selves are the genuine writings of .Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, is a question that.has been much 
disputed, and has employed the pens of the ablest critics. .And whatever positiveness some may 
have shown on either side, I must own I have found it a very difficult question.” 

This expression of uncertainty was repeated in substance: by Jortin (1751), Mosheim (1755), 
Griesbach (1768), Rosenmiiller (1795), Neander (1826), and many others; some going: so far 
as to deny that we have any authentic remains of Ignatius. at all, while others, though admitting 
- the seven shorter letters as being probably his, yet strongly suspected. that they were not free from 
interpolation. Upon the whole, however, the shorter recension was, until recently, accepted with- 
out much opposition, and chiefly in dependence on the work of Bishop Pearson above mentioned, 
as exhibiting the genuine form of the Epistles of Ignatius. uh 

But a totally different aspect was given to the question by the discovery of a Syriac version of 
three of these Epistles among the mss. procured from the monastery of St. Mary Deipara, in the 
desert of Nitria, in Egypt. In the years 1838, 1839, and again in 1842, Archdeacon Tattam visited 
that monastery, and succeeded in obtaining for the English Government a vast number of ancient 
Syriac manuscripts. On these being deposited in the British Museum, the late Dr. Cureton, who 
then had charge of the Syriac department, discovered among them, first, the Epistle to Polycarp, 
_and then again, the same Epistle, with.those to the Ephesians and to the Romans, in two other 
volumes of manuscripts. 

As the result of this discovery, Cureton published in 1845 a work, entitled, Zhe Ancient Syriac 
Version of the Epistles of St. Ignatius to St. Polycarp, the Ephesians, and the Romans, etc., in 
which he argued that these Epistles represented more accurately than any formerly published what 
Ignatius had actually written. This, of course, opened up the controversy afresh. While some 
accepted the views of Cureton, others very strenuously opposed them. Among the former was 


48 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

a a ae 
the late Chev. Bunsen; among the latter, an anonymous writer in the English Review, and Dr. 
Hefele, in his third edition of the Apostolic Fathers. In reply to those who had controverted his 
arguments, Cureton published his Vindicie Jgnatiane in 1846, and his Corpus gnahanum in 1849. 
He begins his introduction to the last-named work with the following sentences: “ Exactly three 
centuries and a half intervened between the time when three Epistles in Latin, attributed to St. 
Ignatius, first issued from the press, and the publication in 1845 of three letters in Syriac bearing 
the name of the same apostolic writer. Very few years passed before the former were almost 
universally regarded as false and spurious; and it seems not improbable that scarcely a longer 
period will elapse before the latter be almost as generally acknowledged and received as the only 
true and genuine letters of the venerable Bishop of Antioch that have either come down to our 
times, or were ever known in the earliest ages of the Christian Church.” 

Had the somewhat sanguine hope thus expressed been realized, it would have been unnecessary 
for us to present to the English reader more than a translation of these three Syriac Epistles. But 
the Ignatian controversy is not yet settled. There are still those who hold that the balance of 
argument is in favour of the shorter Greek, as against these Syriac Epistles. They regard the 
latter as an epitome of the former, and think the harshness which, according to them, exists in the 
sequence of thoughts and sentences, clearly shows that this is the case. We have therefore given 
all the forms of the Ignatian letters which have the least claim on our attention.' The reader may 
judge, by comparison for himself, which of these is to be accepted as genuine, supposing him dis- 
posed to admit the claims of any one of them. We content ourselves with laying the materials 
for judgment before him, and with referring to the above-named works in which we find the whole 
subject discussed. 

As to the personal history of Ignatius, almost nothing is known. The principal source of in- 
formation regarding him is found in the account of his martyrdom, to which the reader is referred. 
Polycarp alludes to him in his Epistle to the Philippians (chap. ix.), and also to his letters (chap. 
xiii.). Irenzeus quotes a passage from his. Epistle to the Romans (Adv. Her., v. 28; Epist. ad 
Rom., chap. iv.), without, however, naming him. Origen twice refers to him, first in the preface 
to his Comm. on the Song of Solomon, where he quotes a passage from the Epistle of Ignatius to 
the Romans, and again in his sixth homily on St. Luke, where he quotes from the Epistle to the 
Ephesians, both times naming the author. It is unnecessary to give later references. 

Supposing the letters of Ignatius and the account of his martyrdom to be authentic, we learn 
from them that he voluntarily presented himself before Trajan at Antioch, the seat of his bishopric, 
when that prince was on his jirs¢ expedition against the Parthians and Armenians (a.D. 107) ; and 
on professing himself a Christian, was condemned to the wild beasts. After a long and dangerous 
voyage he came to Smyrna, of which Polycarp was bishop, and thence wrote his four Epistles to 
the Ephesians, the Magnesians, the Trallians, and the Romans. From Smyrna he came to Troas, 
and tarrying there a few days, he wrote to the Philadelphians, the Smyrnzans, and Polycarp. He 
then came on to Neapolis, and passed through the whole of Macedonia. Finding a ship at Dyr- 
rachium in Epirus about to sail into Italy, he embarked, and crossing the Adriatic, was brought to 
Rome, where he perished on the z2oth of December 107, or, as some think, who deny a twofold 
expedition of Trajan against the Parthians, on the same day of the year a.D. 116. 








1 The other Epistles, bearing the name of Ignatius, will be found in the Appendix; so that the English reader possesses in this volume 
a complete collection of the Ignatian letters. 


THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE EPHESIANS. 


SHORTER AND LONGER VERSIONS. 





Ignatius, who ts also called Theopho- 
rus, to the Church which ts at 
Liphesus, in Asia, deservedly most 
happy, being blessed tn the greatness 
and fulness of God the Father, and 
predestinated before the beginning 
of time, that tt should be always for 
an enduring and unchangeable glory, 
being untted? and elected through 
the true passion by the will of the 
Lather, and Jesus Christ, our God: 
Abundant happiness through Jesus 
Christ, and [His undefiled grace. 


CHAP. I 


I HAVE become acquainted with 
your name, much-beloved in God, 
which ye have acquired by the habit 
of righteousness, according to the faith 
and love in Jesus Christ our Saviour. 
Being the followers*+ of God, and stir- 
ring up 5 yourselves by the blood of 
God, ye have perfectly accomplished 
the work which was beseeming to you. 
For, on hearing that I came bound 
from Syria for the common name and 
hope, trusting through your prayers 
to be permitted to fight with beasts at 
Rome, that so by martyrdom I may 
indeed become the disciple of Him 
“who gave Himself for us, an offering 
and sacrifice to God,’’® [ye hastened 
to see me’]. I received, therefore,* 
your whole multitude in the name of 
God, through Onesimus, a man of 
inexpressible love,? and your bishop 
in the flesh, whom I pray you by 
Jesus Christ to love, and that you 
would all seek to be like him. And 
blessed be He who has granted unto 
you, being worthy, to obtain such ah 
excellent bishop. 


Ienatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church 
which ts at Ephesus, in Asia, deservedly most happy, 
being blessed in the greatness and fulness of God the 
Father, and predestinated before the beginning' of time, 
that it should be always for an enduring and unchange- 
able glory, being untted® and elected through the true 
passion by the will of God the Father, and of our Lord 
Jesus Christ our Saviour: Abundant happiness through 
Jesus Christ, and His undefiled joys 


- — PRAISE OF THE EPHESIANS. 


I HAvE become acquainted with your greatly-desired 
name in God, which ye have acquired by the habit of 
righteousness, according to the faith and love in Christ 
Jesus our Saviour. Being the followers + of the love of 
God towards man, and stirring up 5 yourselves by the blood 
of Christ, you have perfectly accomplished the work 
which was beseeming to you. For, on hearing that I came 
bound from Syria for the sake of Christ, our common 
hope, trusting through your prayers to be permitted to 
fight with beasts at Rome, that so by martyrdom I may 
indeed become the disciple of Him “who gave Himself 
for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God,” ® [ye hastened 
to'see me7]. I have therefore received your whole mul- 
titude in the name of God, through Onesimus, a man of 
inexpressible: love,? and who is your bishop, whom I pray 
you by Jesus Christ to love, and that you would all seek 
to be like him. Blessed be God, who has granted unto 
you, who are yourselves so excellent, to obtain such an 
excellent bishop. 





1 Literally, “ before the ages.” é ; 
3 Some read, as in the shorter recension, “‘ grace. 
6 Eph. v.2. 7 This is wanting in the Greek, 


2 These words may perce with “glory,” but are better applied to the ‘‘ Church.” 
» 4 bf 


8 Literally, “‘ since therefore,” without any apodosis. 


iterally, ‘‘ imitators; ” comp. Eph. v. 1. 


5 Comp. in the Greek, 2 Tim. i. 6. 
9 or, “unspeakably beloved.’ 
49 


50 EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE EPHESIANS. 


CHAP, II. — CONGRATULATIONS AND ENTREAT TES. 


As to my fellow-servant Burrhus, 
your deacon in regard to God and 
blessed in all things,' I beg that he 
may continue longer, both for your 
honour and that of your bishop. And 
Crocus also, worthy both of God and 
you, whom I have received as: the 
manifestation? of your love, hath in 
all things refreshed 3 me, as the Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ shall also re- 
fresh3 him; together with Onesimus, 
and Burrhus, and Euplus, and Fronto, 
by means of whom, I have, as to love, 
beheld all of you. May I always have 
joy of you, if indeed I be worthy of 
it. It is therefore befitting that you 
should in every -way~ glorify Jesus 
Christ, who hath glorified you, that by 
a unanimous obedience “ ye may be 
perfectly joined together in the same 
mind, and in the same judgment, and 
may-all speak the same thing concern- 
ing the same thing,” 5 and that, being 
subject to the bishop and the presby- 
tery, ye may in all respects be sancti- 
fied. 


As to our fellow-servant Burrhus, your deacon in regard 
to God and blessed in all things, I pray that he may con- 
tinue blameless for the honour of the Church, and of your 
most blessed bishop. Crocus also, worthy both of God 
and you, whom we have received as the manifestation ? of 
your love to us, hath in all things refreshed? me, and 
“hath not been ashamed of my chain,”* as the Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ will also refresh 3 him ; together 
with Onesimus, and Burrhus, and Euplus, and Fronto, by 
means of whom I have, as to love, beheld all of you. 
May I always’ have joy of you, if indeed I be worthy of 


_ it... It-is therefore befitting that you should in every way 


glorify Jesus Christ, who hath glorified you, that by a 
unanimous obedience “ye may be perfectly joined to- 
gether in the'same mind and in the same judgment, and 
may all speak the same thing concerning the same thing,” § 


-and that, being subject to the bishop and the presbytery, 


ye may in all respects be sanctified. 


HAP. III. — EXHORTATIONS TO UNITY. 


I do not issue orders to you, as if I 
were some great person.. For though 
I am bound for the name [of Christ], 
I am not yet perfect in Jesus. Christ. 
For now I begin to be a disciple, and 
I speak to you as fellow-disciples with 
me. 
have been stirred up by you in faith, 
exhortation, patience, and long-suffer- 
ing. But inasmuch as love suffers me 
not to be silent in regard to you, I 
have therefore taken® upon me first 
to exhort you that ye would all run 
together in accordance with the will 
of God. For even Jesus Christ, our 
inseparable life, is the [manifested] 
will of the Father; as also bishops, 
settled everywhere to the utmost 
bounds [of the earth], are so by the 
will of Jesus Christ. 


CHAP. 


run together in accordance with the 
will of your bishop, which thing also 
ye do. For your justly renowned 
presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted as 
exactly to the bishop as the strings 


are to the harp. Therefore in your 


For it was needful for me to . 


I do not issue orders to you, as if I were some great 
person. For though I am bound for His name, I am 
not yet perfect in Jesus Christ. For now I begin to bea 
disciple, and I speak to you as my fellow-servants. For 
it was needful for me to have been admonished by you 
in faith, exhortation, patience, and long-suffering. But 
inasmuch as love suffers me not to be silent in regard to 
you, I have therefore taken® upon me first to exhort you 
that ye would run together in accordance with the will of 
God. For even Jesus Christ does all things according to 
the will of the Father, as He Himself declares in a cer- 
tain place, “I do always those things that please Him.” 7 
Wherefore it behoves us also to live according to the will 
of God in Christ, and to imitate Him as Paul did. For, 
says he, “ Be ye followers of me; even as I also am of 
Christ.” § 


IV. —THE SAME CONTINUED. : 
Wherefore it is fitting that ye should * 


Wherefore it is fitting that ye also should run together 
in accordance with the will of the bishop who by God’s 
appointment? rules over you. Which thing ye indeed of 
yourselves do, being instructed by the Spirit. For your 
justly-renowned presbytery, being worthy of God, is fitted 
as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp. 
Thus, being joined together in concord and harmonious 





t Or, ‘ your most blessed deacon in all things-pertaining to God.” | 2 Literally, “* pattern,” 


4 Comp..2 Tim, i..16.- 5 1 Cor, i..t0.,-..6 € 


omp. Philem..8; 9. .... 7 John. viij; a9. 


-3 Comp. r-Cor. xvi. 18, ete. § 27 
8 x Cor..xi. 1. . 9 Literally, ‘‘ according to God.” 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE EPHESIANS. 





ia) 





concord and harmonious love, Jesus 
Christ is sung. And do ye, man by 
man, become a choir, that being 
harmonious in love, and taking-up the 
song of God in unison, ye ‘may with 
one voice sing to the Father through 
Jesus Christ, so that He may both 
hear you, and perceive by your works 
that ye are indeed the members of 
His Son. It is profitable, therefore, 
that. you should live in an unblameable 
unity, that thus ye may always enjoy 
communion with God. 


CHAP. 


For if I in this brief space of time, 
have enjoyed such fellowship with 
your bishop —I mean not of a mere 
human, but ofa spiritual nature — how 
much more do I reckon you happy 
who are so joined to him as the Church 
is to Jesus Christ, and as Jesus Christ 
is to the Father, that so all things may 
agree in unity! Let no man deceive 
himself :.if any one be not within the 
altar, he is deprived of the bread of 
God. For if the prayer of one or two 
possesses* such power, how much 
more that of the bishop and the whole 
Church! He, therefore, that does 
not, assemble with the Church, has 
even’ by this manifested his pride, 
and condemned himself. For it is 
written, “God resisteth the proud.” 9 
Let us be careful, then, not to set 
ourselves in opposition to the bishop, 
in order that we may be subject to 
God. 


love, of which Jesus Christ is the Captain and Guardian, 
do ye, man by man, become but one choir; so that, 
agreeing together in concord, and obtaining* a perfect 
unity with God, ye may indeed be one in harmonious 
feeling with God the Father, and His beloved Son Jesus 
Christ our Lord. For, says He, “Grant unto them, Holy 
Father, that as I and Thou are one, they also may be one 
in us.”? It is therefore profitable that you, being joined 
together with God in an unblameable unity, should be the 
followers of the example of Christ, of whom also ye are 
members. 


V.— THE PRAISE OF UNITY. 


For if I, in this brief space of time, have enjoyed such 
fellowship with your bishop— I mean not of a mere human, 
but ofa spiritual nature — how much more do I reckon you 
happy, who so depend 3 on him as the Church does on the 
Lord Jesus, and the Lord does on God and His Father, 
that so all things may agree in unity! Let no man de- 
ceive himself: if any one be not within the altar, he is 
deprived of the bread of God. For if the prayer of one 
or two possesses* such power that Christ stands in the 
midst of them, how much more will the prayer of the bishop 
and of the whole Church, ascending up in harmony to God, 
prevail for the granting of all their petitions in Christ ! 
He, therefore, that separates himself from such, and does 
not meet in the society where sacrifices ° are offered, and 
with “the Church of the first-born whose names are 
written in heaven,” is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” while he 
presents a mild outward appearance. Do ye, beloved, be 
careful to be subject to the bishop, and the presbyters and 
the deacons. For he that is subject to these is obe- 
dient to Christ, who has appointed them ; but he that is 
disobedient to these is disobedient to Christ Jesus. And 
“he that obeyeth not® the Son shall not see life, but 
the wrath of God abideth on him.” For he that yields 
not obedience ‘to his superiors is self-confident, quarrel- 
some, and proud. But “God,” says [the Scripture ] “ resist- 
eth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble ;” 9 and, 
“The proud have greatly transgressed.” The Lord also 
says to the priests, “‘ He that heareth you, heareth Me ; and 
he that heareth Me, heareth the Father that sent Me. He 
that despiseth you, despiseth Me; and he that despiseth 
Me,.despiseth Him that sent Me.” 


CHAP. VI.— HAVE RESPECT TO THE BISHOP AS TO CHRIST HIMSELF. 


Now the more any one sees the 
bishop keeping silence,*® the more 
ought he to revere him. For we 
ought to receive every one whom the 
Master of the house sends to be over 
His household,'! as we would do Him 
that sent him. It is manifest, there- 
fore, that. we should look upon the 
bishop even as we would upon the 


The more, therefore, you see the bishop silent, the more 
do you reverence him. For we ought to receive every 
one whom the Master ofthe house sends to be over His 
household, '' as we would do Him that sent him. It is 
manifest, therefore, that we should look upon the bishop 
even as we would look upon the Lord Himself, standing, 
as he does, before the Lord. For “it behoves the man 
who looks carefully about him, and is active in his 
business, to stand before kings, and not to stand before 





I Literally, “ receiving a union to God in oneness.” 
5 Or, “ already.” , 
9 Prox. iii. 34; James iv. 6; x Pet. v. 5, 


Literally, “‘ in the assembly of sacrifices.” 
, 43° That is, “ showing forbearance.” 


2 John xvii. 11, 12. 3 Some read, ‘* mixed up with,” 4 Matt. xviii. 19. 
j 7’Matt, vii. 15. © Or, “ believeth not” (John iti. 36). 
‘+ & Comp, Matt. xxivo age 


52 


Lord Himself. And indeed Ones- 
imus himself greatly commends your 
good order in God, that ye all live ac- 
cording to the truth, and that no sect? 
has any dwelling-place among you. 
Nor, indeed, do ye hearken to any one 
rather than to Jesus Christ speaking 
in truth. 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE EPHESIANS. 


slothful men.” And indeed Onesimus himself greatly 
commends your good order in God, that ye all live accord- 
ing to the truth, and that no sect? has any dwelling-place 
among you. Nor indeed do ye hearken to any one rather 
than to Jesus Christ, the true Shepherd and Teacher. — And 
ye are, as Paul wrote to you, “one body and one spirit, be- 
cause ye have also been called in one hope of the faith. 3 
Since also “there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 
one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through 
all, and in all.”+ Such, then, are ye, having been taught 
by such instructors, Paul the Christ-bearer, and Timothy 
the most faithful. 


CHAP, VII, —- BEWARE OF FALSE TEACHERS. 


For some are in the habit of carry- 
ing about the name [of Jesus Christ] 
in wicked guile, while yet they prac- 
tise things unworthy of God, whom 
ye must flee as ye would wild beasts. 
For they are ravening dogs, who bite 
secretly, against whom ye must be on 
your guard, inasmuch as they are men 
who can scarcely be cured. There is 
one Physician who is possessed both 
of flesh and spirit; both made and 
not made ; God existing in flesh ; true 
life in death; both of Mary and of 
God ; first possible and then impossi- 
ble, —7 even Jesus Christ our Lord. 


But some most worthless persons are in the habit of 
carrying about the name [of Jesus Christ] in wicked 
guile, while yet they practise things unworthy of God, 
and hold opinions contrary to the doctrine of Christ, to 
their own destruction, and that of those who give credit 
to them, whom you must avoid as ye would wild beasts. 
For “the righteous man who avoids them is saved for 
ever ; but the destruction of the ungodly is sudden, and 
a subject of rejoicing.”5 For “they are dumb dogs, 
that cannot bark,’’® raving mad, and biting secretly, 
against whom ye must be on your guard, since they 
labour under an incurable disease. But our Physician 
is the. only true God, the unbegotten and unapproach- 
able, the Lord of all, the Father and Begetter of the only- 
begotten Son. We have also as a Physician the Lord 
our God, Jesus the Christ, the only-begotten Son and 
Word, before time began,® but who afterwards became 
also man, of Mary the virgin. For “the Word was made 
flesh.”9 Being incorporeal, He was in the body ; being 
impassible, He was in a passible body ; being immortal, 
He was in a mortal body ; being life, He became subject 
to corruption, that He might free our souls from death 
and corruption, and heal them, and might restore them 
to health, when they were diseased with ungodliness and 
wicked lusts. 


CHAP. VIII.— RENEWED PRAISE OF THE EPHESIANS. 


Let not then any one deceive you, 
as indeed ye are not deceived, inas- 
much as ye are wholly devoted to 
God. For since there is no strife 
raging among you which might dis- 
tress you, ye are certainly living in 
accordance with God’s will. I am 
far inferior to you, and require to 
be sanctified by your Church of 
Ephesus, so renowned throughout 
the world. They that are carnal 
cannot do those things which are 
spiritual, nor they that are spiritual 
the things which are carnal; even 
as faith cannot do the works of un- 





Let not then any one deceive you, as indeed ye are 
not deceived ; for ye are wholly devoted to God. For 
when there is no evil desire within you, which might de- 
file and torment you, then do ye live in accordance with 
the will of God, and are [the servants] of Christ. Cast 
ye out that which defiles '° you, who are of the '* most holy 
Church of the Ephesians, which is so. famous and cele- 
brated throughout the world. They that are carnal can- 
not do those things which are spiritual, nor they that are 
spiritual the things which are carnal ; even as faith can- 
not do the works of unbelief, nor unbelief the works of 
faith. But ye, being full of the Holy Spirit, do nothing 
according to the flesh, but all things according to the 
Spirit. Ye are complete in Christ Jesus, “who is the 
Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe.” 7 





1 Prov. xxii. 29, after LXX. 2 Or, “ heresy.” 


) J LX 3 x Eph. tv. 4. 
7 This clause is wanting in the Greek, and has been supplied from the ancient Latin version. 
Io It is difficult to translate mepiyua in this and similar passages; comp. 1 Cor. iv. 13. 


4 Eph. iv. 5,6, 5 Prov. x. 25, xi. 3. § Isa. ivi. ro. 
8 Or, “before the ages.” 9 Johni. 14, 


1 Literally, “and the.” 2 x Tim, iv. ro, 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE EPHESIANS. 53 
OEE SSE a 


belief, nor unbelief the works of faith. 
But even those things which ye do 
according to the flesh are spiritual ; 
for ye do all things in Jesus Christ. 


CHAP, IX.—-YE HAVE GIVEN NO HEED TO FALSE TEACHERS. 


Nevertheless, I have heard of some 
who have passed on from this to you, 
having false doctrine, whom ye did 
not suffer to sow among you, but 
stopped your ears, that ye might not 
receive those things which were sown 
by them, as being stones" of the tem- 
_ ple of the Father, prepared for the 
building of God the Father, and 
drawn up on high by the instrument 
of Jesus Christ, which is the cross,? 
making use of the Holy Spirit as a 
rope, while your faith was the means 
by which you ascended, and your love 
the way which led up to God. Ye, 
therefore, as well as all your fellow- 
travellers, are God-bearers, temple- 
bearers, Christ-bearers, bearers of 
holiness, adorned in all respects with 
the commandments of Jesus Christ, 
in whom also I exult that I have 
been thought worthy, by means of 
this Epistle, to converse and rejoice 
with you, because with respect to 
your Christian life? ye love nothing 
but God only. 


Nevertheless, I have heard of some who have passed 
in among you, holding the wicked doctrine of the strange 
and evil spirit; to whom ye did not allow entrance to 
sow their tares, but stopped your ears that ye might 
not receive that error which was proclaimed by them, as 
being persuaded that that spirit which deceives the peo- 
ple does not speak the things of Christ, but his own, 
for he is a lying spirit. But the Holy Spirit does not 
speak His own things, but those of Christ, and that not 
from himself, but from the Lord ; even as the Lord also 
announced to us the things that He received from the 
Father. For, says He, “the word which ye hear is not 
Mine, but the Father’s, who sent Me.”3 And says He 
of the Holy Spirit, “ He shall not speak of Himself, but 
whatsoever things He shall hear from Me.’4 And He 
says of Himself to the Father, “I have,” says He, “ glori- 
fied Thee upon the earth ; I have finished the work which, 
Thou gavest Me; I have manifested Thy name to men.’’5 
And of the Holy Ghost, “He shall glorify Me, for He 
receives of Mine.” ® But the spirit of deceit preaches 
himself, and speaks his own things, for he seeks to please 
himself. He glorifies himself, for he is full of arrogance. 
He is lying, fraudulent, soothing, flattering, treacherous, 
rhapsodical, trifling, inharmonious, verbose, sordid, and 
timorous. From his power Jesus Christ will deliver you, 
who has founded you upon the rock, as being chosen 
stones, well fitted for the divine edifice of the Father, and 
who are raised up on high by Christ, who was crucified 
for you, making use of the Holy Spirit as a rope, and be- 
ing borne up by faith, while exalted by love from earth to 
heaven, walking in company with those that are undefiled. 
For, says [the Scripture], “ Blessed are the undefiled in 
the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.”’ Now the 
way is unerring, namely, Jesus Christ. For, says He, “I 
am the way and the life.’”9 And this way leads to the 
Father. For “no man,” says He, “cometh to the Father 
but by Me.” *° Blessed, then, are ye who are God-bearers, 
spirit-bearers, temple-bearers, bearers of holiness, adorned 
in all respects with the commandments of Jesus Christ, 
being “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar peo- 
ple,” ** on whose account I rejoice exceedingly, and have 
had the privilege, by this Epistle, of conversing with “the 
saints which are at Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus.” 
I rejoice, therefore, over you, that ye do not give heed 
to vanity, and love nothing according to the flesh, but 
according to God. 


CHAP. X.—EXHORTATIONS TO PRAYER, HUMILITY, ETC. 


And pray ye without ceasing in be- 
half of other men. For there is in 
them hope of repentance that they 


And pray ye without ceasing in behalf of other men; 
for there is hope of the repentance, that they may attain 
to God. For “cannot he that falls arise again, and he 








1 Comp. x Pet. ii. 5. 2 Comp. John xii. 32. 
7 Literally, ‘ according to the other life. 8 


3 John xiv. 24. 
Ps. cxix, 1. 


& John xvi. 14. 


4 John xvi. 13. 5 John xvii, AY oe iti i r 


9 John xiv.6. -!° John xiv.6. 1 x Pet, ii. 9. 


54 


may attain to God. See,? then, that 
they be instructed by your works, if 
in no other way. Be ye meek in 
response to their wrath, humble in 
opposition to their boasting: to their 
blasphemies return* your prayers ; in 
contrast to their error, be ye stedfast 5 
in the faith; and for their cruelty, 
manifest your gentleness. While we 
take care not to imitate their conduct, 
let us be found their brethren in all 
true kindness ; and let us seek to be 
followers of the Lord (who ever more 
unjustly treated, more destitute, more 
condemned ?), that so no plant of the 
devil may be found in you, but ye may 
remain in all holiness and sobriety in 
Jesus Christ, both with respect to the 
flesh and spirit. 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE EPHESIANS. 


that goes astray return?”* Permit them, then, to be in- 
structed by you. Be ye therefore the ministers of God, 
and the mouth of Christ. For thus saith the Lord, “If 
ye take forth the precious from the vile, ye shall be as 
my mouth.”3 Be ye humble in response to their wrath ; 
oppose to their blasphemies your earnest prayers ; while 
they go astray, stand ye stedfast in the faith. Conquer ye 
their harsh temper by gentleness, their passion by meek- 
ness. For “blessed are the meek;”° and Moses was 
meek above all men;7 and David was exceeding meek.* 
Wherefore Paul exhorts as follows: “The servant of the 
Lord must not strive, but be gentle towards all men, apt 
to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that op- 
pose themselves.” 9 Do not seek to avenge yourselves on 
those that injure you, for says [the Scripture], “If I have 
returned evil to those who returned evil to me.” ’° Let 
us make them brethren by our kindness. For say ye 
to those: that hate you, Ye are our brethren, . that the 


name of the Lord may be glorified. And let us imitate 
‘the Lord, “who, when He was reviled, reviled not 


again ;”?* when He was crucified, He answered not; 
“when He suffered, He threatened not ;” '? but prayed 
for His enemies, “ Father, forgive them; they know not 
what they do.” 3 If any one, the more he is injured, dis- 
plays the more patience, blessed is he. If any one is 
defrauded, if any one is despised, for the name of the 
Lord, he truly is the servant of Christ. Take heed that 
no plant of the devil be found among you, for such a 
plant is bitter and salt. “Watch ye, and be ye sober,” * 
in Christ Jesus. 


CHAP. XI.—AN EXHORTATION TO FEAR GOD, ETC. 


The last times are come upon us. 
Let us therefore be of a reverent 
spirit, and fear the long-suffering of 
God, that it tend not to our condem- 
nation. For let us either stand in 
awe of the wrath to come, or show 
regard for the grace which is at pres- 
ent displayed—one of two things. 
Only [in one way or another] let us 
be found in Christ Jesus unto the true 
life. Apart from Him, let nothing 
attract © you, for whom I bear about 
these bonds, these spiritual jewels, by 
which may I arise through your pray- 
ers, of which I entreat I may always 
be a partaker, that I may be found in 
the lot of the Christians of Ephesus, 
who have always been of the same 
mind with the apostles through the 
power of Jesus Christ. 


The last times are come upon us. Let us therefore be 
of a reverent spirit, and fear the long-suffering of God, 
lest we despise the riches of His goodness and forbear- 
ance.'5 For let us either fear the wrath to come, or let 
us love the present joy in the life that now is; and let 
our present and true joy be only this, to be found in 
Christ Jesus, that we may truly live. Do not at any 
time desire so much as even to breathe apart from Him. 
For He is my hope; He is my boast; He is my never- 
failing riches, on whose account I bear about with me 
these bonds from Syria to Rome, these spiritual jewels, 
in which may I be perfected through your prayers, and 
become a partaker of the sufferings of Christ, and have 
fellowship with Him in His death, His resurrection from 
the dead, and His everlasting life.'7_ May I attain to this, 
so that I may be found in the lot of the Christians of 
Ephesus, who have always had intercourse with the apos- 
tles by the power of Jesus Christ, with Paul, and John, 


‘and Timothy the most faithful. 


CHAP. X%II.— PRAISE OF THE EPHESIANS. 


I know both who I am, and to 
whom I write. Iam a condemned 
man, ye have been the objects of 

: us 

Neate 

44 x Pet. iv. 7. 


2 Literally, “‘ permit.” 
8) Ps. CXXXL (2, 
1S Rom. ii. 4. 


3 Jer, xv. 19, 
9 2 Tim. ii. 24, 25, 
16 Literally, ‘‘let nothing become you.” 


I know both who I am, and to whom I write. I am 
the, very insignificant Ignatius, who have my lot with 
those who are exposed to danger and condemnation. 





4 The verb is here omitted in the original, 
10 Ps, vii. 4. Ty Pet. ih'23. 12 


5 Comp. Col. i. 23. © Matt. v. 4, 
ll. 23 Lane 
17 Phil. ii. 10. i 


x Pet, ii. 23. 13 xxiii. 34. 
18 Literally, “‘ am like to.” 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE EPHESIANS. 





mercy ; I am subject to danger, ye 
are established in safety. Ye are the 
persons through’ whom those pass 
that are cut off for the sake of God. 
Ye are initiated into the mysteries of 
the Gospel with Paul, the holy, the 
martyred, the deservedly most happy, 
at whose feet* may I be found, when 
I shall attain to God; who in all his 
Epistle’ makes mention of you in 
Christ Jesus. 


oh) 


But ye have been the objects of mercy, and are estab- 
lished in Christ. I am one delivered over [to death], 
but the least of all those that have been cut off for the 
sake of Christ, “from the blood of righteous Abel’? 
to the blood of Ignatius. Ye are initiated into the mys- 
teries of the Gospel with Paul, the holy, the martyred, 
inasmuch as he was “a chosen vessel ;”3 at whose feet 
may I be found, and at the feet of the rest of the saints, 
when I shall attain to Jesus Christ, who is always mindful 
of you in His prayers. 





CHAP. XIII.—EXHORTATION TO MEET TOGETHER FREQUENTLY FOR THE WORSHIP OF GOD. 


Take heed, then, often to come to- 
gether to give thanks to God, and 
show forth His praise. For when ye 
assemble frequently in the same place, 
the powers of Satan are destroyed, 
and the destruction at which he aims? 
is prevented by the unity of your faith. 
Nothing is more precious than peace, 
by which all war, both in heaven and 
~ earth,’ is brought to an end. 


Take heed, then, often to come together to give thanks 
to God, and show forth His praise. For when ye come 
frequently together in the same place, the powers of 
Satan are destroyed, and his “ fiery darts’’® urging to sin 
fall back ineffectual. For your concord and harmonious 
faith prove his destruction, and the torment of his assist- 
ants. Nothing is better than that peace which is accord- 
ing to Christ, by which all war, both of aérial and terres- 
trial spirits, is brought to an end. “ For we wrestle not 
against blood and flesh, but against principalities and 
powers, and against the rulers of the darkness of this 
world, against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places.” 9 


CHAP. XIV.— EXHORTATIONS TO FAITH AND LOVE. 


None of these things is hid from 
you, if ye perfectly possess that faith 
and love towards Christ Jesus '° which 
are the beginning and the end of life. 
For the beginning is faith, and the end 
is love.t! Now these two, being in- 
separably connected together,’ are of 
God, while all other things which are 
requisite for a holy life follow after 
them. No man [truly] making a pro- 
fession of faith sinneth ; '3 nor does he 
that possesses love hate any one. The 
tree is made manifest by its fruit ; "5 so 
those that profess themselves to be 
Christians shall be recognised by their 
conduct. For there is not now a de- 
mand for mere profession,’ but shat a 
man be found continuing in the power 
of faith to the end. 


CHAP. XV.— EXHORTATION TO 


It is better for a man to be silent 
and be [a Christian], than to talk and 
not to be one. It is good to teach, if 
he who speaks also acts. ‘There is 
then one Teacher, who spake and it 
was done; while even those things 
which He did in silence are worthy of 


Wherefore none of the devices of the devil shall be 
hidden from you, if, like Paul, ye perfectly possess that 
faith and love towards Christ '° which are the beginning 
and the end of life. The beginning of life is faith, and 
the end is love. And these two being inseparably con- 
nected together, do perfect the man of God; while all 
other things which are requisite to a holy life follow after 
them. No man making a profession of faith ought to 
sin, nor one possessed of love to hate his brother. For 
He that said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,” ™ said 
also, ‘(and thy neighbour as thyself.” ‘4 Those that pro- 
fess themselves to be Christ’s are known not only by what 
they say, but by what they practise. “For the tree is 
known by its fruit.” "5 


CONFESS CHRIST BY SILENCE AS WELL AS SPEECH. 


It is better for a man to be silent and be [a Christian], 
than to talk and not to be one. “The kingdom of God 
is not in word, but in power.” '7 Men “believe with the 
heart, and confess with the mouth,” the one “ unto right- 
eousness,” the other “unto salvation.’ "8 It is good to 
teach, if he who speaks also acts. For he who shall both 
“‘do and teach, the same shall be great in the kingdom.” !9 








1 Literally, “ ye are the passage of.” 
5 Some render, “in every Epistle.” 
9 Eph. vi. 12. Jo y Tim. 1. x 

15 Matt. xii. 33. 


6 Eph. vi 16. 


11 y Tim. i. 5. 


2 Matt. xxiii. 35. 


16 Literally, “ there is not now the work of profession, 


3 Acts ix. 15. 4 Literally, ‘‘ footsteps.” : 
7 Literally, ‘his destruction.” 8 Literally, “‘ of heavenly and earthly things.” 
unity.” 13 Comp. 1 John iii. 7. 14 Luke x, 27. 


12 Literally, “ being in } 
i 17 x Cor. iv. 20. 18 Rom, x. Io. 19 Matt. v. 19. 


56 EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE EPHESIANS. 
Ne ee 
the Father. He who possesses the Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, the Son of the living 
word of Jesus, is truly able to hear God, first did and then taught, as Luke testifies, “‘ whose 
even His very silence, that he may be _ praise is in the Gospel through all the Churches.” There 
perfect, and may both act as he speaks, is nothing which is hid from the Lord, but our very secrets 
and be recognised by his silence. are near to Him. Let us therefore do all things as those 
There is nothing which is hid from who have Him dwelling in us, that we may be His tem- 
God, but our very secrets are near to ples,” and He may be in us as God. Let Christ speak in 
Him. Let us therefore do all things us, even as He did in Paul. Let the Holy Spirit teach 
as those who have Him dwelling in us to speak the things of Christ in like manner as He did. 
us, that we may be His temples,” and 
He may be in us as our God, which 
indeed He is, and will manifest Him- 
self before our faces. Wherefore we 
justly love Him. 

CHAP. XVI.— THE FATE OF FALSE TEACHERS. 


Do not err, my brethren.3 Those Do not err, my brethren. Those that corrupt families 
that corrupt families shall not inherit shall not inherit the kingdom of God.t And if those that 
the kingdom of God.+ If, then, those corrupt mere human families are condemned to death, 
who do this as respects the flesh have how much more shall those suffer everlasting punishment 
suffered death, how much more shall who endeavour to corrupt the Church of Christ, for which 
this be the case with any one who the Lord Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, endured 
corrupts by wicked doctrine the faith the cross, and submitted to death! Whosoever, “ being 
of God, for which Jesus Christ was waxen fat,’5 and “become gross,” sets at nought His 
crucified! Such an one becoming doctrine, shall go into hell. In like manner, every one 
defiled [in this way], shall go away that has received from God the power of distinguishing, 
into everlasting fire, and so shall every and yet follows an unskilful shepherd, and receives a false 
one that hearkens unto him. opinion for the truth, shall be punished. “ What com- 

munion hath light with darkness? or Christ with Belial? 
Or what portion hath he that believeth with an infidel? 
or the temple of God with idols?’”’® And in like manner 
say I, what communion hath truth with falsehood? or 
righteousness with unrighteousness? or true doctrine with 
that which is false ? 


CHAP. XVII. — BEWARE OF FALSE DOCTRINES. 


For this end did the Lord suffer For this end did the Lord suffer the ointment to be 
the ointment to be poured upon His__ poured upon His head,” that His Church might breathe 
head,” that He might breathe immor- forth immortality. For saith [the Scripture], ““Thy name 
tality into His Church. Be not ye is as ointment poured forth; therefore have the virgins 
anointed with the bad odour of the loved Thee: they have drawn Thee ; at the odour of Thine 
doctrine of the prince of this world; ointments we will run after Thee.”® Let no one be 
let him not lead you away captive anointed with the bad odour of the doctrine of [the prince 
from the life which is set before you. of] this world; let not the holy Church of God be led 
And why are we not all prudent, since captive by his subtlety, as was the first woman.? Why 
we have received the knowiedge of do we not, as gifted with reason, act wisely? When we 
God, which is Jesus Christ? Whydo had received from Christ, and had grafted in us the faculty 
we foolishly perish, not recognising of judging concerning God, why do we fall headlong into 
the gift which the Lord has of a truth ignorance? and why, through a careless neglect of ac- 
sent to us? ; knowledging the gift which we have received, do we fool- 

ishly perish ? 


CHAP. XVIII.— THE GLORY OF THE CROSS. 


_ Let my spirit be counted as noth- The cross of Christ is indeed a stumbling-block to 
ing *° for the sake of the cross, which _ those that do not believe, but to the believing it is salva- 
is a stumbling-block '" to those that do tion and life eternal. “Where is the wise man? where 
not believe, but to us salvation and the disputer?”’** Where is the boasting of those who 





1 2 Cor. viii. 18. 2 x Cor. vi. 19. 3 Comp. James i. 16. 4 x Cor. vi. 9, ro. 5 Deut. xxxii. 15. 6 2 Cor. vi. 14-16. 


7 Comp. john xii. 7, 8 S f Sol. i. 3, 4. i « aa i ‘i ing,” i 
if ae Ore Ong eo ji 2 4 9 Literally, “‘ before the ages, 10 Again mepipyua, translated “ offscouring,, "r Cor, iv. 13. 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE EPHESIANS. 


life eternal. “Where is the wise 
man? where the disputer?’””* Where 
is the boasting of those who are styled 
prudent? For our God, Jesus Christ, 
was, according to the appointment3 
of God, conceived in the womb by 
Mary, of the seed of David, but by 
the Holy Ghost. He was born and 
baptized, that by His passion He 
might purify the water. 


57 


are called mighty? For the Son of God, who was be- 
gotten before time began,? and established all things 
according to the will of the Father, He was conceived in 
the womb of Mary, according to the appointment of God, 
of the seed of David, and by the Holy Ghost. For says 
[the Scripture], “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, 
and shall bring forth a son, and He shall be called Im- 
manuel.” 4 He was born and was baptized by John, that 
He might ratify the institution committed to that prophet. 


CHAP. XIX.——- THREE CELEBRATED MYSTERIES. 


Now the virginity of Mary was hid- 
den from the prince of this world, as 
- was also her offspring, and the death 
of the Lord ; three mysteries of re- 
nown,> which were wrought in silence 
by® God. How, then, was He mani- 
fested to the world?? A star shone 
forth in heaven above all the other 
stars, the light of which was inex- 
pressible, while its novelty struck men 
with astonishment. And all the rest 
of the stars, with the sun and moon, 
formed a chorus to this star, and its 
light was exceedingly great above 
them all. And there was agitation 
felt as to whence this new spectacle 
came, so unlike to everything else 
[in the heavens]. Hence every kind 
of magic was destroyed, and every 
bond of wickedness disappeared ; ig- 
norance was removed, and the old 
kingdom abolished, God Himself be- 
ing manifested in human form for the 
renewal of eternal life. And now 
that took a beginning which had been 
prepared by God. Henceforth all 
things were in a state of tumult, be- 
cause He meditated the abolition of 
death. 


CHAP. XX.—— PROMISE OF ANOTHER 
LETTER. 


If Jesus Christ shall graciously per- 
mit me through your prayers, and if 
it be His will, I shall, in a second lit- 
tle work which I will write to you, 
make further manifest to you [the na- 
ture of ] the dispensation of which I 
have begun [to treat], with respect to 
the new man, Jesus Christ, in His 
faith and in His love, in His suffering 
and in His resurrection. Especially 
[will I do this *] if the Lord make 
known to me that ye come together 


11 Cor.i.20, _# Literally, “‘ before the ages.” 
4 Isa. vil. 14; Matt. i. 23. 
8 Some read, ‘‘ bond.” ! 
13 Or, ‘‘ that which was periect received a 


15 Literally, “ by name.’ 1. i. 15. 


9 Literally, “ opinion.” 


5 Literally, ‘of noise.” 6 


ginning from God.” 


Now the virginity of Mary was hidden from the prince 
of this world, as was also her offspring, and the death of 
the Lord; three mysteries of renown,’ which were 
wrought in silence, but have been revealed to us. _A star 
shone forth in heaven above all that were before it, and 
its light was inexpressible, while its novelty struck men: 
with astonishment. And all the rest of the stars, with 
the sun and moon, formed a chorus to this star. It far 
exceeded them all in brightness, and agitation was felt as 
to whence this new spectacle [proceeded]. Hence 
worldly wisdom became folly; conjuration was seen to 
be mere trifling; and magic became utterly ridiculous. 
Every law® of wickedness vanished away; the darkness 
of ignorance was dispersed ; and tyrannical authority was 
destroyed, God being manifested as a man, and man dis- 
playing power as God. But neither was the former a 
mere imagination,’ nor did the second imply a bare hu- 
manity ; '° but the one was absolutely true,"! and the other 
an economical arrangement.’* Now that received a be- 
ginning which was perfected by God.'3 Henceforth all 
things were in a state of tumult, because He meditated 
the abolition of death. 


CHAP. XX.—- EXHORTATIONS TO STEDFASTNESS AND UNITY. 


Stand fast, brethren, in the faith of Jesus Christ, and in 
His love, in His passion, and in His resurrection. Do ye 
all come together in common, and individually,'s through 
grace, in one faith of God the Father, and of Jesus 
Christ His only-begotten Son, and “the first-born of 
every creature,” 7 but of the seed of David according to 
the flesh, being under the guidance of the Comforter, in 
obedience to the bishop and the presbytery with an undi- 
vided mind, breaking one and the same bread, which is 
the medicine of immortality, and the antidote which pre- 
vents us from dying, but a cleansing remedy driving away 
evil, [which causes] that we should live in God through 
Jesus Christ. 


3 Or, “economy,” or “ dispensation.” 2 i, 4. 

é Or, “in the silence of God" — divine silence. 7 Literally, “to the ages.” 
10 Literally, ‘‘bareness.” 1% Literally, “‘truth.” 1 Literally, ‘‘ap economy. 
14 The punctuation and meaning are here doubtful. 


Come Col. i, 25; x Tim, 
e 


58 


man by man in common through 
grace, individually," in one faith, and 
in Jesus Christ, who was of the seed 
of David according to the flesh, be- 
ing both the Son of man and the Son 
of God, so that ye obey the bishop 
and the presbytery with an undivided 
mind, breaking one and the same 
bread, which is the medicine of im- 
mortality, and the antidote to prevent 
us from dying, but [which causes } 
that we should live for ever in Jesus 
Christ. 


CHAP. 


My soul be for yours and theirs? 
whom, for the honour of God, ye 
have sent to Smyrna; whence also I 
write to you, giving thanks unto the 
Lord, and loving Polycarp even as I 
do you. Remember me, as Jesus 
Christ also remembered you. Pray 
ye for the Church which is in Syria, 
whence I am led bound to Rome, be- 
ing the last of the faithful who are 
there, even as I have been thought 
worthy to be chosen‘ to show forth 
the honour of God. Farewell in God 
the Father, and in Jesus Christ, our 
common hope. 


i Literally, ‘‘ by name.” 
3 Some read, “even as.” 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE EPHESIANS. 


XXI. —- CONCLUSION. 


My soul be for yours and theirs? whom, for the hon- 
our of God, ye have sent to Smyrna ; whence also I 
write to you, giving thanks to the Lord, and loving Poly- 
carp even as I do you. Remember me, as Jesus Christ 
‘also remembers you, who is blessed for evermore. Pray 
ye for the Church of Antioch which is in Syria, whence I 
am led bound to Rome, being the last of the faithful that 
are there, who3 yet have been thought worthy to carry 
these chains to the honour of God. Fare ye well in God 
the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, our common hope, 
and in the Holy Ghost. Fare ye well. Amen. Grace 
[be with you].5 


2 Some render, “‘ May I, in my turn, be the means of refreshing you and those,” etc. 
4 Literally, ‘‘ to be found for.’ 5 Some omit, ‘‘ Grace [be wh 


you].” 


‘rele 


THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE MAGNESIANS 


SHORTER AND LONGER VERSIONS. 





Lenatius, who is also called Theopho- Ignatius, who ts also called Theophorus, to the [ Church] 
rus, to the [Church] blessed in the blessed in the grace of God the Father, in Jesus Christ 
grace of God the Father, in Jesus our Saviour, in whom I salute the Church which is at 


Christ our Saviour, in whom I Magnesia, near the Meander, and wish it abundance 
salute the Church which ts at Mag- of happiness in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, 
nesta, near the Meander, and wish our Lord, in whom may you have abundance of hap- 


it abundance of happiness in God piness. 
the Father, and in Jesus Christ. 


CHAP, I. —- REASON OF WRITING THE EPISTLE. 


Havinc been informed of your Havinc been informed of your godly ' love, so well- 
godly* love, so well-ordered, I re- ordered, I rejoiced greatly, and determined to commune 
joiced greatly, and determined to with you in the faith of Jesus Christ. For as one who 
commune with you in the faith of has been thought worthy of a divine and desirable name, 
Jesus Christ. For as one who has in those bonds which I bear about, I commend the 
been thought worthy of the most hon- Churches, in which I pray for a union both of the flesh 
ourable of all names,? in those bonds and spirit of Jesus Christ, “‘ who is the Saviour of all men, 
which I bear about, I commend the but specially of them that believe ;’3 by whose blood 
Churches, in which I pray fora union ye were redeemed ; by whom ye have known God, or 
both of the flesh and spirit of Jesus rather have been known by Him;+* in whom enduring, 
Christ, the constant source of our life, ye shall escape all the assaults of this world: for “ He 
and of faith and love, to which nothing is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above 
is to be preferred, but especially of that which ye are able.” 5 
Jesus and the Father, in whom, if we 
endure all the assaults of the prince 
of this world, and escape them, we 

shall enjoy God. 


CHAP. II. —I REJOICE IN YOUR MESSENGERS. 


' Since, then, I have had the privi- Since, then, I have had the privilege of seeing you, 
lege of seeing you, through Damas through Damas your most worthy © bishop, and through 
your most worthy bishop, and through your worthy® presbyters Bassus and Apollonius, and 
your worthy presbyters Bassus and through my fellow-servant the deacon Sotio, whose friend- 
Apollonius, and through my fellow- ship may I ever enjoy,’ inasmuch as he, by the grace of 
servant the deacon Sotio, whose friend- God, is subject to the bishop and presbytery, in the law 
_ ship may I ever enjoy, inasmuch as he _ of Jesus Christ, [I now write 5 to you]. 

is subject to the bishop as to the grace 
of God, and to the presbytery as to the 
law of Jesus Christ, [I now write * to 


you |. , 

I Literally, “according to God.” 2 Literally, ‘‘ of the most_God-becoming name,” referring either to_the appellation Theophorus,” 
or to that of *martyr” or’! confessor.” 31 Tim.iv.1o. 4 Comp. Gal. iv. 9... S 1 Cor. x. 13. © Literally, ‘‘ worthy of God. 

7 Literally, “ whom may I enjoy.”  ® The apodosis is here wanting in the original, but must evidently be supplied in some such way 
as above. 


59 


60 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE MAGNESIANS. 


CHAP. III.— HONOUR YOUR YOUTHFUL BISHOP. 


Now it becomes you also not to 
treat your bishop too familiarly on 
account of his youth,’ but to yield him 
all reverence, having respect to? the 
power of God the Father, as I have 
known even holy presbyters do, not 
judging rashly, from the manifest 
youthful appearance: [of their bishop], 
but as being themselves prudent in 
God, submitting to him, or rather not 
to him, but to the Father of Jesus 
Christ, the bishop of us all. It is 
therefore fitting that you should, after 
no hypocritical fashion, obey [your 
bishop], in honour of Him who has 
willed us [so to do], since he that 
does not so deceives not [by such 
conduct] the bishop that is visible, 
but seeks to mock Him that is invisi- 
ble. And all such conduct has refer- 
ence not to man," but to God, who 
knows all secrets. 


t Literally, ‘‘ to use the age of your bishop.” 


Now it becomes you also not to despise the age of your 
bishop, but to yield him all reverence, according to the 
will of God the Father, as I have known even holy pres- 
byters do, not having regard to the manifest youth [of 
their bishop], but to his knowledge in God ; inasmuch as 
“not the ancient are [necessarily] wise, nor do the aged 
understand prudence; but there is a spirit in men.’ * 
For Daniel the wise, at twelve years of age, became pos- 
sessed of the divine Spirit, and convicted the elders, who 
in vain carried their grey hairs, of being false accusers, 
and of lusting after the beauty of another man’s wife.’ 
Samuel also, when he was but a little child, reproved Eli, 
who was ninety years old, for giving honour to his sons 
rather than to God.° In like manner, Jeremiah also re- 
ceived this message from God, “ Say not, I am a child.” 7 
Solomon too, and Josiah, [exemplified the same thing. ] 
The former, being made king at twelve years of age, gave 
that terrible and difficult judgment in the case of the two 
women concerning their children.’ The latter, coming to 
the throne when eight years old,9 cast down the altars and 
temples [of the idols], and burned down the groves, for 
they were dedicated to demons, and not toGod. And he 
slew the false priests, as the corrupters and deceivers of 
men, and not the worshippers of the Deity. Wherefore 
youth is not to be despised when it is devoted to God. 
But he is to be despised who is of a wicked mind, although 
he be old, and full of wicked days."* Timothy the Christ- 
bearer was young, but hear what his teacher writes to him : 
“Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example 
of the believers in word and in conduct.”  Itis becoming, 
therefore, that ye also should be obedient to your bishop, 
and contradict him in nothing ; for it is a fearful thing to 
contradict any such person. For no one does [by such 
conduct] deceive him that is visible, but does [in reality] 
seek to mock Him that is invisible, who, however, cannot 
be mocked by any one. And every such act has respect 
not to man, but to God. For God says to Samuel, 
“They have not mocked thee, but Me.” "3 And Moses 
declares, “ For their murmuring is not against us, but 
against the Lord God.” '* No one of those has, [in fact, } 
remained unpunished, who rose up against their superiors. 
For Dathan and Abiram did not speak against the law, 
but against Moses,'5 and were cast down alive into Hades. 
Korah also,’© and the two hundred and fifty who conspired 
with him against Aaron, were destroyed by fire. Absalom, 
again,'? who had slain his brother, became suspended on 
a tree, and had his evil-designing heart thrust through 
with darts. In like manner was Abeddadan ** beheaded 
for the same reason. Uzziah,’? when he presumed to 
oppose the priests and the priesthood, was smitten with 
leprosy. Saul also was dishonoured,?° because he did not 
wait for Samuel the high priest. It behoves you, there- 
fore, also to reverence your superiors. 


2 Literally, “according to.” _3 Literally, ‘‘ youthful condition.” 


4 Job xxxil. 8, 9. 5 Dan, xiii. (Apoc.). x Sam, ili 1. 7 Jer. 3. 7. 8; Ki it, 16. 
® 2 Kings xxii. xxiii. 10 Literally, “‘ to flesh.” 1 Dan. xiii, _ (Apoe ia Tl ie 12, 
13 y Sam. viii. 7. 4 Ex, xvi. 8. 1S Num, xvi, 1. 16 Num, xvi. 31. 17 9 Sam. xviii. 14. 


18 Sheba is referred to under this name: see 2 Sam. xx. 22. 


19 2 Chron. xxvi. 20. 20 y Sam. xiii, x1. 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE MAGNESIANS. 61 


CHAP. IV.—SOME WICKEDLY ACT INDEPENDENTLY OF THE BISHOP. 

It is fitting, then, not only to be 
called Christians, but to be so in real- 
ity : as some indeed give one the title 
of bishop, but do all things without 
him. Now such persons seem to me 
to be not possessed of a good con- 
science, seeing they are not stedfastly 
gathered together according to the 


commandment. 


Seeing, then, all things have an 
end, these two things are simulta- 
neously set before us—death and 
life ; and every one shall go unto his 
own place. For as there are two 
kinds of coins, the one of God, the 
other of the world, and each of these 
has its special character stamped upon 
it, [so is it also here.]? The unbe- 
lieving are of this world ; but the be- 
lieving have, in love, the character of 
God the Father by Jesus Christ, by 
whom, if we are not in readiness 
to die into His passion, His life is 


not in us. 


of your immortality.® 





It is fitting, then, not only to be called Christians, but 
to be so in reality. For it is not the being called so, 
but the being really so, that renders a man blessed. To 
those who indeed talk of the bishop, but do all things 
without him, will He who is the true and first Bishop, 
and the only High Priest by nature, declare, “ Why call 
ye Me Lord, and do not the things which I say?”"* For 
such persons seem to me not possessed of a good con- 
science, but to be simply dissemblers and hypocrites. 


CHAP. V.— DEATH IS THE FATE OF ALL SUCH. 


Seeing, then, all things have an end, and there is set 
before us life upon our observance [of God's precepts], 
but death as the result of disobedience, and every one, 
according to the choice he makes, shall go to his own 
place, let us flee from death, and make choice of life. 
For I remark, that two different characters are found 
among men—the one true coin, the other spurious. 
The truly devout man is the right kind of coin, stamped 
by God Himself. The ungodly man, again, is false coin, 
unlawful, spurious, counterfeit, wrought not by God, but 
by the devil. Ido not mean to say that there are two 
different human natures, but that there is one humanity, 
sometimes belonging to God, and sometimes to the devil. 
If any one is truly religious, he is a man of God ; but if he 
is irreligious, he is a man of the devil, made such, not by 
nature, but by his own choice. The unbelieving bear 
the image of the prince of wickedness. The believing 
possess the image of their Prince, God the Father, and 
Jesus Christ, through whom, if we are not in readiness to 
die for the truth into His passion, 3 His life is not in us. 


CHAP. VI. — PRESERVE HARMONY. 


Since therefore I have, in the per- 
sons before mentioned, beheld the 
whole multitude of you in faith and 
love, I exhort you to study to do all 
things with a divine harmony,‘ while 
your bishop presides in the place of 
God, and your presbyters in the place 
of the assembly of the apostles, along 
with your deacons, who are most dear 
to me, and are entrusted with the 
ministry of Jesus Christ, who was with 
the Father before the beginning of 
time, and in the end was revealed. 
Do ye all then, imitating the same 
divine conduct,7 pay respect to one 
another, and let no one look upon his 
neighbour after the flesh, but do ye 
continually love each other in Jesus 
Christ. Let nothing exist among you 
that may divide you ; but be ye united 
with your bishop, and those that pre- 
side over you, as a type and evidence 


Since therefore I have, in the persons before men- 
tioned, beheld the whole multitude of you in faith and 
love, I exhort you to study to do all things with a divine 
harmony,‘ while your bishop presides in the place of 
God, and your presbyters in the place of the assembly 
of the apostles, along with your deacons, who are most 
dear to me, and are entrusted with the ministry of Jesus 
Christ. He, being begotten by the Father before the 
beginning of time,5 was God the Word, the only-begotten 
Son, and remains the same for ever; for “of His king- 
dom there shall be no end,”® says Daniel the prophet. 
Let us all therefore love one another in harmony, and let 
no one look upon his neighbour according to the flesh, 
but in Christ Jesus. Let nothing exist among you which 
may divide you; but be ye united with your bishop, 
being through him subject to God in Christ. 


1 Luke vi. 46. 2 The apodosis is wanting in the ereinal, and some prefer finding it in the following sentence. 
3 Or, “‘ after the likeness of His passion.” 


© Dan. ii. 44, vii. 14, 27. 


7 Literally, “ 


4 Literally, “in harmony of God.” 5 Literally, “‘ before the We 


receiving the like manners of God.” § The meaning is here doub 


62 EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE MAGNESIANS, 





CHAP. VII.— DO NOTHING WITHOUT THE BISHOP AND PRESBYTERS. 


As therefore the Lord did nothing As therefore the Lord does nothing without the Father, 
without the Father, being united to for says He, “I can of mine own self do nothing,’ * so 
Him, neither by Himself nor by the do ye, neither presbyter, nor deacon, nor layman, do any- 
apostles, so neither do ye anything thing without the bishop. Nor let anything appear com- 
without the bishop and presbyters. mendable to you which is destitute of his approval.’ 
Neither endeavour that anything ap- For every such thing is sinful, and opposed [to the will 
pear reasonable and proper to your- of] God. Do ye all come together into the same place 
selves apart ; but being come together for prayer. Let there be one common supplication, one 
into the same place, let there be one mind, one hope, with faith unblameable in Christ Jesus, 
prayer, one supplication, one mind, than which nothing is more excellent. Do ye all, as one 
one hope, in love and in joy undefiled. man, run together into the temple of God, as unto one 
There is one Jesus Christ, than whom altar, to one Jesus Christ, the High Priest of the unbe- 
nothing is more excellent. Do ye gotten God. 
therefore all run together as into one 
temple of God, as to one altar, as to. 
one Jesus Christ, who came forth from 
one Father, and is with and has gone 
to one. 


CHAP. VIII.— CAUTION AGAINST FALSE DOCTRINES. 


Be not deceived with strange doc- Be not deceived with strange doctrines, “nor give 
trines, nor with old fables, which are heed to fables and endless genealogies,” 3 and things in 
unprofitable. For if we still live which the Jews make their boast. “Old things are 
according to the Jewish law, we ac- passed away: behold, all things have become new.’’4 
knowledge that we have not received For if we still live according to the Jewish law, and the 
grace. For the divinest prophets circumcision of the flesh, we deny that we have received 
lived according to Christ Jesus. On grace. For the divinest prophets lived according to 
this account also they were perse- Jesus Christ. On this account also they were persecuted, 
cuted, being inspired by His grace to _ being inspired by grace to fully convince the unbelieving 
fully convince the unbelieving that that there is one God, the Almighty, who has manifested 
there is one God, who has manifested Himself by Jesus Christ His Son, who is His Word, not 
Himself by Jesus Christ His Son, who spoken, but essential. For He is not the voice of an 
is His eternal Word, not proceeding articulate utterance, but a substance begotten by divine 
forth from silence,’ and who in all power, who has in all things pleased Him that sent Him.® 
things pleased Him that sent Him. 


CHAP. IX. — LET US LIVE WITH CHRIST. 


If, therefore, those who were brought If, then, those who were conversant with the ancient 
up in the ancient order of things? Scriptures came to newness of hope, expecting the com- 
have come to the possession of a new® ing of Christ, as the Lord teaches us when He says, “If 
hope, no longer observing the Sab- ye had believed Moses, ye would have believed Me, for 
bath, but living in the observance? of he wrote of Me;”9 and again, “ Your father Abraham 
the Lord’s Day, on which also our rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it, and was glad ; for 
life has sprung up again by Him and before Abraham was, I am ;”* how shall we be able to 
by His death — whom some deny, by live without Him? The prophets were His servants, 
which mystery we have obtained and foresaw Him by the Spirit, and waited for Him as 
faith,’? and therefore endure, that we _ their Teacher, and expected Him as their Lord and 
may be found the disciples of Jesus Saviour, saying, “ He will come and save us.’"3 Let us 
Christ, our only Master —how shall therefore no longer keep the Sabbath after the Jewish 
we be able to live apart from Him, manner, and rejoice in days of idleness; for “he that 
whose disciples the prophets them- does not work, let him not eat.’" For say the [holy} 
selves in the Spirit did wait for Him oracles, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy 
as their Teacher? And therefore He bread.”’'5 But let every one of you keep the Sabbath’ 
whom they rightly waited for, being after a spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the 
come, raised them from the dead.*® law, not in relaxation of the body, admiring the work- 





I John v. 30. 2 Or, “ contrary to his judgment. ” 32 Tim, 1, 4. 4 2 Cori vit 5 Some have ar, i ? 
: h ent, 4s .v. 17. ed that th s ; 
Sea is here referred to, and have consequently inferred that this epistle could not have are written by donating: aie Cera 
ome read Uroorycartt, “that gave Him His Ayfostaszs, or substance.”* 7 Literally, “i Id things,” 8 bs i‘: 
3 ta ; ly, ‘in old things, Or, ‘‘ newness of. 
9 John v. 46, 1° Or, “according to.” 11 John viii. 56, 58. 12 Literally, ““ we have recei ieve.” 13 : 
14 2 Thess, iil. 10, 18 Gen, iii, 19. 16 Comp. Matt. ea 52. bs SS ad occupant eee 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE MAGNESIANS. 


63 











manship of God, and not eating things prepared the day 
before, nor using lukewarm drinks, and walking within a 
prescribed space, nor finding delight in dancing and 
plaudits which have no sense in them," And after the 
observance of the Sabbath, let every friend of Christ 
keep the Lord’s Day as a festival, the resurrection-day, 
the queen and chief of all the days [of the week]. 
Looking forward to this, the prophet declared, “To the 
end, for the eighth day,” ? on which our life both sprang 
up again, and the victory over death was obtained in 
Christ, whom the children of perdition, the enemies of 
the Saviour, deny, “whose god is their belly, who mind 
earthly things,’”3 who are “lovers of pleasure, and not 
lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying 
the power thereof.” These make merchandise of Christ, 
corrupting His word, and giving up Jesus to sale: they 
are corrupters of women, and covetous of other men’s 
possessions, swallowing up wealth 5 insatiably ; from whom 
may ye be delivered by the mercy of God through our 
Lord Jesus Christ ! 


CHAP, X.— BEWARE OF JUDAIZING. 


Let us not, therefore, be insensible 
to His kindness. For were He to 
reward us according to our works, we 
should cease to be. Therefore, hav- 
ing become His disciples, let us learn 
to live according to the principles of 
Christianity.” For whosoever is called 
by any other name besides this, is not 
of God. Lay aside, therefore, the 


‘evil, the old, the sour leaven, and be 


ye changed into the new leaven, which 


is Jesus Christ. Be ye salted in Him, | 


lest any one among you should be 
corrupted, since by your savour ye 
shall be convicted. It is absurd to 
profess "2 Christ Jesus, and to Judaize. 
For Christianity did not embrace % 
Judaism, but Judaism Christianity, 
that so every tongue which believeth 
might be gathered together to God. 


Let us not, therefore, be insensible to His kindness. 
For were He to reward us according to our works, we 
should cease to be. For “if Thou, Lord, shalt mark 
iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?” 6 Let us therefore 
prove ourselves worthy of that name which we have 
received. For whosoever is called by any other name 
besides this, he is not of God; for he has not received 
the prophecy which speaks thus concerning us: “The 
people shall be called by a new name, which the Lord 
shall name them, and shall be a holy people.”*® This 
was first fulfilled in Syria ; for “the disciples were called 
Christians at Antioch,” ° when Paul and Peter were lay- 
ing the foundations of the Church. Lay aside, therefore, 
the evil, the old, the corrupt leaven,"® and be ye changed 
into the new leaven of grace. Abide in Christ, that the 
stranger ‘' may not have dominion over you. It is absurd 
to speak of Jesus Christ with the tongue, and to cherish 
in the mind a Judaism which has now come to an end. 
For where there is Christianity there cannot be Judaism. 
For Christ is one, in whom every nation that believes, 
and every tongue that confesses, is gathered unto God. 
And those that were of a stony heart have become the 
children of Abraham, the friend of God;"* and in his 
seed all those have been blessed *S who were ordained to 
eternal life © in Christ. 


CHAP. XI. —I WRITE THESE THINGS TO WARN YOU. 


These things [I address to you], 
my beloved, not that I know any of 
you to be in such a state ; 77 but, as 
jess than any of you, I desire to guard 
you beforehand, that ye fall not upon 
the hooks of vain doctrine, but that 


These things [I address to you], my beloved, not that 
I know any of you to be in such a state ; 17 but, as less 
than any of you, I desire to guard you beforehand, that 
ye fall not upon the hooks of vain doctrine, but that you 
may rather attain to a full assurance in Christ, who was 
begotten by the Father before all ages, but was afterwards 





I Reference is here made to well-known Jewish opinions and practices with respect to the Sabbath, The Talmud fixes 2000 cubits as the 


space lawful to be traversed. Philo (De Theraf.) refers to the dancing, etc. 
y 5 Literally, “ whirlpools of wealth.” 


4 2 Tim. iii, 4. 


9 Acts xi. 26. Or, “‘ enem 


to ; Cor. v..7. 1k 


: 


14 Matt. iii 9; Isa xli. 8; James ii. 23. Some read, 


17 j,e., addicted to the error of Judaizing. 


“« children of God, friends of Abraham.” 


2 Ps, vi. xii. (inscrip.). 3 Phil, iii. 18, 19. * 
7 Literally, “‘ according to Christianity.” ® Isa, Ixii, 2, 12. 
Literally, ‘‘ believe into,” merge into. 
15 Gen, xxviii, 14. 16 Acts xili. 48. 


6 Ps, cxxx. 3. al 
12 Some read, “‘ to name. 13 


64 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE MAGNESIANS. 





ye attain to full assurance in regard to 
the birth, and passion, and resurrec- 
tion which took place in the time of 
the government of Pontius Pilate, be- 
ing truly and certainly accomplished 
by Jesus Christ, who is our hope,' 
from which may no one of you ever 
be turned aside. 


born of the Virgin Mary without any intercourse with. 
man. He also lived a holy life, and healed every kind of. 
sickness and disease among the people, and wrought signs 
and wonders for the benefit of men; and to those who 
had fallen into the error of polytheism He made known 
the one and only true God, His Father, and underwent 
the passion, and endured the cross at the hands of the 
Christ-killing Jews, under Pontius Pilate the governor and 
Herod the king. He also died, and rose again, and as- 
cended into the heavens to Him that sent Him, and is 
sat down at His right hand, and shall come at the end of 
the world, with His Father’s glory, to judge the living 
and the dead, and to render to every one according to 
his works.2_ He who knows these things with a full assur- 
ance, and believes them, is happy; even as ye are now 
the lovers of God and of Christ, in the full assurance of 
our hope, from which may no one of us3 ever be turned 
aside ! 


CHAP. XII.— YE ARE SUPERIOR TO ME. 


May I enjoy you in all respects, if 
indeed I be worthy! For though I 
am bound, I am not worthy to be 
compared to any of you that are at 
liberty. I know that ye are not puffed 
up, for ye have Jesus Christ in your- 
selves. And all the more when I 
commend you, I know that ye cherish 
modesty * of spirit; as it is written, 
“The righteous man is his own ac- 
cuser,”’ 5 


CHAP. XIII. — BE 


Study, therefore, to be established 
in the doctrines of the Lord and the 
apostles, that so all things, whatsoever 
ye do, may prosper both in the flesh 
and spirit ; in faith and love; in the 
Son, and in the Father, and in the 
Spirit ; in the beginning and in the end ; 
with your most admirable bishop, and 
the well-compacted spiritual crown 
of your presbytery, and the deacons 
who are according to God. Be ye 
subject to the bishop, and to one an- 
other, as Jesus Christ to the Father, 


ty Tim. i. x. 3 2 Tim. iv. 1; Rom. ii. 6. 
6 Isa. xliii, 26, 7 Luke xvii. 10, 


#8 1 Chron. xvii. 16. 13 Num. xii. 3. 


3 Some cead, “of you.” 
§ Luke xvi. 15. 
14 Ex, iv. 10, 


May I enjoy you in all respects, if indeed I be worthy ! 
For though I am bound, I am not worthy to be compared 
to one of you that are at liberty. I know that ye are not 
puffed up, for ye have Jesus in yourselves. And all the 
more when I commend you, I know that ye cherish mod- 
esty * of spirit; as it is written, “The righteous man is 
his own accuser ; ” 5 and again, “ Declare thou first thine 
iniquities, that thou mayest be justified ;’’® and again, 
“When ye shall have done all things that are commanded 
you, say, We are unprofitable servants ;” 7 “ for that which 
is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight 
of God.” ® For says [the Scripture], “God be merciful 
to me a sinner.” 9 Therefore those great ones, Abraham 
and Job,'° styled themselves “ dust and ashes” !' before 
God. And David says, “Who am I before Thee, O Lord, 
that Thou hast glorified me hitherto?” 7 And Moses, who 
was “the meekest of all men,” '3 saith to God, “I am of 
a feeble voice, and of a slow tongue.” ‘4 Be ye therefore 
also of a humble spirit, that ye may be exalted ; for “he 
that abaseth himself shall be exalted, and he that exalteth 
himself shall be abased.”’ '5 


ESTABLISHED IN FAITH AND UNITY. 


Study, therefore, to be established in the doctrines of 
the Lord and the apostles, that so all things, whatsoever 
ye do, may prosper, both in the flesh and spirit, in faith 
and love, with your most admirable bishop, and the well- 
compacted ** spiritual crown of your presbytery, and the 
deacons who are according to God. Be ye subject to 
the bishop, and to one another, as Christ to the F ather, 
that there may be a unity according to God among you. 


4 Literally, “‘ are reverent.” § Prov. xviii. 17 (LXX.) 
10 Some read, “ Jacob.” 32 Gen, xviii. ; Job oy 
16 Iiterally, well-woven.” pment) 


9 Luke xviii. ‘13. 
4S Luke xiv. rz. 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE MAGNESIANS. 65 


a  E 


according to the flesh, and the apos- 
tles to Christ, and to the Father, and 
to the Spirit ; that so there may be a 
union both fleshly and spiritual. 


CHAP. XIV.— YOUR PRAYERS REQUESTED. 


Knowing as I do that ye are full of 
God, I have but briefly exhorted you. 
Be mindful of me in your prayers, 
that I may attain to God; and of the 
Church which is in Syria, whence I 
am not worthy to derive my name: 
for I stand in need of your united 
prayer in God, and your love, that 
the Church which is in Syria may be 
deemed worthy of being refreshed ? 
by your Church. 


CHAP. 


The Ephesians from Smyrna 
(whence I also write to you), who are 
here for the glory of God, as ye ‘also 
are, who have in all things refreshed 
me, salute you, along with Polycarp, 
the bishop of the Smyrnzans. The 
rest of the Churches, in honour of 
Jesus Christ, also salute you. Fare ye 
well in the harmony of God, ye who 
have obtained the inseparable Spirit, 
who is Jesus Christ. 


Knowing as I do that ye are full of all good, I have but 
briefly exhorted you in the love of Jesus Christ. Be 
mindful of me in your prayers, that I may attain to God ; 
and of the Church which is in Syria, of whom I am not 
worthy to be called bishop. For I stand in need of your 
united prayer in God, and of your love, that the Church 
which is in Syria may be deemed worthy, by your good 
order, of being edified? in Christ. 


XV. — SALUTATIONS. 


The Ephesians ‘from Smyrna (whence I also write to 
you), who are here for the glory of God, as ye also are, 
who have in all things refreshed me, salute you, as does 
also Polycarp. The rest of the Churches, in honour of 
Jesus Christ, also salute you. Fare ye well in harmony, 
ye who have obtained the inseparable Spirit, in Christ 
Jesus, by the will of God. 





1 Literally, “‘ of being fed as by a shepherd.” 


2 Literally, “‘ of being sprinkled with dew.” 


[N.B.— In cap. ix., note 6, the reference is to the title of these twe psalms, as rendered by the LXX. Lig re réAog bwip ris oy8dye.) 


THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE TRALLIANS. 


SHORTER AND LONGER VERSIONS. 





Ignatius, who ts also called Theoph- 
orus, to the holy Church which ts 
at Tralles,in Asta, beloved of God, 
the Father of Jesus Christ, elect, 
and worthy of God, possessing peace 
through the flesh, and blood, and 
passion of Jesus Christ, who ts our 
hope, through our rising again to 
Him, which also I salute in tts 
Julness? and in the apostolical char- 
acter and wish abundance of hap- 
piness. 


Ienatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the holy Church 
which is at Tralles, beloved by God the Father, and 
Jesus Christ, elect, and worthy of God, possessing peace 
“through the flesh and Spirit of Jesus Christ, who ts our 
hope, in His passion by the cross and death, and in fits 
resurrection, which also I salute in tts fulness,? and in 
the apostolical character and wish abundance of 
happiness. 


CHAP. I.— ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THEIR EXCELLENCE. 


I know that ye possess an unblame- 
able and sincere mind in patience, and 
that not only in present practice,5 but 
according to inherent nature, as Po- 
lybius your bishop has shown me, who ' 
has come to Smyrna by the will of God 
and Jesus Christ, and so sympathized 
in the joy which I, who am bound in 
Christ Jesus, possess, that I beheld 
your whole multitude in him. Having 
therefore received through him the 
testimony of your good-will, according 
to God, I gloried to find you, as I 
knew you were, the followers of God. 


I know that ye possess an unblameable and sincere 
mind in patience, and that not only for present use,t but 
as a permanent possession, as Polybius your bishop has 
shown me, who has come to Smyrna by the will of God 
the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, His Son, with the 
co-operation of the Spirit, and so sympathized in the joy 
which I, who am bound in Christ Jesus, possess, that I 
beheld your whole multitude in Him. Having therefore 
received through him the testimony of your good-will 
according to God, I gloried to find that you were the 
followers of Jesus Christ the Saviour. 


CHAP. II.— BE SUBJECT TO THE BISHOP, ETC. 


For, since ye are subject to the 
bishop as to Jesus Christ, ye appear 
to me to live not after the manner of 
men, but according to Jesus Christ, 
who died for us, in order, by believing 
in His death, ye may escape from 
death. It is therefore necessary that, 
as ye indeed do, so without the bishop 
ye should do nothing, but should also 





Be ye subject to the bishop as to the Lord, for “he 
watches for your souls, as one that shall give account to 
God.” ® Wherefore also, ye appear to me to live not after 
the manner of men, but according to Jesus Christ, who 
died for us, in order that, by believing in His death, ye 
may by baptism be made partakers of His resurrection. 
It is therefore necessary, whatsoever things ye do, to do 
nothing without the bishop. And be ye subject also to 
the presbytery, as to the apostles of Jesus Christ, who is 





1 Some render, “in the resurrection which is by Him.” 2 Either, “‘ the whole members of the Church,” or, “in the fulness of blessing.” 


3 Either, “as an apostle,” or, “‘ in the apostolic form.” 


4 Literally, “ not for use, but for a possession.” 


5 Literally, ‘‘ not according to use, but according to nature.” © Heb. xiii. 17. 


66 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE TRALLIANS. 67 





be subject to the presbytery, as to the 
apostle of Jesus Christ, who is our 
hope, in whom, if we live, we shall 
[at last] be found. It is fitting also 
that the deacons, as being [the min- 
isters ] of the mysteries of Jesus Christ, 
should in every respect be pleasing to 
allt. For they are not ministers of 
meat and drink, but servants of the 
Church of God. They are bound, 
therefore, to avoid all grounds of 
accusation [against them], as they 
would do fire. 








our hope, in whom, if we live, we shall be found in Him. 
It behoves you also, in every way, to please the deacons, 
who are [ ministers] of the mysteries of Christ Jesus ; for 
they are not ministers of meat and drink, but servants of 
the Church of God. They are bound, therefore, to avoid 
all grounds of accusation [against them], as they would a 
bueing fire. Let them, then, prove themselves to be 
such, 


CHAP. III]. — HONOUR THE DEACONS, etc. 


In like manner, let all reverence the 
deacons as an. appointment? of Jesus 
Christ, and the bishop as Jesus Christ, 
who is the Son of the Father, and the 
presbyters as the sanhedrim of God, and 
assembly of the apostles. Apart from 
these, there is no Church. Concern- 
ing all this, I am persuaded that ye 
are of the same opinion. For I have 
received the manifestations of your 
love, and still have it with me, in your 
bishop, whose very appearance is 
highly instructive, © and his meekness 
of itself a power ; whom I imagine even 
the ungodly must reverence, seeing 
they are7 also pleased that I do not 
spare myself. But shall I, when per- 
mitted to write on this point, reach 
such a height of self-esteem, that 
though being a condemned ® man, I 


should issue commands to you as if 


I were an apostle? 


And do ye reverence them as Christ Jesus, of whose 
place they are the keepers, even as the bishop is the rep- 
resentative of the Father of all things, and the presbyters 
are the sanhedrim of God, and assembly3 of the apostles 
of Christ. Apart from these there is no elect Church, no 
congregation of holy ones, no assembly of saints. J am 
persuaded that ye also are of this opinion. For I have 
received the manifestation 5 of your love, and still have it 
with me, in your bishop, whose very appearance is highly 
instructive, and his meekness of itself a power ; whom I 
imagine even the ungodly must reverence. Loving you 
as I do, I avoid writing in any severer strain to you, that 
I may not seem harsh to any, or wanting [in tenderness]. 
J am indeed bound for the sake of Christ, but I am not 
yet worthy of Christ. But when I am perfected, perhaps 
I shall then become so. I do not issue orders like an 
apostle. 


CHAP. IV. —I HAVE NEED OF HUMILITY. 


I have great knowledge in God,? 
but I restrain myself, lest I should 
perish through boasting. For now it 
is needful for me to be the more fear- 
ful, and not give heed to those that 
puff me up. For they that speak to 
me [in the way of commendation] 
scourge me. For I do indeed desire 
to suffer, but I know not if I be worthy 
to do so. For this longing, though it 
is not manifest to many, all the more 
vehemently assails me.3 I therefore 
have need of meekness, by which the 
prince of this world is brought to 
nought. 





But I measure myself, that I may not perish through 
boasting : but it is good to glory inthe Lord.*° And even 
though I were established in things pertaining to God, 
yet then would it befit me to be the more fearful, and not 
give heed to those that vainly puff me up. For those that 
commend me scourge me. [I do indeed desire to 
suffer 7], but I know not if I be worthy to do so. For the 
envy of the wicked one is not visible to many, but it wars 
against me. I therefore have need of meekness, by which 
the devil, the prince of this world, is brought to nought. 


oe 


I It is doubtful whether this exhortation is addressed to the deacons or people; whether the former are urged in all respects to please the 


latter, or the latter in all points to be pleased with the former. 
i 3 Or, ‘‘ conjunction. , ‘ 
7 Some here follow a text similar to that of the longer recension. 


been amended as above by Smith. | 
6 Literally, “ great instruction.” 


2 Literally, ‘‘commandment.” The text, which is faulty in the ms., has 
4 Literally, “no Church is called.” 5 Or, ‘‘ pattern.” 


8 Both the text and meaning are here very doubtful; some follow the reading of the longer recension. 


9 Literally, ‘I know many things in 


God.” to x Cor. i. 31. 


It Or, ‘‘ confirmed.” 12 Omitted in the ms, 


13 A different turn altogether is given to this passage in the longer recension. 


68 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE TRALLIANS. 


ee en ee eee 
CHAP. V.—I WILL NOT TEACH YOU PROFOUND DOCTRINES. 


Am I not able to write to you of 
heavenly things? But I fear to do so, 
lest I should inflict injury on you who 
are but babes [in Christ]. Pardon 
me in this respect, lest, as not being 
able to receive [such doctrines], ye 
should be strangled by them. For 
even I, though I am bound [for Christ], 
yet am not on that account able to un- 
derstand heavenly things, and the 
places ¢ of the angels, and their gather- 
ings under their respective princes, 
things visible and invisible. Without 
reference to such abstruse subjects, I 
am still but a learner [in other re- 
spects 5] ; for many things are wanting 
to us, that we come not short of God. 


For might ' not I write to you things more full of mystery ? 
But I fear to do so, lest I should inflict injury on you 
who are but babes [in Christ]. Pardon me in this re- 
spect, lest, as not being able to receive their weighty im- 
port, ? ye should be strangled by them. For even I, though 
I am bound [for Christ], and am able to understand heaven- 
ly things, the angelic orders, and the different sorts 3 of 
angels and hosts, the distinctions between powers and do- 
minions, and the diversities between thrones and author- 
ities, the mightiness of the AZons, and the pre-eminence 
of the cherubim and seraphim, the sublimity of the spirit, 
the kingdom of the Lord, and above all, the incomparable 
majesty of Almighty God — though I am acquainted with 
these things, yet am I not therefore by any means per- 
fect; nor am I such a disciple as Paul or Peter. For 
many things are yet wanting to me, that I may not fall 
short of God. 


CHAP. VI. — ABSTAIN ‘FROM THE POISON OF HERETICS. 


I therefore, yet not I, but the love 
of Jesus Christ, entreat you that ye use 
Christian nourishment only, and ab- 
stain from herbage of a different kind ; 
I mean heresy. For those? [that are 
given to this] mix‘ up Jesus Christ 
with their own poison, speaking things 
which are unworthy of credit, like 
those who administer a deadly drug in 
sweet wine, which he who is ignorant 
of does greedily 3 take, with a fatal 
pleasure, '* leading to his own death. 


I therefore, yet not I, but the love of Jesus Christ, “ en- 
treat you that ye all speak the same thing, and that there 
be no divisions among you ; but that ye be perfectly joined 
together in the same mind, and in the same judgment.” © 
For there are some vain talkers® and deceivers, not 
Christians, but Christ-betrayers, 9 bearing about the name 
of Christ in deceit, and “corrupting the word ” ?° of the 
Gospel ; while they intermix the poison of their deceit with 
their persuasive talk,’* as if they mingled aconite with 
sweet wine, that so he who drinks, being deceived in his 
taste by the very great sweetness of the draught, may 
incautiously meet with his death. One of the ancients 
gives us this advice, “ Let no man be called good who 
mixes good with evil.”"5 For they speak of Christ, 
not that they may preach Christ, but that they may re- 
ject Christ ; and they speak '* of the law, not that they 
may establish the law, but that they may proclaim things 
contrary to it. For they alienate Christ from the Father, 
and the law from Christ. They also calumniate His be- 
ing born of the Virgin; they are ashamed of His cross ; 
they deny His passion; and they do not believe His resur- 
rection. They introduce God as a Being unknown; 
they suppose Christ to be unbegotten; and as to the 
Spirit, they do not admit that He exists. Some of them 
say that the Son is a mere man, and that the Father, Son, 
and Holy Spirit are but the same person, and that the 
creation is the work of God, not by Christ, but by some 
other strange power. 


CHAP. VII.— THE SAME CONTINUED. 


’ Be on your guard, therefore, against 
such persons. And this will be the 
case with you if you are not puffed 
up, and continue in intimate union 
with ’”7 Jesus Christ our God, and the 


Be on your guard, therefore, against such persons, that 
ye admit not of a snare for your own souls. And act so 
that your life shall be without offence to all men, lest ye 
become as “a snare upon a watch-tower, and as a net 
which is spread out.” "8 For “he that does not heal him- 





1 eBovAduny apparently b mistake for eduvéunvy. 


very variously supplied. 8 Tit. i. 10. 
2 Literally, “sweet address,” 13 Or, “‘ sweetly. 
316 Supplied from the old Latin version, 


3 r 2 Literally, ‘‘ their force.” 
5 Literally, ‘‘ passing by this; ” but both text and meaning are very doubtful. 

‘ Christ-sellers.” 3 

14 The construction is here difficult and doubtful. 
17 Literally, “‘ unseparated fem,” 


9 Literally, ‘ 


3 Or, “ varieties of.” 
6 x Cor. i. ro. 
10 9 Cor. ii. x 


4 Or, “ stations.” 

_ 7 The ellipsis in the original is here 
It Literally, “ interweave.” 

1S Apost. Constitutions, vi. 13, 
Os. V. I. 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE TRALLIANS. 





bishop, and the enactments of the 
apostles. He that is within the altar 
is pure, but? he that is without is not 
pure ; that is, he who does anything 
apart from the bishop, and presbytery, 
and deacons,* such a man is not pure 
in his conscience. 


CHAP. VIII.— BE ON YOUR 


Not that I know there is anything 
of this kind among you; but I put 
you on your guard, inasmuch as I 
love you greatly, and foresee the 
snares of the devil. Wherefore, cloth- 
ing‘ yourselves with meekness, be ye 
renewed ” in faith, that is the flesh of 
the Lord, and in love, that is the 
blood of Jesus Christ. Let no one 
of you cherish any grudge against his 
neighbour. Give no occasion to the 
Gentiles, lest by means of a few fool- 
ish men the whole multitude [of those 
that believe] in God be evil spoken 
of. For, “Woe to him by whose 
vanity my name is blasphemed among 
any.” 17 


69 


Se ee ee ee a eT ee ye 


self in his own works, is the brother of him that destroys 
himself.”* If, therefore, ye also put away conceit, arro- 
gance, disdain, and haughtiness, it will be your privilege 
to be inseparably united to God, for “He is nigh unto 
those that fear Him.”3 And says He, “Upon whom 
will I look, but upon him that is humble and quiet, and 
that trembles at my words?”’5 And do ye also reverence 
your bishop as Christ Himself, according as the blessed 
apostles have enjoined you. He that is within the altar 
is pure, wherefore also he is obedient to the bishop and 
presbyters: but he that is without is one that does any- 
thing apart from the bishop, the presbyters, and the 
deacons. Such a person is defiled in his conscience, and 
is worse than an infidel. For what is the bishop but one 
who beyond all others possesses all power and authority, 
so far as it is possible for a man to possess it, who accord- 
ing to his ability has been made an imitator of the Christ 
of God?® And what is the presbytery but a sacred 
assembly, the counsellors and assessors of the bishop? 
And what are the deacons but imitators of the angelic 
powers,’ fulfilling a pure and blameless ministry unto him, 
as the holy Stephen did to the blessed James, Timothy 
and Linus to Paul, Anencletus and Clement to Peter? 
He, therefore, that will not yield obedience to such, 
must needs be one utterly without God, an impious man 
who despises Christ, and depreciates His appointments. 


GUARD AGAINST THE SNARES OF THE DEVIL. 


Now I write these things unto you, not that I know 
there are any such persons among you; nay, indeed I 
hope that God will never permit any such report to reach 
my ears, He “who spared not His Son for the sake of 
His holy Church.”® But foreseeing the snares of the 
wicked one, I arm you betorehand by my admonitions, 
as my beloved and faithful children in Christ, furnishing 
you with the means of protection® against the deadly 
disease of unruly men, by which do ye flee from the 
disease © [referred to] by the good-will of Christ our 
Lord. Do ye therefore, clothing yourselves with meek- 
ness, become the imitators of His sufferings, and of His 
love, wherewith ‘3 He loved us when He gave Himself a 
ransom "4 for us, that He might cleanse us by His blood 
from our old ungodliness, and bestow life on us when we 
were almost on the point of perishing through the de- 
pravity that was in us. Let no one of you, therefore, 
cherish any grudge against his neighbour. For says our 
Lord, “ Forgive, and it shall be forgiven unto you.” '5 
Give no occasion to the Gentiles, lest ““by means of a 
few foolish men the word and doctrine [of Christ] be 
blasphemed.”’*® For says the prophet, as in the person 
of God, “ Woe to him by whom my name is blasphemed 
among the Gentiles.” '7 


CHAP. IX. — REFERENCE TO THE HISTORY OF CHRIST. 


Stop your ears, therefore, when any 
one speaks to you at variance with ™ 





I Prov. xviii. 9 (LXX.). 
5 Isa. Ixvi. 2. : & 
ministering to the bishop, as Christ to the Father. 
© Or, “ from which disease.” ] 
i 15 Matt. vi. 14. 


8 


14 Comp. 1 Tim. ii. 6. 


2 This clause is inserted from the ancient Latin version. Ps. 
6 Some render, ‘‘ being a resemblance according to the power of Christ. 

Rom. viii. 32. 
It Literally, ‘‘ taking up.” C 
16 x Tim. vi. 1; Tit. ii, 5. 


Stop your ears, therefore, when any one speaks to you 
at variance with '* Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was 





3 Ps. Ixxxv.g9. 4 The text has ‘‘ deacon,” 

7 Some read, “‘ imitators of Christ, 
9 Literally, ‘‘ making you drink beforehand what will preserve you,” 
12 Or, ‘‘ renew yourselves.” 13 Comp. Eph. ii. 4. 

17 Tsa, lit. 5. 18 Literally, “‘ apart from,” 


70 EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE TRALLIANS. 





Jesus Christ, who was descended from 
David, and was also of Mary; who 
was truly born, and did eat and drink. 
He was truly persecuted under Pon- 
tius Pilate; He was truly crucified, 
and [truly] died, in the sight of be- 
ings in heaven, and on earth, and 
under the earth. He was also truly 
raised from the dead, His Father 
quickening Him, even as after the 
same manner His Father will so raise 
up us who believe in Him by Christ 
Jesus, apart from whom we do not 
possess the true life. 





descended from David, and was also of Mary ; who was 
truly begotten of God and of the Virgin, but not after 
the same manner. For indeed God and man are not the 
same. He truly assumed a body; for “the Word was 
made flesh,” and lived upon earth without sin. For 
says He, “Which of you, convicteth me of sin?” ? He 
did in reality both eat and drink. He was crucified and 
died under Pontius Pilate. He really, and not merely in 
appearance, was crucified, and died, in the sight of be- 
ings in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth. By 
those in heaven I mean such as are possessed of incor- 
poreal natures ; by those on earth, the Jews and Romans, 
and such persons as were present at that time when the 
Lord was crucified ; and by those under the earth, the mul- 
titude that arose along with the Lord. For says the 
Scripture, “ Many bodies of the saints that slept arose,” 3 
their graves being opened. He descended, indeed, into 
Hades alone, but He arose accompanied by a multitude ; 
and rent asunder that means‘ of separation which had 
existed from the beginning of the world, and cast down 
its partition-wall. He also rose again in three days, the 
Father raising Him up; and after spending forty days 
with the apostles, He was received up to the Father, and 
“sat down at His right hand, expecting till His enemies 
are placed under His feet.” 5 On the day of the prepa- 
ration, then, at the third hour, He received the sentence 
from Pilate, the Father permitting that to happen ; at the 
sixth hour He was crucified ; at the ninth hour He gave 
up the ghost ; and before sunset He was buried. Dur- 
ing the Sabbath He continued under the earth in the tomb 
in which Joseph of Arimathza had laid Him. At the 
dawning of the Lord’s day He arose from the dead, ac- 
cording to what was spoken by Himself, “ As Jonah was 
three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall 
the Son of man also be three days and three nights in 
the heart of the earth.”7’ The day of the preparation, 
then, comprises the passion; the Sabbath embraces the 
burial ; the Lord’s Day contains the resurrection. 


CHAP. X.—THE REALITY OF CHRIST’S PASSION. 


But if, as some that are without 
God, chat is, the unbelieving, say, that 
He only seemed to suffer (they them- 
selves only seeming to exist), then 
why ain I in bonds? Why do I long 
to be exposed to® the wild beasts? 
Do I therefore die in vain?? Am I 
not then guilty of falsehood '° against 
[the cross of] the Lord? 


‘loved.’ ! 


But if, as some that are without God, that is, the un- 
believing, say, He became man in appearance [only], 
that He did not in reality take unto Him a body, that 
He died in appearance [merely], and did not in very 
deed suffer, then for what reason am I now in bonds, 
and long to be exposed to ® the wild beasts? In sucha 
case, I die in vain, and am guilty of falsehood '° against 
the cross of the Lord. Then also does the prophet in 
vain declare, ‘‘ They shall look on Him whom they have 
pierced, and mourn over themselves as over one be- 
These men, therefore, are not less unbelievers 
than were those that crucified Him. But as for me, I do 
not place my hopes in one who died for me in appear- 
ance, but in reality. For that which is false is quite 
abhorrent to the truth. Mary then did truly conceive a 





1 John i. r4. 


: 2 John viii. 46. 


9 Some read this and the following clause affirmatively, instead of interrogatively. 


3 Matt. xxvii. 52. 
ome read, ‘‘ He was taken dow. from the cross, and laid in a new tomb.” 





4 Literally, ‘‘ hedge,” or “ fence.” 


5 Heb, x. 12, 13: 
7 Matt. xii. 40. 


8 Literally, “‘ to fight with.” 
10 The meaning is, that if they spoke the truth 


toncerning the phantasmal character of Christ’s.death, then Ignatius was guilty of a practical falsehood in suffering for what was false, 


il Zech. xii. ro. 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE TRALLIANS. 71 








body which had God inhabiting it. And God the Word 
was truly born of the Virgin, having clothed Himself with 
a body of like passions with our own. He who forms all 
men in the womb, was Himself really in the womb, and 
made for Himself a body of the seed of the Virgin, but 
without any intercourse of man. He was carried in the 
womb, even as we are, for the usual period of time; and 
was really born, as we also are ; and was in reality nour- 
ished with milk, and partook of common meat and drink, 
even as we do. And when He had lived among men for 
thirty years, He was baptized by John, really and not in 
appearance ; and when He had preached the Gospel 
three years, and done signs and wonders, He who was 
Himself the Judge was judged by the Jews, falsely so 
called, and by Pilate the governor; was scourged, was 
smitten on the cheek, was spit upon; He wore a crown 
of thorns and a purple robe; He was condemned: He 
was crucified in reality, and not in appearance, nct in 
imagination, not in deceit. He really died, and was 
buried, and rose from the dead, even as He prayed ina 
certain place, saying, “ But do Thou, O Lord, raise me 
up again, and I shall recompense them.”! And the 
Father, who always hears Him,? answered and said, 
“ Arise, O God, and judge the earth; for Thou shalt 
receive all the heathen for Thine inheritance.’’3 The 
Father, therefore, who raised Him up, will also raise us up 
through Him, apart from whom no one will attain to true 
life. For says He, “I am the life; he that believeth in 
me, even though he die, shall live: and every one that 
liveth and believeth in me, even though he die, shall live 
for ever.”’+ Do ye therefore flee from these ungodly 
heresies; for they are the inventions of the devil, that 
serpent who was the author of evil, and who by means of 
the woman deceived Adam, the father of our race. 


CHAP. XI. —-AVOID THE DEADLY ERRORS OF THE DOCET#. 


Flee, therefore, those evil offshoots 
fof Satan], which produce death- 
bearing fruit, whereof if any one 
tastes, he instantly dies. For these 
men are not the planting of the Father. 
For if they were, they would appear 
as branches of the cross, and their 
fruit would be incorruptible. By it? 
He calls you through His passion, as 
being His members. The head, there- 
fore, cannot be born by itself, without 
its members ; God, who is [the Sav- 
iour] Himself, having promised their 
union." 


: 


1 ee eee 
3 Ps, Ixxxii. 8. 
Lord, are here referred to. 
10 Both text and meanimg are here doubtful. 


I Ps, xli. 10. 2 Comp. John xi. 42. 


7 The Ebionites, who dented the divine nature of our 


founder of this school of heretics. 9 i.e., the cross. 


13 : Cor. ii. 8. 


Do ye also avoid those wicked offshoots of his, 5 Simon 
his firstborn son, and Menander, and Basilides, and all 
his wicked mob of followers,° the worshippers of a man, 
whom also the prophet Jeremiah pronounces accursed.7 
Flee also the impure Nicolaitanes, falsely so called,* who 
are lovers of pleasure, and given to calumnious speeches. 
Avoid also the children of the evil one, Theodotus and 
Cleobulus, who produce death-bearing fruit, whereof if 
any one tastes, he instantly dies, and that not a mere 
temporary death, but one that shall endure for ever. 
These men are not the planting of the Father, but are 
an accursed brood. And says the Lord, “Let every plant 
which my heavenly Father has not planted be rooted 
up.” ** For if they had been branches of the Father, 
they would not have been “enemies of the cross of 
Christ,” "2 but rather of those who “killed the Lord 
of glory.” ‘3 But now, by denying the cross, and being 
ashamed of the passion, they cover the transgression of 
the Jews, those fighters against God, those murderers 
of the Lord; for it were too little to style them merely 





5 ive., Satan’s. © Literally, “loud, confused noise.” 
8 It seems to be here denied that Nicolas was the 
It Matt. xv. 13. % Phil. iii 18. 


4 John xi. 25, 26. 


72 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE TRALLIANS. 


murderers of the prophets. But Christ invites you to 
[share in] His immortality, by His passion and resurrec- 
tion, inasmuch as ye are His members. 


CHAP, XII. —- CONTINUE IN UNITY AND LOVE. 


I salute you from Smyrna, together 
with the Churches of God which are 
with me, who have refreshed me in all 
things, both in the flesh and in the 
spirit. My bonds, which I carry about 
with me for the sake of Jesus Christ 
(praying that I may attain to God), 
exhort you. Continue in harmony 
among yourselves, and in prayer with 
one another; for it becomes every 
one of you, and especially the presby- 
ters, to refresh the bishop, to the hon- 
our of the Father, of Jesus Christ, 
and of the apostles. I entreat you in 
love to hear me, that I may not, by 
having written, be a testimony against 
you. And do ye also pray for me, 
who have need of your love, along 
with the mercy of God, that I may 
be worthy of the lot for which I am 
destined, and that I may not be found 
reprobate. 


I salute you from Smyrna, together with the Churches 
of God which are with me, whose rulers have refreshed 
me in every respect, both in the flesh and in the spirit. 
My bonds, which I carry about with me for the sake of 
Jesus Christ (praying that I may attain to God), exhort 
you. Continue in harmony among yourselves, and in 
supplication ; for it becomes every one of you, and espe- 
cially the presbyters, to refresh the bishop, to the 
honour of the Father, and to the honour of Jesus Christ 
and of the apostles. I entreat you in love to hear me, 
that I may not, by having thus written, be a testimony 
against you. And do ye also pray for me, who have need 
of your love, along with the mercy of God, that I may 
‘be thought worthy to attain the lot for which I am now 
designed, and that I may not be found reprobate. 


CHAP. XIII. —- CONCLUSION. 


The love of the Smyrnzans and 
Ephesians salutes you. Remember 
in your prayers the Church which is 
in Syria, from which also I am not 
worthy to receive my appellation, 
being the last’ of them. Fare ye 
well in Jesus Christ, while ye continue 
subject to the bishop, as to the com- 
mand [of God], and in like manner 
to the presbytery. And do ye, every 
man, love one another with an un- 
divided heart. Let my spirit be sanc- 
tified? by yours, not only now, but 
also when I shall attain to God. For 
I am as yet exposed to danger. But 
the Father is faithful in Jesus Christ 
to fulfil both mine and your petitions : 
in whom may ye be found unblame- 
able. 


The love of the Smyrnzans and Ephesians salutes you. 
Remember our Church which is in Syria, from which I 
am not worthy to receive my appellation, being the last * 
of those of that place. Fare ye well in the Lord Jesus 
Christ, while ye continue subject to the bishop, and in 
like manner to the presbyters and to the deacons. And 
do ye, every man, love one another with an undivided 
heart. My spirit salutes you,? not only now, but also 
when I shall have attained to God; for I am as yet ex- 
posed to danger. But the Father of Jesus Christ is faith- 
ful to fulfil both mine and your petitions: in whom may 
we a found without spot. May I have joy of you in the 
Lord. 





1 i.e., the least. 


2 The shorter recension reads ayvigere, and the longer also hesitates between this and aomwagerat. With the former 


yeading the meaning is very obscure: it has been corrected as above to ayvigytac. 


THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE ROMANS. 


SHORTER AND LONGER VERSIONS. 


lenatius, who is also called Theopho- 

_ rus, to the Church which has ob- 
tained mercy, through the majesty 
of the Most High Father, and Je- 
sus Christ, His only-begotten Son ; 
the Church which ts beloved and 
enlightened by the will of Him 
that willeth all things which are ac- 
cording to the love of Jesus Christ 
our God, which also presides in 
the place of the region of the Ro- 
mans, worthy of God, worthy of 
honour, worthy of the highest hap- 
piness, worthy of praise, worthy of 
obtaining her every desire, worthy 
of being deemed holy, and which 
presides over love, ts named from 
Christ, and from the Father, which 
I also salute in the name of Jesus 
Christ, the Son of the Father: to 
those who are united, both accord- 
ing to the flesh and spirit, to every 
one of His commandments; who 
are filled inseparably with the grace 
of God, and are purified from every 
strange taint, |[wish] abundance 
of happiness unblameably, in Jesus 
Christ our God. 


Ienatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church 
which has obtained mercy, through the majesty of the 
Most High God the Father, and of Jesus Christ, His 
only-begotten Son, the Church which is sanctified and 
enlightened by the will of God, who formed all things 
that are according to the faith and love of Jesus Christ, 
our God and Saviour ,; the Church which presides in the 
place of the region of the Romans, and which is worthy 
of God, worthy of honour, worthy of the highest happi- 
ness, worthy of praise, worthy of credit,* worthy of be- 
ing deemed holy, and which presides over love, ts named 
SJrom Christ, and from the Father, and ts possessed of 
the Spirit, which I also salute in the name of Almighty 
God, and of Jesus Christ His Son: to those who are 
united, both according to the flesh and spirit, to every 
one of His commandments, who are filled inseparably 
with all the grace of God, and are purified from every 
strange taint, [I wish| abundance of happiness un- 
blameably, in God, even the Father, and our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 


CHAP. I.—AS A PRISONER, I HOPE TO SEE YOU. 


THROUGH prayer? to God I have 
obtained the privilege of seeing your 
most worthy faces,+ and have even5 
been granted more than I requested ; 
for I hope as a prisoner in Christ 
Jesus to salute you, if indeed it be 
the will of God that I be thought 
worthy of attaining unto the end. 
For the beginning has been well or- 


TuHRouGH prayer to God I have obtained the privilege of 
seeing your most worthy faces,* even as I earnestly begged 
might be granted me ; for as a prisoner in Christ Jesus I 
hope to salute you, if indeed it be the will [of God] that 
I be thought worthy of attaining unto the end. For the 
beginning has been well ordered, if I may obtain grace 
to cling to ® my lot without hindrance unto the end. For 
I am afraid of your love,” lest it should do me an injury. 
For it is easy for you to accomplish what you please ; 








t Oras in the shorter recension. 2 Or, “most holy.” _ 3 Some read, “ since I have,” leaving out the following “ fer,” and finding the 
apodosis in “ I hope to salute you.” | 4 Literally, “worthy of God.” 5 Some read, “ which I much desired to do.” © Literally, ‘to receive,’ 
7 He probably refers here, and in what follows, to the influence which their earnest prayers in his behalf might have with God. 


73 


74 EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE ROMANS. 








dered, if I may obtain grace to cling 
to’ my lot without hindrance unto 
the end. For I am afraid of your 
love,3 lest it should do me an injury. 
For it is easy for you to accomplish 
what you please ; but it is difficult for 
me to attain to God, if ye spare me. 


CHAP. II.—— DO 


For it is not my desire to act 
towards you as a man-pleaser,* but 
as pleasing God, even as also ye 
please Him. For neither shall I ever 
have such [another] opportunity of 
attaining to God; nor will ye, if ye 
shall now be silent, ever be entitled 
to’ the honour of a better work. 
For if ye are silent concerning me, I 
shall become God’s ; but if you show 
your love to my flesh, I shall again 
have to run my race. Pray, then, do 
not seek to confer any greater favour 
upon me than that I be sacrificed to 
God while the altar is still prepared ; 
that, being gathered together in love, 
ye may sing praise to the Father, 
through Christ Jesus, that God has 
deemed me, the bishop of Syria, 
worthy to be sent for® from the 
east unto the west. It is good to 
set from the world unto God, that I 
may rise again to Him. 





but it is difficult for me to attain to God, if ye do not 
spare me,? under the pretence of carnal affection. 


NOT SAVE ME FROM MARTYRDOM. 


For it is not my desire that ye should please men, but 
God, even as also ye do please Him. For neither shall 
I ever hereafter have such an opportunity of attaining to 
God ; nor will ye, if ye shall now be silent, ever be en- 
titled to’ the honour of a better work. For if ye are 
silent concerning me, I shall become God’s; but if ye 
show your love to my flesh, I shall again have to run my 
race. Pray, then, do not seek to confer any greater 
favour upon me than that I be sacrificed to God, while 
the altar is still prepared ; that, being gathered together 
in love, ye may sing praise to the Father, through Christ 
Jesus, that God has deemed me, the bishop of Syria, 
worthy to be sent for® from the east unto the west, and 
to become a martyr? in behalf of His own precious ® suf- 
ferings, so as to pass from the world to God, that I may 
rise again unto Him. 


CHAP. III. — PRAY RATHER THAT I MAY ATTAIN TO MARTYRDOM. 


Ye have never envied any one; ye 
have taught others. Now I desire 
that those things may be confirmed 
[by your conduct], which in your 
instructions ye enjoin [on others]. 
Only request in my behalf both in- 
ward and outward strength, that I 
may not only speak, but [truly] will ; 
and that I may not merely be called 
a Christian, but really be found to 
be one. For if I be truly found [a 
Christian], I may also be called one, 
and be then deemed faithful, when I 
shall no longer appear to the world. 
Nothing visible is eternal.? “For the 
things which are seen are temporal, 
but the things which are not seen 
are eternal.” 7° For our God, Jesus 
Christ, now that He is with™ the 
Father, is all the more revealed [in 


Ye have never envied any one; ye have taught others. 
Now I desire that those things may be confirmed [by 
your conduct], which in your instructions ye enjoin [on 
others]. Only request in my behalf both inward and 
outward strength, that I may not only speak, but [truly] 
will, so that I may not merely be called a Christian, but 
really found to be one. For if I be truly found [a 
Christian], I may also be called one, and be then deemed 
faithful, when I shall no longer appear to the world. 
Nothing visible is eternal. “For the things which are 
seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are 
eternal.‘° The Christian is not the result? of persuasion, 
but of power.’ When he is hated by the world, he. is 
beloved of God. For says [the Scripture], “If ye were 
of this world, the world would love its own; but now ye 
are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it: 
continue in fellowship with me.’ ™ 


eee 
1 Literally, “to receive.” 2 Some read ye instead of 1, and translate as in shorter recension. 3 He probably refers here, and in 


what follows, to the influence which their earnest prayers in his behalf might have with God. 


4 Some translate as in longer recension, but 


there is in the one case byiv, and in the other unas. 5 Literally, “have to be inscribed to.” © Literall , “‘to be found and sent for.” 
7 The text is here in great confusion. 8 Literally, “ beautiful.” Some read, “ it is good,” etc. 9 Some read, ‘‘ good.” 
10 2 Cor. iv. 18. This quotation is not found in the old Latin version of the shorter recension. 1 Or, “ in.” 12 Literally, “ work.” 


13 The meaning is here doubtful. 14 John xy. 19. 





EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE ROMANS, 75 


His glory]. Christianity is not a thing? 
of silence only, but also of [manifest] 
greatness. 


CHAP. IV.— ALLOW ME TO FALL A PREY TO THE WILD BEASTS. 


I write to the Churches, and im- 
press on them all, that I shall willingly 
die for God, unless ye hinder me. I 
beseech of you not to show an unsea- 
sonable good-will towards me. Suffer 
me to become food for the wild beasts, 
through whose instrumentality it will 
be granted me to attain to God. I 
am the wheat of God, and let me 
be ground by the teeth of the wild 
beasts, that I may be found the pure 
bread of Christ. Rather entice the 
wild beasts, that they may become 
my tomb, and may leave nothing of 
my body ; so that when I have fallen 
asleep [in death], I may be no trouble 
to any one. Then shall I truly be a 
disciple of Christ, when the world 
shall not see so much as my body. 
Entreat Christ for me, that by these 
instruments? I may be found a sacri- 
fice [to God]. I do not, as Peter 
and Paul, issue commandments unto 
you. ‘They were apostles; I am but 
a condemned man: they were free,3 
while I am, even until now, a servant. 
But when I suffer, I shall be the freed- 
man of Jesus, and shall rise again 
emancipated in Him. And now, be- 
ing a prisoner, I learn not to desire 
anything worldly or vain. 


CHAP. 


From Syria even unto Rome I fight 
with beasts, both by land and sea, 
both by night and day, being bound 
to ten leopards, I mean a band of 
soldiers, who, even when they receive 
benefits, show themselves all the 
worse. But I am the more instructed 
by their injuries [to act as a disciple 
of Christ]; “yet am I not thereby 
justified.”® May I enjoy the wild 
beasts that are prepared for me ; and 
I pray they may be found eager to 
rush upon me, which also I will entice 
to devour me speedily, and not deal 
with me as with some, whom, out of 
fear, they have not touched. But if 
they be unwilling to assail me, I will 
compel them to do so. Pardon me 





1 Literally, “ work.” ; 
where the word is also used figuratively. 
6 x Cor. iv. 4. 
lation is by no means certain. 


2 i.e., by the teeth of the wild beasts. ahi ; comp. 
ie 5 Probably the soldiers received gifts from the Christians, to treat Ignatius with kindness. 


7 In the shorter recension there is $yAwey, and in the longer ¢nA@oat; hence the variety of rendering, but the trans: 


I write to all the Churches, and impress on them all, 
that I shall willingly die for God, unless ye hinder me. 
I beseech of you not to show.an unseasonable good- 
will towards me. Suffer me to become food for the wild 
beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted 
me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, and am 
ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be 
found the pure bread of God. Rather entice the wild 
beasts, that they may become my tomb, and may leave 
nothing of my body; so that when I have fallen asleep 
{in death], I may not be found troublesome to any one. 
Then shall I be a true disciple of Jesus Christ, when 
the world shall not see so much as my body. Entreat the 
Lord for me, that by these instruments? I may be found 
a sacrifice to God. I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue 
commandments unto you. They were apostles of Jesus 
Christ, but I am the very least [of believers]: they were 
free,3 as the servants of God; while I am, even until 
now, a servant. But when I suffer, I shall be the freed- 
man of Jesus Christ, and shall rise again emancipated in 
Him. And now, being in bonds for Him, I learn not te 
desire anything worldly or vain. 


V.—I DESIRE TO DIE. 


From Syria even unto Rome I fight with beasts, both 
by land and sea, both by night and day, being bound to 
ten leopards, I mean a band of soldiers, who, even when 
they receive benefits,5 show themselves all the worse. 
But I am the more instructed by their injuries [to act as 
a disciple of Christ] ; “yet am I not thereby justified.” ° 
May I enjoy the wild beasts that are prepared for me; 
and I pray that they may be found eager to rush upon 
me, which also I will entice to devour me speedily, and 
not deal with me as with some, whom, out of fear, they 
have not touched. But if they be unwilling to assail me, 
I will compel them to do so. Pardon me [in this]: I 
know what is for my benefit. Now I begin to be a dis- 
ciple, and have? no desire after anything visible or invisi- 
ble, that I may attain to Jesus Christ. Let fire and the 
cross ; let the crowds of wild beasts ; let breakings, tear- 
ings, and separations of bones ; let cutting off of mem- 
bers; let bruising to pieces of the whole body ; and let 





3 “ Free,” probably from human infirmity. 4 Comp. 1 Cor. xv. 32, 


76 EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE ROMANS. 





[in this]: I know what is for my 
benefit. Now I begin to be a disci- 
ple. And let no one, of things visi- 
ble or invisible, envy’ me that I 
should attain to Jesus Christ. Let 
fire and the cross; let the crowds of 
wild beasts; let tearings,? breakings, 
and dislocations of bones ; let cutting 
off of members ; let shatterings of the 
whole body ; and let all the dreadful 3 
torments of the devil come upon me: 
only let me attain to Jesus Christ. 





the very torment of the devil come upon me: only let 
me attain to Jesus Christ. 


CHAP. VI. —BY DEATH I SHALL ATTAIN TRUE LIFE. 


All the pleasures of the world, and 
all the kingdoms of this earth,* shall 
profit me nothing. It is better for 
me to die in behalf of5 Jesus Christ, 
than to reign over all the ends of the 
earth. “For what shall a man be 
profited, if he gain the whole world, 
but lose his own soul?”® Him I 
seek, who died for us: Him I desire, 
who rose again for our sake. This is 
the gain which is laid up for me. 
Pardon me, brethren: do not hinder 
me from living, do not wish to keep 
me in a state of death ;7 and while I 
desire to belong to God, do not ye 
give me over to the world. Suffer 
me to obtain pure light: when I have 
gone thither, I shall indeed be a man 
of God. Permit me to be an imitator 
of the passion of my God. If any 
one has Him within himself, let him 
consider what I desire, and let him 
have sympathy with me, as knowing 
how I am straitened. 


CHAP. VII. 


The prince of this world would fain 
carry me away, and corrupt my dispo- 
sition towards God. Let none of you, 
therefore, who are [in Rome] help 
him; rather be ye on my side, that 
is, on the side of God. Do not speak 
of Jesus Christ, and yet set your de- 
sires on the world. Let not ‘envy 
find a dwelling-place among you ; nor 
even should I, when present with you, 
exhort you to it, be ye persuaded to 
listen to me, but rather give credit to 
those things which I now write to you. 
For though I am alive while I write to 
you, yet I am eager to die. My love® 
has been crucified, and there is no 





All the ends of the world, and all the kingdoms of this 
earth, shall profit me nothing. It is better for me to die 
for the sake of Jesus Christ, than to reign over all the 
ends of the earth. “For what is a man profited, if he 
gain the whole world, but lose his own soul?” I long 
after the Lord, the Son of the true God and Father, even 
Jesus Christ. Him I seek, who died for us and rose 
again. Pardon me, brethren: do not hinder me in 
attaining to life; for Jesus is the life of believers. Do 
not wish to keep me in a state of death,” for life without 
Christ is death. While I desire to belong to God, do 
not ye give me over to the world. Suffer me to obtain 
pure light: when I have gone thither, I shall indeed be 
a man of God. Permit me to be an imitator of the 
passion of Christ, my God. If any one has Him within 
himself, let him consider what I desire, and let him have 
sympathy with me, as knowing how I am straitened. 


—— REASON OF DESIRING TO DIE. 


The prince of this world would fain carry me away, 
and corrupt my disposition towards God. Let none of 
you, therefore, who are [in Rome] help him; rather be 
ye on my side, that is, on the side of God. Do not 
speak of Jesus Christ, and yet prefer this world to Him. 
Let not envy find a dwelling-place among you; nor even 
should I, when present with you, exhort you to it, be ye 
persuaded, but rather give credit to those things which I 
now write to you. For though I am alive while I write 
to you, yet I am eager to die for the sake of Christ. My 
love ® has been crucified, and there is no fire in me that 
loves anything ; but there is living water springing up in 
me, ? and which says to me inwardly, Come to the Father. 
I have no delight in corruptible food, nor in the pleasures 
of this life. I desire the bread of God, the heavenly 
bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, 





1 In the shorter recension there is ¢nAdoyp, and in the longer ¢yA@cat; hence the variety of rendering, but the translation is by no means 


certain. 2 Some deem this and the following word spurious. 


6 Matt. xvi. 26. Some omit this quotation. i 


i 1 iterally, ‘‘ to die.” 
ethers regard it as referring to the natural desires of the heart. 


3 Literally, “evil.” _ # Literally, ‘ this age.” Literally, ‘‘ into.” 
8 Some understand by /ove in this passage, Christ Himself; 
9 Comp. John iv. 14. 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE ROMANS. "9 





fire in me desiring to be fed;* but the Son of God, who became afterwards of the seed of 
there is within me a water that liveth David and Abraham; and I desire the drink, namely His 


and speaketh,? saying to me inwardly, blood, which is incorruptible love and eternal life. 
Come to the Father. I have no de- 


light in corruptible food, nor in the 
pleasures of this life. I desire the 
bread of God, the heavenly bread, 
the bread of life, which is the flesh of 
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who 
became afterwards of the seed of 
David and Abraham; and I desire 
the drink of God, namely His blood, 
which is incorruptible love and eter- 
nal life. 


CHAP. VIII.—- BE YE FAVOURABLE TO ME. 


I no longer wish to live after the I no longer wish to live after the manner of men, and 
manner of men, and my desire shall my desire shall be fulfilled if ye consent. “I am cruci- 
be fulfilled if ye consent. Be ye will- fied with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet no longer I, 
ing, then, that ye also may have your since Christ liveth in me.”3 I entreat you in this brief 
desires fulfilled. I entreat you in letter: do not refuse me; believe me that I love Jesus, ° 
this brief letter ; do ye give credit to who was delivered [to death] for my sake. ‘ What shall 
me. Jesus Christ will reveal these I render to the Lord for all His benefits towards me?”’4 
things to you, [so that ye shall know] Now God, even the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, 
that I speak truly. He5is the mouth _ shall reveal these things to you, [so that ye shall know] 
altogether free from falsehood, by that I speak truly, And do ye pray along with me, that 
which the Father has truly spoken. I may attain my aim in the Holy Spirit. I have not writ- 
Pray ye for me, that I may attain ten to you according to the flesh, but according to the 
[the object of my desire]. I have will of God. If I shall suffer, ye have loved me ; but if 
not written to you according to the * I am rejected, ye have hated me. 
flesh, but according to the will of God. 

If I shall suffer, ye have wished [well] 
to me; but if I am rejected, ye have 
hated me. 


CHAP. IX.—— PRAY FOR THE CHURCH IN SYRIA. 


Remember in your prayers the Remember in your prayers the Church which is in 
Church in Syria, which now has God _ Syria, which, instead of me, has now for its shepherd the 
for its shepherd, instead of me. Lord, who says, “I am the good Shepherd.” And He 
Jesus Christ alone will oversee it, and alone will oversee it, as well as your love towards Him. 
your love [will also regard it]. But But as for me, I am ashamed to be counted one of them ; 
as for me, I am ashamed to be for I am not worthy, as being the very last of them, and 
counted one of them; for indeed I one born out of due time. But I have obtained mercy to 
am not worthy, as being the very last be somebody, if I shall attain to God. My spirit salutes 
of them, and one born out of due you, and the love of the Churches which have received 
time.© But I have obtained mercy to. me in the name of Jesus Christ, and not as a mere passer- 
be somebody, if I shall attain to God. by. For even those Churches which were not near to me 
My spirit salutes you, and the love of in the way, have brought me forward, city by city. 
the Churches that have received me 
in the name of Jesus Christ, and not 
as a mere passer-by. For even those 
Churches which were not’ near to me 
in the way, I mean according to the 
flesh,2 have gone before me,? city by 
city, [to meet me. ] 


1 Li “ desiri terial.” 2 The text and meaning are here doubtful. We have followed Hefele, who understands by the water 
the Harp Split arr Bees ‘Tokm vii. 38. 3 Gal.ii.20. 4 Ps.cxvi.12. 5 Some refer this to Ignatius himself. 
Comp. 1 Cor. xv. 8, 9. 7 Some refer this to the jurisdiction of Ignatius. 8 i,e,, the outward road he had to travel. 
9 Or, ‘have sent me forward; ” comp. Tit. iii. 13. 


78 EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE ROMANS. 


ee ESS Senne 
CHAP. X.— CONCLUSION. 


Now I write these things to you 
from Smyrna by the Ephesians, who 
are deservedly most happy. ‘There is 
also with me, along with many others, 
Crocus, one dearly beloved by me." 
As to those who have gone before me 
from Syria to Rome for the glory of 
God, I believe that you are acquainted 
with them; to whom, [then,] do ye 
make known that I am at hand. For 
they are all worthy, both of God and 
of you; and it is becoming that you 
should refresh them in all things. I 
have written these things unto you, on 
the day before the ninth of the Kal- 
ends of September (that? is, on the 
twenty-third day of August). Fare 
ye well to the end, in the patience of 
Jesus Christ. Amen. 


Now I write these things to you from Smyrna by the 
Ephesians, who are deservedly most happy. There is 
also with me, along with many others, Crocus, one dearly 
beloved by me.'_ As to those who have gone before me 
from Syria to Rome for the glory of God, I believe that 
you are acquainted with them; to whom, [then,] do ye 
make known that I am at hand. For they are all worthy, 
both of God and of you; and it is becoming that you 
should refresh them in all things. I have written these 
things unto you on the day before the ninth of the 
Kalends of September. Fare ye well to the end, in the 
patience of Jesus Christ. 





1 Literally, “‘ the name desired to me,” 


2 This clause is evidently an explanatory gloss which has crept into the text. 


THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE PHILADELPHIANS. 


SHORTER AND LONGER VERSIONS. 


Ignatius, who ts also called Theopho- 
rus, to the Church of God the 
Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, 
which ts at Philadelphia, in Asia, 
which has obtained mercy, and ts 
established in the harmony of God, 
and rejoiceth unceasingly* in the 
passion of our Lord, and is filled 
with all mercy through his resur- 
rection, which I salute in the blood 
of Jesus Christ, who ts our eternal 
and enduring joy, especially if 
[men] are in unity with the bishop, 
the presbyters, and the deacons, who 
have been appointed according to 
the mind of Jesus Christ, whom He 
has established in security, after Fits 
own will, and by His Holy Spirit. 


CHAP. 


Wuicu bishop,3 I know, obtained 
the ministry which pertains to the 
common [weal], not of himself, neither 
by men,‘ nor through vainglory, but 
by the love of God the Father, and 
the Lord Jesus Christ; at whose 
meekness I am struck with admiration, 
and who by his silence is able to ac- 
complish more than those who vainly 
talk. For he is in harmony with the 
commandments [of God], even as 
the harp is with its strings. Where- 
fore my soul declares his mind _to- 
wards God a happy one, knowing it to 
be virtuous and perfect, and that his 
stability as well as freedom from all 
anger is after the example of the in- 
finite © meekness of the living God. 


Ienatius, who ts also called Theophorus, to the Church of 
God the Father, and of the Lord Jesus Christ, which 
ts at Philadelphia, which has obtained mercy through 
love, and is established in the harmony of God, and 
rejoiceth unceasingly,' in the passion of our Lord Jesus, 
and ts filled with all mercy through Hts resurrection ; 
which I salute in the blood of Jesus Christ, who ts our 
eternal and enduring joy, especially to those who are in 
unity with the bishop, and the presbyters, and the dea- 
cons, who have been appointed by the will of God the 
Father, through the Lord Jesus Christ, who, according 
to His own will, has firmly established His Church 
upon a rock, by a spiritual building, not made with 
hands, against which the winds and the floods have 
beaten, yet have not been able to overthrow it:* yea, 
and may spiritual wickedness never be able to do so, but 
be thoroughly weakened by the power of Jesus Christ 
our Lord. 


I, — PRAISE OF THE BISHOP. 


Havinc beheld your bishop, I know that he was not 
selected to undertake the ministry which pertains to the 
common [weal], either by himself or by men,‘ or out of 
vainglory, but by the love of Jesus Christ, and of God 
the Father, who raised Him from the dead; at whose 
meekness I am struck with admiration, and who by His 
silence is able to accomplish more than they who talk a 
great deal. For he is in harmony with the command- 
ments and ordinances of the Lord, even as the strings 
are with the harp, and is no less blameless than was 
Zacharias the priest.s Wherefore my soul declares his 
mind towards God a happy one, knowing it to be virtuous 
and perfect, and that his stability as well as freedom from 
all anger is after the example of the infinite meekness of 
the living God. 


CHAP. II. —— MAINTAIN UNION WITH THE BISHOP. 


Wherefore, as children of light and 
truth, flee from division and wicked 


Wherefore, as children of light and truth, avoid the 
dividing of your unity, and the wicked doctrine of the 





a 


I Or, “inseparably.” 2 Comp. Matt. vii. 25. 


3 The bishop previously referred to. 4 Comp. Gal.i.z. 5 Lukei.6. © Literally, “all.” 


79 


80 EPISTLE SOF A1GNATIUS? 20 THE PHILADELPHIANS. 








doctrines ; but where the shepherd is, 
there do ye as sheep follow. For 
there are many wolves that appear 
worthy of credit, who, by means of a 
‘pernicious pleasure, carry captive 3 
those that are running towards God ; 
but in your unity they shall have no 
place. 


heretics, from whom.“ a defiling influence has gone forth 
into all the earth.’ But where the shepherd is, there 
do ye as sheep follow. For there are many wolves in 
sheep’s clothing,” who, by means of a pernicious pleasure, 
carry captive’ those that are running towards God ; but 
in your unity they shall have no place. 


CHAP. III.— AVOID SCHISMATICS. 


Keep yourselves from those evil 
plants which Jesus Christ does not 
tend, because they are not the plant- 
ing of the Father. Not that I have 
found any division among you, but 
exceeding purity. For as many as 
are of God and of Jesus Christ are 
also with the bishop. And as many 
as shall, in the exercise of repentance, 
return into the unity of the Church, 
these, too, shall belong: to God, that 
they may live according to Jesus 
Christ. Do not err, my brethren. 
If any man follows him that makes a 
schism in the Church, he shall not 
inherit the kingdom of God. If any 
one walks according to a strange5 opin- 
ion, he agrees not with the passion 
[of Christ]. 


Keep yourselves, then, from those evil plants which 
Jesus Christ does not tend, but that wild beast, the de- 
stroyer of men, because they are not the planting of 
the Father, but the seed of the wicked one. Not that I 
have found any division among you do I write these 
things; but I arm you beforehand, as the children of 
God. For as many as are of Christ are also with the 
bishop ; but as many as fall away from him, and embrace 
communion with the accursed, these shall be cut off along 
with them. For they are not Christ’s husbandry, but the 
seed of the enemy, from whom may you ever be delivered 
by the prayers of the shepherd, that most faithful and 
gentle shepherd who presides over you. I therefore ex- 
hort you in the Lord to receive with all tenderness those 
that repent and return to the unity of the Church, that 
through your kindness and forbearance they may recover 4 
themselves out of the snare of the devil, and becoming wor- 
thy of Jesus Christ, may obtain eternal salvation in the 
kingdom of Christ. Brethren, be not deceived. If any 
man follows him that separates from the truth, he shall not 
inherit the kingdom of God; and if any man does not 
stand aloof from the preacher of falsehood, he shall be 
condemned to hell. For it is obligatory neither to sepa- 
rate from the godly, nor to associate with the ungodly. 
If any one walks according to a strange’ opinion, he is 
not of Christ, nor a partaker of His passion ; but is a fox,° 
a destroyer of the vineyard of Christ. Have no fellow- 
ship? with such a man, lest ye perish along with him, even 
should he be thy father, thy son, thy brother, or a mem- 
ber of thy family. For says [the Scripture], “ Thine eye 
shall not spare him.”* You ought therefore to “hate 
those that hate God, and to waste away [with grief] on 
account of His enemies.”9 I do not mean that you 
should beat them or persecute them, as do the Gentiles 
“that know not the Lord and God;”* but that you 
should regard them as your enemies, and separate your- 
selves from them, while yet you admonish them, and ex- 
hort them to repentance, if it may be they will hear, if it 
may be they will submit themselves. For our God is a 
lover of mankind, and “ will have all men to be saved, 
and:to come to the knowledge of the truth.” '' Where- 
fore “ He makes His sun to rise upon the evil and on the 
good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust ;” ? 
of whose kindness the Lord, wishing us also to be imita- 
tors, says, “ Be ye perfect, even as also your Father that 
is in heaven is perfect.” 3 


iE SE Se eae Daren AEN 5A ieee oe Se CL A A 
a 


Bleraxxulre,. 02 Comp. Matt, vii. 15. 
7 Comp. x Cor. v. 11. Deut. xiii. 6, 8. 


3 Comp. 2 Tim. iii. 6. 
9 Ps, cxix. 21. 


4 2 Tim. ii. 26. 


5 i.e., heretical. © Comp. S il 
oi That wee i.e., I mp. Song of Sol. ii. 15, 


1 Tim. ii. 4. 1 Matt. v.45, 13 Matt. v. 48, 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE PHILADELPHIANS. 81 





CHAP. IV.— HAVE BUT ONE EUCHARIST, ETC. 


Take ye heed, then, to have but 
one Eucharist. For there is one 
flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and 
one cup to [show forth?] the unity of 
His blood ; one altar; as there is one 
bishop, along with the presbytery and 
deacons, my fellow-servants: that so, 
whatsoever ye do, ye may do it ac- 
cording to [the will of] God. 


I have confidence of you in the Lord, that ye will be 
of no other mind. Wherefore I write boldly to your love, 
which is worthy of God, and exhort you to have but one 
faith, and one [kind of] preaching, and one Eucharist. 
For there is one flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ ; and His 
blood which was shed for us is one ; one loaf also is broken 
to all [the communicants], and one cup is distributed 
among them all: there is but one altar for the whole 
Church, and one bishop, with the presbytery and deacons, 
my fellow-servants. Since, also, there is but one unbe- 
gotten Being, God, even the Father; and one only-be- 
gotten Son, God, the Word and man ; and one Comforter, 
the Spirit of truth ; and also one preaching, and one faith, 
and one baptism ;? and one Church which the holy apos- 
tles established from one end of the earth to the other by 
the blood of Christ, and by their own sweat and toil ; it 
behoves you also, therefore, as “a peculiar people, and a 
holy nation,’ 3.to perform all things with harmony in 
Christ. Wives, be ye subject to your husbands in the 
fear of God;* and ye virgins, to Christ in purity, not 
counting marriage an abomination, but desiring that which 
is better, not for the reproach of wedlock, but for the © 
sake of meditating on the law. Children, obey your par- 
ents, and have an affection for them, as workers together 
with God for your birth [into the world]. Servants, be 
subject to your masters in God, that ye may be the freed- 
men of Christ.5 Husbands, love your wives, as fellow- 
servants of God, as your own body, as the partners of 
your life, and your co-adjutors in the procreation of 
children. Virgins, have Christ alone before your eyes, 
and His Father in your prayers, being enlightened by the 
Spirit. May I have pleasure in your purity, as that of 
Elijah, or as of Joshua the son of Nun, as of Melchizedek, 


- or as of Elisha, as of Jeremiah, or as of John the Baptist, 


as of the beloved disciple, as of Timothy, as of Titus, as 
of Evodius, as of Clement, who departed this life in [per- 
fect] chastity. Not, however, that I blame the other 
blessed [saints] because they entered into the married 
state, of which I have just spoken.’ For I pray that, 
being found worthy of God, I may be found at their feet 
in the kingdom, as at the feet of Abraham, and Isaac, 
and Jacob; as of Joseph, and Isaiah, and the rest of 
the prophets; as of Peter, and Paul, and the rest of the 
apostles, that were married men. For they entered into 
these marriages not for the sake of appetite, but out of 
regard for the propagation of mankind. Fathers, “ bring 
up your children in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord ;”*% and teach them the holy Scriptures, and also 
trades, that they may not indulge in idleness. Now [the 
Scripture] says, “ A righteous father educates [his chil- 
dren] well; his heart shall rejoice in a wise son.’”? 
Masters, be gentle towards your servants, as holy Job has 
taught you ;*° for there, is one nature, and one family of 
mankind. For “in Christ there is neither bond nor 
free.” *! Let governors be obedient to Cesar ; soldiers to 
those that command them ; deacons to the presbyters, as 





I Literally, “into.” 2 Eph. iv. 5. 3 Tit. ii. 14; 1 Pet-ii.9. 4 Eph. v.22. 5 x Cor, vil. 22, - 


6 There was a prevalent opinion among the ancient 


Christian writers, that all these holy men lived a life of [chaste] celibacy. 


7 Or, “‘it is not because, etc., that I have mentioned these.” % Eph. vi. 4. 9 Prov. xxiii. 24. 1° Job xxxi. 13,15. * Gal. iii, 28. 


82 





EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE PHILADELPHIANS. 





to high-priests ; the presbyters, and deacons, and the rest 
of the clergy, together with all the people, and the 
soldiers, and the governors, and Cesar [himself], to the 
bishop ; the bishop to Christ, even as Christ to the Father. 
And thus unity is preserved throughout. Let not the 
widows be wanderers about, nor fond of dainties, nor 
gadders from house to house ; but let them be like Judith, 
noted for her seriousness ; and like Anna, eminent for her 
sobriety. I do not ordain these things as an apostle: for 
“ who am I, or what is my father’s house,” * that I should 
pretend to be equal in honour to them? But as your 
“ fellow-soldier,” ? I hold the position of one who [simply ] 
admonishes you. 


CHAP. V.—- PRAY FOR ME. 


My brethren, I am greatly enlarged 
in loving you; and rejoicing exceed- 
ingly [over you], I seek to secure 
your safety. Yet it is not I, but Jesus 
Christ, for whose sake being bound I 
fear the more, inasmuch as I am not 
yet perfect. But your prayer to God 
shall make me perfect, that I may 
attain to that portion which through 
mercy has been allotted me, while I 
flee to the Gospel as to the flesh of 
Jesus, and to the apostles as to the 
presbytery of the Church. And let 
us also love the prophets, because they 
too have proclaimed the Gospel,+ and 
placed their hope in Him,5 and waited 
for Him ; in whom also believing, they 
were saved, through union to Jesus 
Christ, being holy men, worthy of 
love and admiration, having had wit- 
ness borne to them by Jesus Christ, 
and being reckoned along with [us]} 
in the Gospel of the common hope. 


My brethren, I am greatly enlarged in loving you; and 
rejoicing exceedingly [over you], I seek to secure your 
safety. Yet it is not I, but the Lord Jesus through me ; 
for whose sake being bound, I fear the more, for I am 
not yet perfect. But your prayer to God shall make me 
perfect, that I may attain that to which I have been called, 
while I flee to the Gospel as to the flesh of Jesus Christ, 
and to the apostles as the presbytery of the Church. I 
do also love the prophets as those who announced Christ, 
and as being partakers of the same Spirit with the apostles. 
For as the false prophets and the false apostles drew [to 
themselves] one and the same wicked, deceitful, and se- 
ducing 3 spirit ; so also did the prophets and the apostles 
receive from God, through Jesus Christ, one and the same 
Holy Spirit, who is good, and sovereign,°® and true, and 
the Author of [saving] knowledge.? For there is one 
God of the Old and New Testament, “one Mediator be- 
tween God and men,” for the creation of both intelligent 
and sensitive beings, and in order to exercise a beneficial 
and suitable providence [over them]. There is also one 
Comforter, who displayed * His power in Moses, and the 
prophets, and apostles, All the saints, therefore, were 
saved by Christ, hoping in Him, and waiting for Him; 
and they obtained through Him salvation, being holy 
ones, worthy of love and admiration, having testimony 
borne to them by Jesus Christ, in the Gospel of our com- 
mon hope. 


CHAP. VI.—DO NOT ACCEPT JUDAISM. 


But if any one preach the Jewish 
law 9 unto you, listen not to him. For 
it is better to hearken to Christian 
doctrine from a man who has been 
circumcised, than to Judaism from 
one uncircumcised. But if either of 
such persons do not speak concerning 
Jesus Christ, they are in my judgment 
but.as monuments and sepulchres of 
the dead, upon which are written only 
the names of men. Flee therefore the 
wicked devices and snares of the prince 


If any one preaches the one God of the law and the 
prophets, but denies Christ to be the Son of God, he is a 
liar, even as also is his father the devil,'° and is a Jew 
falsely so called, being possessed of '' mere carnal circum- 
cision. If any one confesses Christ Jesus the Lord, but 
denies the God of the law and of the prophets, saying 
that the Father of Christ is not the Maker of heaven and 
earth, he has not continued in the truth any more than 
his father the devil,'° and is a disciple of Simon Magus, 
not of the Holy Spirit. If any one says there is one God, 
and also confesses Christ Jesus, but thinks the Lord to be 
a mere man, and not the only-begotten * God, and Wis- 





1 y Sam. xviii. 18; 2 Sam, vii. 18. 2 Phil 
to the Gospel.” 5 In Christ. 
10 Comp. John viii. 44. @ Li 


Phil. ii. 25, 
6 Comp. Ps. li. 12 (LXX.) 
iterally, “‘beneath.” 12 





3 Literally, “ people-deceiving.” 4 Literally, “have proclaimed in reference 
eas Literally, Gi teaching.” 8 Or, “ wrought.” 9 Literally, ‘‘ Judaism.” 
Comp. the reading sanctioned by the ancient authorities, John i. 18. 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE PHILADELPHIANS. 83 


of this world, lest at any time being 
conquered * by his artifices,? ye grow 
weak in your love. But be ye all 
joined together? with an undivided 
heart. And I thank my God that I 
have a good conscience in respect to 
you; and that no one has it in his 
power to boast, either privately or 
publicly, that I have burdened® any 
one either in much or in little. And 
I wish for all among whom I have 
spoken, that they may not possess that 
for a testimony against them. 


CHAP. VII.—I 


For though some would have de- 
ceived me according to the flesh, yet 
the Spirit, as being from God, is not 
deceived. For it knows both whence 
it comes and whither it goes,’ and 
detects the secrets [of the heart]. 
For, when I was among you, I cried, 
I spoke with a loud voice: Give heed 
to the bishop, and to the presbytery 
and deacons. Now, some suspected 
me of having spoken thus, as knowing 
beforehand the division caused by 
some among you.’ But He is my 
witness, for whose sake I am in bonds, 
that I got no intelligence from any 
man.'3 But the Spirit proclaimed 





dom, and the Word of God, and deems Him to consist 
merely of a soul and body, such an one is a serpent, that 
preaches deceit and error for the destruction of men. 
And such a man is poor in understanding, even as by 
name he is an Ebionite.* If any one confesses the truths 
mentioned,5 but calls lawful wedlock, and the procreation 
of children, destruction and pollution, or deems certain 
kinds of food abominable, such an one has the apostate 
dragon dwelling within him. If any one confesses the 
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and praises 
the creation, but calls the incarnation merely an appear- 
ance, and is ashamed of the passion, such an one has 
denied the faith, not less than the Jews who killed Christ. 
If any one confesses these things, and that God the Word 
did dwell in a human body, being within it as the Word, 
even as the soul also is in the body, because it was God 
that inhabited it, and not a human soul, but affirms that 
unlawful unions are a good thing, and places the highest 
happiness” in pleasure, as does the man who is falsely 
called a Nicolaitan, this person can neither be a lover of 
God, nor a lover of Christ, but is a corrupter of his own 
flesh, and therefore void of the Holy Spirit, and a stranger 
to Christ. All such persons are but monuments and 
sepulchres of the dead, upon which are written only the 
names of dead men. Flee, therefore, the wicked devices 
and snares of the spirit which now worketh in the children 
of this world,’ lest at any time being overcome,* ye grow 
weak in your love. But be ye all joined together with 
an undivided heart and a willing mind, “being of one ac- 
cord and of one judgment,” 9 being always of the same 
opinion about the same things, both when you are at ease 
and in danger, both in sorrow and in joy. I thank God, 
through Jesus Christ, that I have a good conscience in 
respect to you, and that no one has it in his power to 
boast, either privately or publicly, that I have burdened 
any one either in much or in little. And I wish for all 
among whom I have spoken, that they may not possess 
that for a testimony against them. 


HAVE EXHORTED YOU TO UNITY. 


For though some would have deceived me according 
to the flesh, yet my spirit is not deceived; for I have 
received it from God. For it knows both whence it 
comes and whither it goes, and detects the secrets [of 
the heart]. For when I was among you, I cried, I 
spoke with a loud voice—the word is not mine, but 
God’s — Give heed to the bishop, and to the presbytery 
and deacons. But if ye suspect that I spake thus, as 
having learned beforehand the division caused by some 
among you, He is my witness, for whose sake I am in 
bonds, that I learned nothing of it from the mouth of 
any man. But the Spirit made an announcement to me, 
saying as follows: Do nothing without the bishop ; keep 
your bodies ” as the temples of God ; love unity ; avoid 
divisions ; be ye followers of Paul, and of the rest of the 
apostles, even as they also were of Christ. 





I Literally, “oppressed.” 2 Or, “ will.” 
4 From a Hebrew word meaning “ poor.’ 


division to arise among you.” 


3 Some render, ‘‘ come together into the same place.” 
5 Or, “ fies things.” 
7 Literally, “the end of happiness.” 8 Comp. Eph. ii. 2. 
fs Pea Literally, ‘“‘ your flesh.” 


6 Apparently by attempting to impose the yoke of Judaism. 
9 Phil. ii. A 10 John iii. 8. 11 Some translate, “as foreseeing the 
13 Literally, “ did not know from human flesh.” 


84 EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE PHILADELPHIANS. 
mo a 


these words: Do nothing without the 
bishop; keep your bodies' as the 
temples of God ;? love unity; avoid 
* ‘visions ; be the followers of Jesus 
Christ, even as He is of His Father. 


CHAP. VIII.— THE SAME CONTINUED. 


I therefore did what belonged to 
me, as a man devoted to3 unity. 
For where there is division and wrath, 
God doth not dwell. To all them 
that repent, the Lord grants forgive- 
ness, if they turn in penitence to the 
unity of God, and to communion 
with the bishop.* I trust [as to you] 
in the grace of Jesus Christ, who shall 
tree you from every bond. And I ex- 
hort you to do nothing out of strife, 
but according to the doctrine of Christ. 
When I heard some saying, If I do 
not find itin the ancient? Scriptures, 
I will not believe the Gospel; on my 
saying to them, It is written, they 
answered me, That remains to be 
proved. But to me Jesus Christ is 
in the place of all that is ancient: 
His cross, and death, and resurrection, 
and the faith® which is by Him, are 
undefiled monuments of antiquity ; 
by which I desire, through your 
prayers, to be justified. 


I therefore did what belonged to me, as a man devoted 
to unity ; adding this also, that where there is diversity 
of judgment, and wrath, and hatred, God does not 
dwell. To all them that repent, God grants forgiveness, 
if they with one consent return to the unity of Christ, and 
communion with the bishop.* I trust to the grace of 
Jesus Christ, that He will free you from every bond of 
wickedness.5 I therefore exhort you that ye do nothing 
out of strife,° but according to the doctrine of Christ. 
For I have heard some saying, If I do not find the Gos- 
pel in the archives, I will not believe it. ‘To such persons 
I say that my archives are Jesus Christ, to disobey whom 
is manifest destruction. My authentic archives are His 
cross, and death, and resurrection, and the faith which 
bears on these things, by which I desire, through your 
prayers, to be justified. He who disbelieves the Gospel 
disbelieves everything along with it. For the archives 
ought not to be preferred to the Spirit.9 “It is hard to 
kick against the pricks ;”” *° it is hard to disbelieve Christ ; 
it is hard to reject the preaching of the apostles. 


CHAP. IX.—-THE OLD TESTAMENT IS GOOD: THE NEW TESTAMENT IS BETTER. 


The priests ** indeed are good, but 
the High Priest is better; to whom 
the holy of holies has been com- 
mitted, and who alone has _ been 
trusted with the secrets of God. He 
is the door of the Father, by which 
enter in Abraham, and Isaac, and 
Jacob, and the prophets, and the 
apostles, and the Church. All these 
have for their object the attaining to 
the unity of God. But the Gospel 
possesses something transcendent 
[above the former dispensation], viz., 
the appearance of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, His passion and resurrection. 
For the beloved prophets announced 
Him,’” but the Gospel is the perfec- 
tion of immortality.’ All these things 
are good together, if ye believe in 
love. 


T Literally, “ your flesh.” 
4 Literally, “to the assembly of the bishop.” 


recension. 8 i.e., the system of Christian doctrine. 
M i.e., the Jewish priests. 12 John xiv. 6. 
Y Literally, “ proclaimed as to him.” 


2 Comp. x Cor. iii. 16, vi. 19. 
; 5 Comp, Isa. lviii. 6. 
7 The meaning here is very doubtful. Some read év rots apx 

9 Or, 
13 x Cor. x. 4. 
18 The meaning is doubtful. Comp. 2 Tim. i. 10. 


The priests"! indeed, and the ministers of the word, 
are good; but the High Priest is better, to whom the 
holy of holies has been committed, and who alone has 
been entrusted with the secrets of God. The ministering 
powers of God are good. The Comforter is holy, and 
the Word is holy, the Son of the Father, by whom He 
made all things, and exercises a providence over them all. 
This is the Way * which leads to the Father, the Rock,? 
the Defence,'+ the Key, the Shepherd, '5 the Sacrifice, the 
Door * of knowledge, through which have entered Abra- 
ham, and Isaac, and Jacob, Moses and all the company 
of the prophets, and these pillars of the world, the apos- 
tles, and the spouse of Christ, on whose account He 
poured out His own blood, as her marriage portion, that 
He might redeem her. All these things tend towards 
the unity of the one and only true God. But the Gospel 
possesses something transcendent [above the former dis- 
pensation ], viz., the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, 
His passion, and the resurrection itself. For those things 
which the prophets announced, saying, “Until He come 
for whom it is reserved, and He shall be the expectation 








3 Literally, ‘‘ prepared for.” 
& Phil. ii. 3. 
atous, as translated above; others prefer év rots apxeious, as in the longer 
“the archives of the spult are not exposed to all.” = 10 Acts xxvi. 14, 
14 Literally, “‘ the hedge.” S$ John x.tr. 16 John x. 9, 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE PHILADELPHIANS, 85 


of the Gentiles,” * have been fulfilled in the Gospel, [our 
Lord saying,] “Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing 
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Ghost.’”’? All then are good together, the law, 
the prophets, the apostles, the whole company [of others] 
that a believed through them: only if we love one 
another. 


CHAP. X.— CONGRATULATE THE INHABITANTS OF ANTIOCH ON THE CLOSE OF THE PERSECUTION. 


Since, according to your prayers, 
and the compassion which ye feel in 
Christ Jesus, it is reported to me that 
the Church which is at Antioch in 
Syria possesses peace, it will become 
you, as a Church of God, to elect a 
deacon to act as the ambassador of 
God [for you] to [the brethren there], 
that he may rejoice along with them 
when they are met together, and glo- 
rify the name [of God]. Blessed is 
he in Jesus Christ, who shall be 
deemed worthy of such a ministry ; 
and ye too shall be glorified. And if 
ye are willing, it is not beyond your 
power to do this, for the sake? of 
God; as also the nearest Churches 
have sent, in some cases bishops, and 
in others presbyters and deacons. 


Since, according to your prayers, and the compassion 
which ye feel in Christ Jesus, it is reported to me that 
the Church which is at Antioch in Syria possesses peace, 
it will become you, as a Church of God, to elect a bishop 
to act as the ambassador of God [for you] to [the breth- 
ren] there, that it may be granted them to meet together, 
and to glorify the name of God. Blessed is he in Christ 
Jesus, who shall be deemed worthy of such a ministry ; 
and if ye be zealous [in this matter], ye shall receive 
glory in Christ. And if ye are willing, it is not altogether 
beyond your power to do this, for the sake of} God; as 
also the nearest Churches have sent, in some cases 
bishops, and in others presbyters and deacons. 


CHAP. XI. — THANKS AND SALUTATION. 


Now, as to Philo the deacon, of 
Cilicia, a man of reputation, who still 
ministers to me in the word of God, 
along with Rheus Agathopus, an elect 
man, who has followed me from Syria, 
not regarding + his life, —these bear 
witness in your behalf; and I myself 
give thanks to God for you, that ye 
have received them, even as the Lord 
you. But may those that dishonoured 
them be forgiven through the grace 
of Jesus Christ! The love of the 
brethren at Troas salutes you ; whence 
also I write to you by Burrhus, who 
was sent along with me by the Ephe- 
sians and Smyrnezans, to show their 
respect.? May the Lord Jesus Christ 
honour them, in whom they hope, in 
flesh, and soul, and faith, and love, 
and concord! Fare ye well in Christ 
Jesus, our common hope. 


Now, as to Philo the deacon, a man of Cilicia, of high 
reputation, who still ministers to me in the word of God, 
along with Gaius and Agathopus, an elect man, who has 
followed me from Syria, not regarding + his life, — these 
also bear testimony in your behalf. And I myself give 
thanks to God for you, because ye have received them: 
and the Lord will also receive you. But may those that 
dishonoured them be forgiven through the grace of Jesus 
Christ, “ who wisheth not the death of the sinner, but his 
repentance.’’5 The love of the brethren at Troas salutes 
you; whence also I write to you by Burrhus,° who was 
sent along with me by the Ephesians and Smyrnzans, to 
show their respect : 7 whom the Lord Jesus Christ will re- 
quite, in whom they hope, in flesh, and soul, and spirit, 
and faith, and love, and concord. Fare ye well in the 
Lord Jesus Christ, our common hope, in the Holy Ghost. 


ES 


1 Gen. xlix. ro. 2 Matt. xxviii. 19. 


3 Comp. Ezek. xviii. 23, 32, xxiii. 11; a Pet. iii. 9. 


3 Literally, ‘‘ for the name of.” 


4 Literally, ‘‘ bidding farewell to.” 


6 The ms. has “ Burgus.” 7 Or, “‘ for the sake of honour.” 


THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE SMYRNA:ANS. 


SHORTER AND LONGER VERSIONS. 





Ignatius, who is also called Theopho- 
rus, tothe Church of God the Father, 
and of the beloved Jesus Christ, 
which has through mercy obtained 
every kind of gift, which is filled 
with faith and love, and ts deficient 
in no gift, most worthy of God, and 
adorned with holiness:* the Church 
which ts at Smyrna, in Asia, wishes 
abundance of happiness, through 
the immaculate Spirit and word of 
God. 


Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church of 

God the most high Father, and His beloved Son Jesus 
Christ, which has through mercy obtained every kind of 
sift, which is filled with faithand love, and is deficient 
in no gift, most worthy of God, and adorned with holi- 
ness: * the Church which is at Smyrna, in Asia, wishes 
abundance of happiness, through the immaculate Spirit 
and word of God. 


CHAP. I.—~THANKS TO GOD FOR YOUR FAITH. 


I ctoriry God, even Jesus Christ, 
who has given you such wisdom. For 
I have observed that ye are perfected 
in an immoveable faith, as if ye were 
nailed to the cross of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, both in the flesh and in the 
spirit, and are established in love 
through the blood of Christ, being 
fully persuaded with respect to our 
Lord, that He was truly of the seed 
of David according to the flesh,3 and 
the Son of God according to the will 
and power‘* of God; that He was 
truly born of a virgin, was baptized 
by John, in order that all righteous- 
ness might be fulfilled 5 by Him; and 
was truly, under Pontius Pilate and 
Herod the tetrarch, nailed [to the 
cross] for us in His flesh. Of this 
fruit? we are by His divinely-blessed 
passion, that He might set up a stand- 
ard® for all ages, through His resur- 
rection, to all His holy and faithful 
[followers], whether among Jews or 
Gentiles, in the one body of His 
Church. 


I ctoriry the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
who by Him has given you such wisdom. For I have 
observed that ye are perfected in an immoveable faith, 
as if ye were nailed to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
both in the flesh and in the spirit, and are established in 
love through the blood of Christ, being fully persuaded, 
in very truth, with respect to our Lord Jesus Christ, that 
He was the Son of God, “the first-born of every crea- 
ture,” ? God the Word, the only-begotten Son, and was of 
the seed of David according to the flesh,3 by the Virgin 
Mary; was baptized by John, that all righteousness 
might be fulfilled 5 by Him ; that He lived a life of holi- 
ness without sin, and was truly, under Pontius Pilate and 
Herod the tetrarch, nailed [to the cross] for us in His 
flesh. From whom we also derive our being,® from His 
divinely-blessed passion, that He might set up a standard 
for the ages, through His resurrection, to all His holy and 
faithful [followers], whether among Jews or Gentiles, in 
the one body of His Church. 





1 Literally, “ holy-bearing.” 


2 Col. i-15. 
5 Matt iil. 15. 


6 Literally, ‘‘ we are.” 


86 


3 Rom. i. 3. : 
7 i.e., the cross, “‘ fruit” being put for CArist on the tree, 


4 Theodoret, in quoting this passage, reads, “ ee pear a and power.” 
Sa. v. 26, xlix. aa. 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE SMYRNAEANS. 


87 





CHAP, I]. —CHRIST’S TRUE PASSION. 


Now, He suffered all these things 
for our sakes, that we might be saved. 
And He suffered truly, even as also 
He truly raised up Himself, not, as 
certain unbelievers maintain, that He 
only seemed to suffer, as they them- 
selves only seem to be [Christians]. 
And as they believe, so shall it hap- 
pen unto them, when they shall be 
divested of their bodies, and be mere 
evil spirits.3 


Now, He suffered all these things for us; and He 
suffered them really, and not in appearance only, even as 
also He truly rose again. But not, as some of the unbe- 
lievers, who are ashamed of the formation of man, and 
the cross, and death itself, affirm, that in appearance 
only, and not in truth, He took a body of the Virgin, 
and suffered only in appearance, forgetting, as they do, 
Him who said, “The Word was made flesh;’! and 
again, “ Destroy this temple, and in three days I will 
raise it up;”? and once more, “If I be lifted up from 
the earth, I will draw all men unto Me.’’4 The Word 
therefore did dwell in flesh, for “ Wisdom built herself an 
house.” 5 The Word raised up again His own temple 
on the third day, when it had been destroyed by the 
Jews fighting against Christ. The Word, when His flesh 
was lifted up, after the manner of the brazen serpent in, 
the wilderness, drew all men to Himself for their eternal 
salvation.® 


CHAP. II]. — CHRIST WAS POSSESSED OF A BODY AFTER HIS RESURRECTION. 


For I know that after His resurrec- 
tion also He was still possessed of 
flesh,? and I believe that He is so 
now. When, for instance, He came 
to those who were with Peter, He 
said to them, “ Lay hold, handle Me, 
and see that I am not an incorporeal 
spirit.”® And immediately they 
touched Him, and believed, being 
convinced both by His flesh and 
spirit. For this cause also they de- 
spised death, and were found its con- 
querors.*? And after his resurrection 
He did eat and drink with them, as 
being possessed of flesh, although 
spiritually He was united to the 
Father. 


And I know that He was possessed of a body not only 
in His being born and crucified, but I also know that He. 
was so after His resurrection, and believe that He is so 
now. When, for instance, He came to those who were 
with Peter, He said to them, “ Lay hold, handle Me, and 
see that I am not an incorporeal spirit.”® “* For a spirit 
hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have.”9 And 
He says to Thomas, “ Reach hither thy finger into the 
print of the nails, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust 
it into My side ;” *° and immediately they believed that 
He was Christ. Wherefore Thomas also says to Him, 
“My Lord, and my God.” * And on this account also 
did they despise death, for it were too little to say, indig- 
nities and stripes. Nor was this all; but also after He 
had shown Himself to them, that He had risen indeed, 
and not in appearance only, He both ate and drank with 
them during forty entire days. And thus was He, with 
the flesh, received up in their sight unto Him that sent 
Him, being with that same flesh to come again, accom- 
panied by glory and power. For, say the [holy] oracles, 
‘This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, 
shall so come, in like manner as ye have seen Him go 
unto heaven.” 3 But if they say that He will come at 
the end of the world without a body, how shall those 
“see Him that pierced Him,” ™ and when they recognise 
Him, “ mourn for themselves?” *5 For incorporeal beings 
have neither form nor figure, nor the aspect '® of an ani- 
mal possessed of shape, because their nature is in itself 
simple. 


CHAP. IV.— BEWARE OF THESE HERETICS. 


I give you these instructions, be- 
loved, assured that ye also hold the 
same opinions [as I do]. But I 


I give you these instructions, beloved, assured that ye 
also hold the same opinions [as I do]. But I guard you 
beforehand from these beasts in the shape of men, from 








2 John ii, 19. 


1 John i. 14. pene Be 


+ John xii. 32. 


1 Johr xx. 28. Literally, “‘ above death.” 


3 Or, “ seeing that they are phantasmal and diabolical,” as some render, but the above is preferable. 
6 Num. xxi. 9; John iii. 14. e 
Jerome, this quotation is from the Gospel of the Neonat era? Luke xxiv. 39. 
ACts 1. IT. 


8 Literally, “demon.” According to 
10 John XX. 27. , 
To Or, “mark. 


7 Literally, “‘ in the flesh.” 
9 Luke xxiv. 39. 


4 Rev.1.7. 15 Zech. xii, 10. 


88 EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE SMYRNAZANS. 








guard you beforehand from those 
beasts in the shape of men, whom 
you must not only not receive, but, if it 
be possible, not even meet with ; only 
you must pray to God for them, if by 
any means they may be brought to 
repentance, which, however, will be 
very difficult. Yet Jesus Christ, who 
is our true life, has the power of [ef- 
fecting] this. But if these things 
were done by our Lord only in ap- 
pearance, then am I also only in ap- 
pearance bound. And why have I 
also surrendered myself to death, to 
fire, to the sword, to the wild beasts? 
But, [in fact,] he who is near to the 
sword is near to God; he that is 
among the wild beasts is in company 
with God ; provided only he be so in 
the name of Jesus Christ. I undergo 
all these things that I may suffer to- 
gether with Him, * He who became a 
perfect man inwardly strengthening 
me.” 


CHAP. V. 


Some ignorantly3 deny Him, or 
rather have been denied by Him, 
being the advocates of death rather 
than of the truth. These persons 
neither have the prophets persuaded, 
nor the law of Moses, nor the Gospel 
even to this day, nor the sufferings 
we have individually endured. For 
they think also the same thing regard- 
ing us. For what does any one 
profit me, if he commends me, but 
blasphemes my Lord, not confessing 
that He was [truly] possessed of a 
body?5 But he who does not ac- 
knowledge this, has in fact altogether 
denied Him, being enveloped in 
death.® I have not, however, 
thought good to write the names of 
such persons, inasmuch as they are 
unbelievers. Yea, far be it from me 
to make any mention of them, until 
they repent and return to [a true be- 
lief in] Christ’s passion, which is our 
resurrection. 


whom you must not only turn away, but even flee from 
them. Only you must pray for them, if by any means 
they may be brought to repentance. For if the Lord 
were in the body in appearance only, and were crucified 
in appearance only, then am I also bound in appearance 
only, And why have I also surrendered myself to death, 
to fire, to the sword, to thé wild beasts? But, [in fact, ] 
I endure all things for Christ, not in appearance only, 
but in reality, that I may suffer together with Him, while 
He Himself inwardly strengthens me; for of myself I 
have no such ability. 


«— THEIR DANGEROUS ERRORS. 


Some have ignorantly denied Him, and advocate false- 
hood rather than the truth. These persons neither have 
the prophecies persuaded, nor the law of Moses, nor the 
Gospel even to this day, nor the sufferings we have in- 
dividually endured. For they think also the same thing 
regarding us. For what does it profit, if any one com- 
mends me, but blasphemes my Lord, not owning Him 
to be God incarnate?5 He that does not confess this, 
has in fact altogether denied Him, being enveloped in 
death. I have not, however, thought good to write the 
names of such persons, inasmuch as they are unbelievers ; 
and far be it from me to make any mention of them, 
until they repent. 


CHAP. VI.— UNBELIEVERS IN THE BLOOD OF CHRIST SHALL BE CONDEMNED. 


Let no man deceive himself. Both 
the things which are in heaven, and 
the glorious angels,? and rulers, both 
visible and invisible, if they believe 
not in the blood of Christ, shall, in 


Let no man deceive himself. Unless he believes that 
Christ Jesus has lived in the flesh, and shall confess His 
cross and passion, and the blood which He shed for the 
salvation of the world, he shall not obtain eternal life, 
whether he be a king, or a priest, or a ruler, or a private 





™ Comp. Rom, viii. 17. 2 Comp. Phil. iv. 13. 
ance, so ye believe that we suffer in vain, i 
7 Literally, “ the glory of the angels,” 


3 Or, “‘ foolishly.” 
5 Literally, “a flesh-bearer.” 


4 ic., As they imagine Christ to ha ffered only i cee 
6 Literally, “a leath-bearer.”” ies BEBE AE 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE SMYRNAANS. 89 








consequence, incur condemnation.? person, a master or a servant, a man ora woman. “He 
“He that is able to receive it, let him that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”? Let no 
receive it.”? Let not [high] place man’s place, or dignity, or riches, puff him up; and let 
puff any one up: for that which is no man’s low condition or poverty abase him. For the 
worth all is faith and love, to which chief points are faith towards God, hope towards Christ, 
nothing is to be preferred. But con- the enjoyment of those good things for which we look, 
sider those who are of a different and love towards God and our neighbour. For, “Thou 
opinion with respect to the grace of shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy 
Christ which has come unto us, how neighbour as thyself.”* And the Lord says, “This is 
opposed they are to the will of God. _ life eternal, to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ 
They have no regard for love; no whom He has sent.”5 And again, “‘A new command- 
care for the widow, or the orphan, or ment give I unto you, that ye love one another. On 
the oppressed ; of the bond, or of the these two commandments hang all the law and the 
free ; of the hungry, or of the thirsty. prophets.”® Do ye, therefore, notice those who preach 
other doctrines, how they affirm that the Father of Christ 
cannot be known, and how they exhibit enmity and de- 
ceit in their dealings with one another. They have no 
regard for love ; they despise the good things we expect 
hereafter ; they regard present things as if they were 
durable ; they ridicule him that is in affliction ; they laugh 
at him that is in bonds, i 


CHAP, VII.— LET US STAND ALOOF FROM SUCH HERETICS. 


They abstain from the Eucharist They are ashamed of the cross; they mock at the 
and from prayer,? because they con- passion; they make a jest of the resurrection. ‘They are 
fess not the Eucharist to be the flesh the offspring of that spirit who is the author of all evil, 
of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which who led Adam,® by means of his wife, to transgress the 
suffered for our sins, and which the commandment, who slew Abel by the hands of Cain, who 
Father, of His goodness, raised up fought against Job, who was the accuser of Joshua? the 
again. Those, therefore, who speak son of Josedech, who sought to “ sift the faith’ ?° of the 
against this gift of God, incur death"* apostles, who stirred up the multitude of the Jews against 
in the midst of their disputes. But it the Lord, who also now “worketh in the children of dis- 
were better for them to treat it with obedience ;’’ from whom the Lord Jesus Christ will de- 
respect,"3 that they also might rise liver us, who prayed that the faith of the apostles might 
again. It is fitting, therefore, that ye not fail," not because He was not able of Himself to pre- 
should keep aloof from such persons, _ serve it, but because He rejoiced in the pre-eminence of 
and not to speak of'5 them eitherin the Father. It is fitting, therefore, that ye should keep 
private or in public, but to give heed aloof from such persons, and neither in private nor in 
to the prophets, and above all, to the public to talk with "5 them; but to give heed to the law, 
Gospel, in which the passion [of and the prophets, and to those who have preached to you 
Christ] has been revealed to us, and the word of salvation. But flee from all abominable here- 
the resurrection has been fully proved."® __sies, and those that cause schisms, as the beginning of 
But avoid all divisions, as the begin- _ evils. 
ning of evils. 

CHAP. VIII.— LET NOTHING BE DONE WITHOUT THE BISHOP. 


See that ye all follow the bishop, See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Christ Jesus 
even as Jesus Christ does the Father, does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apos- 
and the presbytery as ye would the tles. Do ye also reverence the deacons, as those that 
apostles ; and reverence the deacons, carry out [through their office] the appointment of God. 
as being the institution’? of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church with- 
Let no man do anything connected out the bishop, Let that be deemed a proper 8 Eucharist, 
with the Church without the bishop. which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one 
Let that be deemed a proper*® Eu- to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall 
charist, which is [administered] either appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be ; 








1 Literally, “judgment is tothem.” 2 Matt. xix,12, 3 Literally, ‘‘ the whole is.” ? < Pas vi. 5.  § John xvii. 31. 
6 ili. 34; Matt. xxii. 40. 7 Theodoret, in quoting this passage, reads mpoogopds, “offering.” A 

8 iene Af es Adam out of.” 9 Zech. iii, x. 1° Luke xxii. 31. 11 Literally, “die disputing.’ 12 Eph. ii, 2. 
313 Literally, * to love.” Some think there is a reference to the agape, or love-feasts. 14 Luke xxii, 32. 


ing i bi i i i ferable. Most of the mss, of the longer 
15 The reading is wepé in the one case, and wera in the other, though the latter meaning seems pre: : 
recension read 7rept, as in the shorter. "16 Literally, “‘ perfected,” 27 Or, “command.” 8 Or, “‘ firm,” 


90 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE SMYRNAZANS. 








by the bishop, or by one to whom he 
has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop 
shall appear, there let the multitude 
[of the people] also be; even as, 
wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the 
Catholic Church. It is not lawful 
without the bishop either to baptize 
or to celebrate a love-feast ; but what- 
soever he shall approve of, that is also 
pleasing to God, so that everything 
that is done may be secure and valid.’ 


CHAP. 


Moreover,’ it is in accordance with 
reason that we should return to sober- 
ness [of conduct], and, while yet we 
have opportunity, exercise repentance 
towards God. It is well to reverence 5 
both God and the bishop. He who 
honours the bishop has been honoured 
by God; he who does anything with- 
out the knowledge of the bishop, does 
[in reality] serve the devil. Let all 
things, then, abound to you through 
grace, for ye are worthy. Ye have 
refreshed me in all things, and Jesus 
Christ [shall refresh] you. Ye have 
loved me when absent as well as when 
present. May God recompense you, 
for whose sake, while ye endure all 
things, ye shall attain unto Him. 


1 Some refer the words to the Lord’s Supper. 
© Isa, laid. ax. 7 Prov. xxiv. a1. 


Comp. Heb. x. ag. 


even as where Christ is, there does all the heavenly host 
stand by, waiting upon Him as the Chief Captain of 
the Lord’s might, and the Governor of every intelligent 
nature. It is not lawful without the bishop either to 
baptize, or to offer, or to present sacrifice, or to cele- 
brate a love-feast.! But that which seems good to him, 
is also well-pleasing to God, that everything ye do may 
be secure and valid. 


IX. — HONOUR THE BISHOP. 


Moreover, it is in accordance with reason that we 
should return to soberness [of conduct], and, while yet 
we have opportunity, exercise repentance towards God. 
For “ in Hades there is no one who can confess his sins.”” 4 
For “behold the man, and his work is before him.” ° 
And [the Scripture saith], “My son, honour thou God 
and the king.”7 And say I, Honour thou God indeed, 
as the Author and Lord of all things, but the bishop as 
the high-priest, who bears the image of God — of God, 
inasmuch as he is a ruler, and of Christ, in his capacity 
of a priest. After Him, we must also honour the king. 
For there is no one superior to God, or even like to 
Him, among all the beings that exist. Nor is there any 
one in the Church greater than the bishop, who ministers 
as a priest to God for the salvation of the whole world. 
Nor, again, is there any one among rulers to be compared 
with the king, who secures peace and good order to those 
over whom he rules. He who honours the bishop shall 
be honoured by God, even as he that dishonours him 
shall be punished by God. For if he that rises up against 
kings is justly held worthy of punishment, inasmuch as he 
dissolves public order, of how much sorer punishment, 
suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy,* who presumes 
to do anything without the bishop, thus both destroying 
the [Church’s] unity, and throwing its order into con- 
fusion? For the priesthood is the very highest point of all 
good things among men, against which whosoever is mad 
enough to strive, dishonours not man, but God, and Christ 
Jesus, the First-born, and the only High Priest, by nature, 
of the Father. Let all things therefore be done by you 
with good order in Christ. Let the laity be subject to the 
deacons ; the deacons to the presbyters ; the presbyters 
to the bishop ; the bishop to Christ, even as He is to the 
Father. As ye, brethren, have refreshed me, so will Jesus 
Christ refresh you. Ye have loved me when absent, as 
well as when present. God will recompense you, for 
whose sake ye have shown such kindness towards His 
prisoner. For even if I am not worthy of it, yet your 
zeal [to help me] is an admirable? thing. For “he who 
honours a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive 
a prophet’s reward.” '® It is manifest also, that he who 
honours a prisoner of Jesus Christ shall receive the re- 
ward of the martyrs. 

2 Or, “firm.” 3 Or, “finally.” 


4 Ps, vi 5 Literally, ‘‘ to know.” 
9 Or, “ great.” Phila es ‘Yo to 


x. 4i. 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE SMYRNASANS. 9! 








CHAP, X.— ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THEIR KINDNESS. 


Ye have done well in receiving Philo 
and Rheus Agathopus as servants" of 
Christ our God, who have followed 
me for the sake of God, and who give 
thanks to the Lord in your behalf, 
because ye have in cvery way re- 
freshed them. None of these things 
shall be lost to you. May my spirit 
be for you,3 and my bonds, which ye 
have not despised or been ashamed 
of; nor shall Jesus Christ, our perfect 
hope, be ashamed of you. 


Ye have done well in receiving Philo, and Gaius, and 
Agathopus, who, being the servants’ of Christ, have fol- 
lowed me for the sake of God, and who greatly bless the 
Lord in your behalf, because ye have in every way re- 
freshed them. None of those things which ye have done 
to them shall be passed by without being reckoned unto 
you. “The Lord grant” to you “that ye may find 
mercy of the Lord in that day!”? May my spirit be for 
you,3 and my bonds, which ye have not despised or been 
ashamed of. Wherefore, neither shall Jesus Christ, our 
perfect hope, be ashamed of you. 


CHAP. XI.—- REQUEST TO THEM TO SEND A MESSENGER TO ANTIOCH. 


Your prayer has reached to the 
Church which is at Antioch in Syria. 
Coming from that place bound with 
chains, most acceptable to God,‘ I 
salute all; I who am not worthy to 
be styled from thence, inasmuch as I 
am the least of them. Nevertheless, 
- according to the will of God, I have 
been thought worthy [of this honour], 
not that I have any sense5 [of hav- 
ing deserved it], but by the grace of 
God, which I wish may be perfectly 
given to me, that through your prayers 
I may attain to God. In order, there- 
fore, that your work may be complete 
both on earth and in heaven, it is fit- 
ting that, for the honour of God, your 
Church should elect some worthy dele- 
gate ;° so that he, journeying into 
Syria, may congratulate them that 
they are [now] at peace, and are re- 
stored to? their proper greatness, and 
that their proper constitution® has 
been re-established among them. It 
seems then to me a becoming thing, 
that you should send some one of 
your number with an epistle, so that, 
in company with them, he may re- 
joice 9 over the tranquillity which, ac- 
cording to the will of God, they have 
obtained, and because that, through 
your prayers, they have now reached 
the harbour. As persons who are 
perfect, ye should also aim at '° those 
things which are perfect. For when 
ye are desirous to do well, God is 
also ready to assist you. 


Your prayers have reached to the Church of Antioch, 
and it is at peace. Coming from that place bound, I 
salute all; I who am not worthy to be styled from thence, 
inasmuch as I am the least of them. Nevertheless, ac- 
cording to the will of God, I have been thought worthy 
[of this honour], not that I have any sense’ [of having 
deserved it], but by the grace of God, which I wish may 
be perfectly given to me, that through your prayers I 
may attain to God. In order, therefore, that your work 
may be complete both on earth and in heaven, it is fitting 
that, for the honour of God, your Church should elect 
some worthy delegate ;° so that he, journeying into Syria, 
may congratulate them that they are [now] at peace, 
and are restored to their proper greatness, and that their 
proper constitution ® has been re-established among them, 
What appears to me proper to be done is this, that you 
should send some one of your number with an epistle, so 
that, in company with them, he may rejoice over the 
tranquillity which, according to the will of God, they 
have obtained, and because that, through your prayers, I 
have secured Christ as a safe harbour. As persons who 
are perfect, ye should also aim at’ those things which 
are perfect. For when ye are desirous to do well, God 
is also ready to assist you. 


CHAP. XII. — SALUTATIONS. 


The love of the brethren at Troas 
salutes you; whence also I write to 


The love of your brethren at Troas salutes you; 
whence also I write to you by Burgus, whom ye sent with 


ey en ee ee ee ee ee ee ee 


1 Or, “deacons.” 2 2 Tim. i. 18. 
4 Literally, ‘‘ most Boconinsot God.” 
8 Literally, “body.” °® 


terally, “ may glorify with them.” 


_ 3 Comp. Epistle of Ignatius to Ephesians, chap. xxi.; to Polycarp, chap ii. vi. 
5 Or, “from any conscience.” assador.”” 


6 Literally, “ God-amb: 7 Or, “have received.” 


10 Or, “ think of. 


92 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE SMYRNANS. 


eg ees np a TIE EE ee 


you by Burrhus, whom ye sent with 
me, together with the Ephesians, your 
brethren, and who has in all things 
refreshed me. And I would that all 
may imitate him, as being a pattern 
of a minister' of God. Grace will 
reward him in all things. I salute 
your most worthy? bishop, and your 
very venerable’ presbytery, and your 
deacons, my fellow-servants, and all 
of you individually, as well as gener- 
ally, in the name of Jesus Christ, and 
in His flesh and blood, in His passion 
and resurrection, both corporeal and 
spiritual, in union with God and you. 
Grace, mercy, peace, and patience, 
be with you for evermore ! 


I salute the families of my brethren, 
with their wives and children, and the 
virgins who are called widows. Be 
ye strong, I pray, in the power of the 
Holy Ghost. Philo, who is with me, 
greets you. I salute the house of 
Tavias, and pray that it may be con- 
firmed in faith and love, both corpo- 
real and spiritual. I salute Alce, my 
well-beloved,® and the incomparable 
Daphnus, and Eutecnus, and all by 
eG Fare ye well in the grace of 

od. 


me, together with the Ephesians, your brethren, and who 
has in all things refreshed me. And I would that all may 
imitate him, as being a pattern of a minister of God. 
The grace of the Lord will reward him in all things. I 
salute your most worthy bishop Polycarp, and your vener- 
able presbytery, and your Christ-bearing deacons, my 
fellow-servants, and all of you individually, as well as 
generally, in the name of Christ Jesus, and in His flesh 
and blood, in His passion and resurrection, both corporeal 
and spiritual, in union with God and you. Grace, mercy, 
peace, and patience, be with you in Christ for evermore ! 


CONCLUSION. 


I salute the families of my brethren, with their wives 
and children, and those that are ever virgins, and the 
widows. Be ye strong, I pray, in the power of the Holy 
Ghost. Philo, my fellow-servant, who is with me, greets 
you. I salute the house of Tavias, and pray that it may 
be confirmed in faith and love, both corporeal and spirit- 
ual. I salute Alce, my well-beloved,° and the incom- 
parable Daphnus, and Eutecnus, and all by name. Fare 
ye well in the grace of God, and of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, being filled with the Holy Spirit, and divine and 
sacred wisdom. 





1 Or, “ the ministry.” 


1 Y 2 Literally, “ 
4 Literally, ‘in the union of God and of you, 
6 Literally, “‘ the name desired of me.” 


worthy of God.” 


3 Literally, ‘‘ most becoming of God.” 
5 The deaconesses seem to have been called wrdows, - 


THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO POLYCARP. 


SHORTER AND LONGER VERSIONS. 





Ienatius, who is also called Theopho- 
rus, to Polycarp, Bishop of the 
Church of the Smyrneans, or 
rather, who has, as his own bishop, 
God the Father, and the Lord 
Jesus Christ: \wishes| abundance 


of happiness. 


Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, and a witness for Jesus 
Christ, to Polycarp, Bishop of the Church of the Smyr- 
neans, or rather, who has, as his own bishop, God the 
Father, and Jesus Christ: [wishes] abundance of 
happiness. 


CHAP, I.— COMMENDATION AND EXHORTATION. 


Havinc obtained good proof that 
thy mind is fixed in God as upon an 
immoveable rock, I loudly glorify 
[His name] that I have been thought 
worthy [to behold] thy blameless 
face,t which may I ever énjoy in 
God! I entreat thee, by the grace 
with which thou art clothed, to press 
forward in thy course, and to exhort 
all that they may be saved. Maintain 
thy position with all care, both in the 
flesh and spirit. Have a regard to 
preserve unity, than which nothing is 
better. Bear with all, even as the 
Lord does with thee. Support? all 
in love, as also thou doest. Give thy- 
self to prayer without ceasing.3 Im- 
plore additional understanding to what 
thou already hast. Be watchful, pos- 
sessing a sleepless spirit. Speak to 
every man separately, as God enables 
thee. Bear the infirmities of all, as 
being a perfect athlete [in the Chris- 
tian life]: where the labour is great, 
the gain is all the more. 


 sicknesses.”’ 5 


Havinc obtained good proof that thy mind is fixed in 
God as upon an immoveable rock, I loudly glorify [His 
name] that I have been thought worthy to behold thy 
blameless face,t which may I ever enjoy in God! I en- 
treat thee, by the grace with which thou art clothed, to 
press forward in thy course, and to exhort all that they 
may be saved. Maintain thy position with all care, both 
in the flesh and spirit. Have a regard to preserve unity, 
than which nothing is better. Bear with all, even as the 
Lord does with thee. Support? all in love, as also thou 
doest. Give thyself to prayer without ceasing.3 Implore 


additional understanding to what thou already hast. Be 


watchful, possessing a sleepless spirit. Speak to every 
man separately, as God enables thee.* Bear the infirmi- 
ties of all, as being a perfect athlete [in the Christian 
life], even as does the Lord of all. For says [the Scrip- 
ture], “He Himself took our infirmities, and bare our 
Where the labour is great, the gain is all 
the more. 


CHAP. II. — EXHORTATIONS. 


If thou lovest the good disciples, 
no thanks are due to thee on that 
account; but rather seek by meek- 
ness to subdue the more troublesome. 
Every kind of wound is not healed 
with the same plaster. Mitigate vio- 





I j,e., to make personal acquaintance with one esteemed so highly. 


4 Some read, ‘‘ according to thy practice.” 


If thou lovest the good disciples, no thanks are due 
to thee on that account; but rather seek by meekness to 
subdue the more troublesome. Every kind of wound: 
is not healed with the same plaster. Mitigate violent 
attacks [of disease] by gentle applications.® Be in all 
things “wise as a serpent, and harmless always as a 





2 Or, “tolerate.” 3 Comp. 1 Thess. v. 17. 
6 Literally, “ paroxysms by embrocations.” 


93 


5S Matt. viii. 17. 


94 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO POLYCARP. 





lent attacks [of disease] by gentle 
applications.‘ Be in all things “ wise 
as a serpent, and harmless as a 
dove.”? For this purpose thou art 
composed of both flesh and spirit, 
that thou mayest deal tenderly? with 
those [evils] that present themselves 
visibly before thee. And as respects 
those that are not seen,+ pray that 
[God] would reveal them unto thee, 
in order that thou mayest be wanting 
in nothing, but mayest abound in 
every gift. The times call for thee, 
as pilots do for the winds, and as one 
tossed with tempest seeks for the 
haven, so that both thou [and those 
under thy care] may attain to God. 
Be sober as an athlete of God: the 
prize set before thee is immortality 
and eternal life, of which thou art also 
persuaded. In all things may my 
soul be for thine,’ and my bonds also, 
which thou hast loved. 


dove.”? For this purpose thou art composed of both 
soul and body, art both fleshly and spiritual, that thou 
mayest correct those [evils] that present themselves visi- 
bly before thee ; and as respects those that are not seen, 
mayest pray that these should be revealed to thee, so 
that thou mayest be wanting in nothing, but mayest 
abound in every gift. The times call upon thee to pray. 
For as the wind aids the pilot of a ship, and as havens 
are advantageous for safety to a tempest-tossed vessel, so 
is also prayer to thee, in order that thou mayest attain 
to God. Be sober as an athlete of God, whose will is 
immortality and eternal life ; of which thou art also per- 
suaded. In all things may my soul be for thine,5 and my 
bonds also, which thou hast loved. 


CHAP. III. —- EXHORTATIONS. 


Let not those who seem worthy of 
credit, but teach strange doctrines,° 
fill thee with apprehension. Stand 
firm, as does an anvil which is beaten. 
It is the part of anoble” athlete to be 
wounded, and yet to conquer. And 
especially, we ought to bear all things 
for the sake of God, that He also may 
bear with us. Be ever becoming more 
zealous than what thou art. Weigh 
carefully the times. Look for Him 
who is above all time, eternal and 
invisible, yet who became visible for 
our sakes ; impalpable and impassible, 
yet who became passible on our ac- 
count ; and who in every kind of way 
suffered for our sakes. 


Let not those who seem worthy of credit, but teach 
strange doctrines,° fill thee with apprehension. Stand 
firm, as does an anvil which is beaten. It is the part of a 
noble 7 athlete to be wounded, and yet to conquer. And 
especially we ought to bear all things for the sake of God, 
that He also may bear with us, and bring us into His 
kingdom. Add more and more to thy diligence; run 
thy race with increasing energy ; weigh carefully the times. 
Whilst thou art here, be a conqueror; for here is the 
course, and there are the crowns. Look for Christ, the 
Son of God ; who was before time, yet appeared in time ; 
who was invisible by nature, yet visible in the flesh ; who 
was impalpable, and could not be touched, as being with- 
out a body, but for our sakes became such, might be 
touched and handled in the body ; who was impassible as 
God, but became passible for our sakes as man ; and who 
in every kind of way suffered for our sakes. 


CHAP. IV. — EXHORTATIONS. 


Let not widows be neglected. Be 
thou, after the Lord, their protector 8 
and friend. Let nothing be done 
without thy consent ; neither do thou 
anything without the approval of God, 
which indeed thou dost not, inas- 
much as thou art stedfast. Let your 
assembling together be of frequent? 
occurrence: seek after all by name.'° 
Do not despise either male or female 
slaves, yet neither let them be puffed 
up with conceit, but rather let them 


1 Literally, ‘‘ paroxysms by embrocations.” 
and others to things yet future. 
7 Literally, ‘‘ great.” 


° Some refer the words to more frequent meetings, 
TO i.€,, so as to bring them out to the public 


smplied. 


2 Matt, x. 16. 
5 Comp. Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, chap. xxi., etc. 
8 The word in the original (ppovrearys) denotes one who thinks or cares for another, ©” ~ 

and others to these meetings being more numerous; no comparison is necessarily 
assembly, 


Let not the widows be neglected. Be thou, after the 
Lord, their protector and friend. Let nothing be done 
without thy consent; neither do thou anything without 
the approval of God, which indeed thou doest not. Be 
thou stedfast. Let your assembling together be of fre- 
quent? occurrence: seek after all by name.*° Do not 
despise either male or female slaves, yet neither let them 
be: puffed up with conceit, but rather let them submit 
themselves ™ the more, for the glory of God, that they may 
obtain from God a better liberty. Let them not wish 
to be set free [from slavery] at the public expense, that 
they be not found slaves to their own desires. 


4 Some refer this to the mysteries of Goa 


3 Literally, “ flatter.” 
& Comp. 1 Tim. i. 3, vi. 3. 


11 Or, “‘act the part of slaves.” 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO POLYCARP. 


95 





submit themselves! the more, for the 
glory of God, that they may obtain 
from God a better liberty. Let them 
not long to be set free [from slavery | 
at the public expense, that they be 
not found slaves to their own desires. 


CHAP. YV.—THE DUTIES OF HUSBANDS AND WIVES. 


Flee evil arts; but all the more 
discourse in public regarding them.? 
Speak to my sisters, that they love the 
Lord, and be satisfied with their hus- 
bands both in the flesh and spirit. In 
like manner also, exhort my brethren, 
in the name of Jesus Christ, that they 
love their wives, even as the Lord the 
Church.3 If any one can continue 
in a state of purity,+ to the honour 
of Him who is Lord of the flesh,> let 
him so remain without boasting. If 
he begins to boast, he is undone ; and 
if he reckon himself greater than the 
bishop, he is ruined. But it becomes 
both men and women who marry, to 
form their union with the approval of 
the bishop, that their marriage may be 
according to God, and not after their 
own lust. Let all things be done to 
the honour of God.” 


CHAP. VI. — THE 


. Give ye® heed to the bishop, that 
God also may give heed to you. My 
soul be for theirs? that are submissive 
to the bishop, to the presbyters, and 
to the deacons, and may my portion 
be along with them in God! Labour 
together with one another; strive in 
company together ; run together ; suf- 
fer together; sleep together; and 
awake together, as the stewards, and 
associates,*° and servants of God. 
Please ye Him under whom ye fight, 
and from whom ye receive your wages. 
Let none of you be found a deserter. 
Let your baptism endure as your 
arms; your faith as your helmet; 
your love as your spear; your pa- 
tience as a complete panoply. Let 
your works be the charge ™ assigned 
to you, that ye may receive a worthy 
recompense. Be long-suffering, there- 
fore, with one another, in meekness, 
as God is towards you. May I have 
joy of you for ever !*3 


I Or, “act the part of slaves.” 
4 ie,, in celibacy. f o1 
6 Literally, “if he be known beyond the bishop. 


11 Literally, “ ities of u é 
13 Comp. Ignatius’ Epistle to the Ephesians, chap i. 


2 Some insert 27}, and render, “ rather do not even speak of them.” | 
5 Some render, “to the honour of the flesh of the Lord,” as in the longer recension. 
7 Comp. x Cor. x. 31. 


ius here directly addresses them. ; 
to be read to the people, Pier ere di TA nitty reference, simply implying the idea of faithful effort leading te future rewaad, 


Flee evil arts ; but all the more discourse in public re- 
garding them. Speak to my sisters, that they love the 
Lord, and be satisfied with their husbands both in the 
flesh and spirit. In like manner also, exhort my brethren, 
in the name of Jesus Christ, that they love their wives, 
even as the Lord the Church. If any one can continue 
in a state of purity, to the honour of the flesh of the 
Lord, let him so remain without boasting. If he shall 
boast, he is undone ; and if he seeks to be more promi- 
nent ® than the bishop, he is ruined. But it becomes both 
men and women who marry, to form their union with the 
approval of the bishop, that their marriage may be ac- 
cording to the Lord, and not after their own lust. Let 
all things be done to the honour of God.’ 


DUTIES OF THE CHRISTIAN FLOCK. 


Give ye® heed to the bishop, that God also may give 
heed to you. My soul be for theirs that are submissive 
to the bishop, to the presbytery, and to the deacons: 
may I have my portion with them from God! Labour 
together with one another ; strive in company together ; 
run together ; suffer together ; sleep together ; and awake 
together, as the stewards, and associates,’° and servants of 
God. Please ye Him under whom ye fight, and from 
whom ye shall receive your wages. Let none of you be 
found a deserter. Let your baptism endure as your arms ; 
your faith as your helmet ; your love as your spear ; your 
patience as a complete panoply. Let your works be the 
charge assigned to you, that you may obtain for them a 
most worthy" recompense. Be long-suffering, therefore, 
with one another, in meekness, and God shall be so with 
you. May I have joy of you for ever!'S 


3 Eph. v. 25. 


8 As this Epistle, though sent to the bishop, was meant 


9 Comp. chap. ii., etc. 10 Or, “ assessors.” 


96 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO POLYCARP. 





CHAP. VII. — REQUEST THAT POLYCARP WOULD SEND A MESSENGER TO ANTIOCH. 


Seeing that the Church which is at 
Antioch in Syria is, as report has in- 
formed me, at peace, through your 
prayers, I also am the more encour- 
aged, resting without anxiety in God,' 
if indeed by means of suffering I may 
attain to God, so that, through your 
prayers, I may be found a disciple [of 
Christ].? Itis fitting, O Polycarp, most 
blessed in God, to assemble a very sol- 
emn3 council, and to elect one whom 
you greatly love, and know to be a man 
of activity, who may be designated the 
messenger of God ;* and to bestow on 
him this honour that he may go into 
Syria, and glorify your ever active love 
to the praise of Christ. A Christian 
has not power over himself, but must 
always be ready for5 the service of God. 
Now, this work is both God’s and yours, 
when ye shall have completed it to His 
glory.° For I trust that, through grace, 
ye are prepared for every good work 
pertaining toGod. Knowing, therefore, 
your energetic love of the truth, I have 
exhorted you by this brief Epistle. 


Seeing that the Church which is at Antioch in Syria is, 
as report has informed me, at peace, through your prayers, 
I also am the more encouraged, resting without anxiety 
in God,’ if indeed by means of suffering I may attain to 
God, so that, through your"prayers, I may be found a dis- 
ciple [of Christ]. It is fitting, O Polycarp, most blessed 
in God, to assemble a very solemn council, and to elect 
one whom you greatly love, and know to be a man of 
activity, who may be designated the messenger of God ;* 
and to bestow on him the honour of going into Syria, so 
that, going into Syria, he may glorify your ever active love 
to the praise of God. A Christian has not power over 
himself, but must always be ready for’ the service of 
God. Now, this work is both God’s and yours, when ye 
shall have completed it. For I trust that, through grace, 
ye are prepared for every good work pertaining to God. 
Knowing your energetic love of the truth, I have exhorted 
you by this brief Epistle. 


CHAP. VIII.— LET OTHER CHURCHES ALSO SEND TO ANTIOCH. 


Inasmuch as I have not been able 
to write to all the Churches, because 
I must suddenly sail from Troas to 
Neapolis, as the will” [of the emperor] 
enjoins, [I beg that] thou, as being 
acquainted with the purpose ® of God, 
wilt write to the adjacent Churches, 
that they also may act in like manner, 
such as are able to do so sending 
messengers,? and the others transmit- 
ting letters through those persons who 
are sent by thee, that thou '° mayest be 
glorified by a work"! which shall be re- 
membered for ever, as indeed thou art 
worthy to be. I salute all by name, 
and in particular the wife of Epitropus, 
with all her house and children. I 
salute Attalus, my beloved. I salute 
him who shall be deemed worthy to 
go [from you] into Syria. Grace shall 
be with him for ever, and with Poly- 
carp that sends him. I pray for your 
happiness for ever in our God, Jesus 
Christ, by whom continue ye in the 
unity and under the protection of 
God.’ I salute Alce, my dearly be- 
loved." Fare ye well in the Lord. 

t Literally, ‘ in freedom from care of God.” 

4 Literally, ‘ God-runner.” 


or perhaps to God Himself, 
31 Literally, ‘an eternal work.” 


2 Some read, “in the resurrection,” 

5 Literally, “at leisure for.” oe 
8 Or, “‘as possessed of the judgment.” 
12 Some propose to read, “ and of 


Inasmuch, therefore, as I have not been able to write 
to all Churches, because I must suddenly sail from Troas 
to Neapolis, as the will? [of the emperor] enjoins, [I beg 
that] thou, as being acquainted with the purpose ® of 
God, wilt write to the adjacent Churches, that they also 
may act in like manner, such as are able to do so sending 
messengers, and the others transmitting letters through 
those persons who are sent by thee, that thou mayest: be 
glorified by a work ™ which shall be remembered for ever, 
as indeed thou art worthy to be. I salute all by name, 
and in particular the wife of Epitropus, with all her house 
and children. I salute Attalus, my beloved. I salute 
him who shall be deemed worthy to go [from you | into 
Syria. Grace shall be with him for ever, and with Poly- 
carp that sends him. I pray for your happiness for ever 
in our God, Jesus Christ, by whom ‘continue ye in the 
unity and under the protection of God. I salute Alce, 
my dearly beloved.'s Amen. Grace [be with you]. Fare 
ye well in the Lord. 


3 Literally, ‘ most befitting God.” 
J 7 Some suppose the reference to be to the soldiers, 
9 Literally, ‘ men on foot." 10 Some have the plural “ ye” here. 
the bishop.” 33 Literally, “ name desired by me.” 


6 Literally, “ to Him.” 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


TO THE 


SYRIAC VERSION OF THE IGNATIAN EPISTLES. 


When the Syriac version of the Ignatian Epistles was introduced to the English world in 
1845, by Mr. Cureton, the greatest satisfaction was expressed by many, who thought the inveterate 
controversy about to be settled. Lord Russell made the learned divine a canon of Westminster 
Abbey, and the critical Chevalier Bunsen * committed himself as its patron. To the credit of the 
learned, in general, the work was gratefully received, and studied with scientific conscientiousness 
by Lightfoot and others. The literature of this period is valuable ; and the result is decisive as to 
the Curetonian versions at least, which are fragmentary and abridged, and yet they are a valuable 
contribution to the study of the whole case. 

The following is the original InrropucToRY NOTICE : — 


Some account of the discovery of the Syriac version of the Ignatian Epistles has been 
already given. We have simply to add here a brief description of the mss. from which the 
Syriac text has been printed. That which is named a by Cureton, contains only the Epistle to 
Polycarp, and exhibits the text of that Epistle which, after him, we have followed. He fixes its 
age somewhere in the first half of the sixth century, or before the year 550. The second ms., 
which Cureton refers to as , is assigned by him to the seventh or eighth century. It contains 
the three Epistles of Ignatius, and furnishes the text here followed in the Epistles to the Ephe- 
sians and Romans. The third ms., which Cureton quotes as y, has no date, but, as he tells us, 
“belonged to the collection acquired by Moses of Nisibis in a.p. 931, and was written apparently 
about three or four centuries earlier.’’ It contains the three Epistles to Polycarp, the Ephesians, 
and the Romans. The text of all these mss. is in several passages manifestly corrupt, and the 
translators appear at times to have mistaken the meaning of the Greek original. 

[N.B. — Bunsen is forced to allow the fact that the discovery of the lost work of Hippolytus 
“throws new light on an obscure point of the Ignatian controversy,” i.e., the Sige in the Epistle 
to the Magnesians (cap. viii.) ; but his treatment of the matter is unworthy of a candid scholar. } 


a ee ee 
3 See the extraordinary passage and note in his Hifpolytus, vol. i. p. 58, etc. 





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THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO POLYCARP:’ 


Ignatius, who ts [also called| Theophorus, to 
Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, or rather, who 
has as his own bishop God the Father, and our 
Lord Jesus Christ: [wishes| abundance of 
happiness. 


CHAP. I. 


BecausE thy mind is acceptable to me, inas- 
much as it is established in God, as on a rock 
which is immoveable, I glorify God the more ex- 
ceedingly that I have been counted worthy of 
[seeing] thy face, which I longed after in God. 
Now I beseech thee, by the grace with which 
thou art clothed, to add [speed] to thy course, 
and that thou ever pray for all men that they 
may be saved, and that thou demand? things 
which are befitting, with all assiduity both of the 
flesh and spirit. Be studious of unity, than 
which nothing is more precious. Bear with all 
men, even as our Lord beareth with thee. Show 
patience 3 with all men in love, as [indeed] thou 
doest. Be stedfast in prayer. Ask for more 
understanding than that which thou [already] 
hast. Be watchful, as possessing a spirit which 
sleepeth not. Speak with every man according 
to the will of God. Bear the infirmities of all 
men as a perfect athlete ; for where the labour is 
great, the gain is also great. 


CHAP. II. 


If thou lovest the good disciples only, thou 
hast no grace; [but] rather subdue those that 
are evil by gentleness. All [sorts of] wounds 
are not healed by the same medicine. Mitigate 
[the pain of] cutting+by tenderness. Be wise 
as the serpent in everything, and innocent, with 
respect to those things which are requisite, even 
as the dove. For this reason thou art [com- 
posed] of both flesh and spirit, that thou mayest 





3 The inscription varies in each of the three Syriac mss., being in 
the first, “‘ The Epistle of my lord Ignatius, the bishop; ” in the second, 
“ The Epistle of Ignatius; ” and in the third, ‘‘ The Epistle of Ignatius 
bishop of Antioch,” y 

2 Ore “vindicate thy place” in the Greek. 

3 Literally, ‘draw out thy spirit.” * : 

4 Cureton observes, as one alternative here, that “‘ the Syrian 
translator seems to have read wapdfvoma for mapofvapovs.” 


entice 5 those things which are visible before thy 
face, and mayest ask, as to those which are con- 
cealed from thee, that they [too] may be re- 
vealed to thee, in order that thou be deficient in 
nothing, and mayest abound in all gifts. The 
time demands, even as a pilot does a ship, and 
as one who stands exposed to the tempest does a 
haven, that thou shouldst be worthy of God. Be 
thou watchful as an athleteof God. That which 
is promised to us is life eternal, which cannot be 
corrupted, of which things thou art also per- 
suaded. In everything I will be instead ° of thy 
soul, and my bonds which thou hast loved. 


CHAP. III. 


Let not those who seem to be somewhat, and 
teach strange doctrines, strike thee with appre- 
hension ; but stand thou in the truth, as an ath- 
lete 7 who is smitten, for it is [the part] of a great 
athlete to be smitten, and [yet] conquer. More 
especially is it fitting that we should bear every- 
thing for the sake of God, that He also may 
bear us. Be [still] more diligent than thou yet 
art. Be discerning of the times. Look for Him 
that is above the times, Him who has no times, 
Him who is invisible, Him who for our sakes be- 
came visible, Him who is impalpable, Him who 
is impassible, Him who for our sakes suffered, 
Him who endured everything in every form for 
our sakes. 

CHAP. IV. 


Let not the widows be overlooked ; on ac- 
count of® our Lord be thou their guardian, and 
let nothing be done without thy will; also do 
thou nothing without the will of God, as indeed 
thou doest not. Stand rightly. Let there be 
frequent 9 assemblies : ask every man [to them] 
by hisname. Despise not slaves, either male or 
female ; but neither let them be contemptuous, 
but let them labour the more as for the glory of 





5 Or, “ flatter,” probably meaning to “deal gently with.” 
6 Thus the Syriac renders avriwuxov in the Greek. 
7 The Greek has dxpwv, “ an anvil.” 
8 The Greek has wera, “‘ after.” 
_ 9 Or, “ constant,” “ regular.” 


99 


100 





God, that they may be counted worthy of a more 
precious freedom, which is of God. Let them 
not desire to be set free out of the common 
[fund], lest they be found the slaves of lust. 


CHAP. V. 


Flee wicked arts; but all the more discourse 
regarding them. Speak to my sisters, that they 
love in our Lord, and that their husbands be 
sufficient for them in the flesh and spirit. Then, 
again, charge my brethren in the name of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, that they love their wives, as 
our Lord His Church. If any man is able in 
power to continue in purity,’ to the honour of 
the flesh of our Lord, let him continue so with- 
out boasting ; if he boasts, he is undone ; if he 
become known apart from the bishop, he has 
destroyed himself It is becoming, therefore, 
to men and women who marry, that they marry 
with the counsel of the bishop, that the marriage 
may be in our Lord, and not in lust. Let every- 
_ thing, therefore, be [done] for the honour of God. 


CHAP. VI. 


Look ye to the bishop, that God also may 
look upon you, I will be instead of the souls of 





ice., “ in celibacy.” 


r, “ corrupted if.” 


wr 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO POLYCARP. 





those who are subject to the bishop, and the 
presbyters, and the deacons; with them may 1 
have a portion in the presence of God! Labour 
together with one another, act as athletes to- 
gether, run together, suffer together, sleep to- 
gether, rise together. As stewards of God, and 


fof His household;+ and His servants, please Him 


and serve Him, that ye may receive from Him the 
wages [promised]. Let none of you be rebel- 
lious. Let your baptism be to you as armour, 
and faith as a spear, and love as a helmet, and 
patience as a panoply. Let your treasures be 
your good works, that ye may receive the gift of 
God, as is just. Let your spirit be long-suffering 
towards each other with meekness, even as God 
[is] toward you. As for me, I rejoice in you at 
all times. 
CHAP. VII. 


The Christian has not power over himself, but 
is [ever] ready to be subject to God.s 
CHAP. VIII. 


I salute him who is reckoned worthy to go to 
Antioch in my stead, as I commanded thee.5 





3 Literally, ‘‘ make the contest.” 
4 Literally, “‘ sons of His house.” 
S These are the only parts of chaps. vii. and wi. in the Greek 


‘| that are represented in the Syriac. 


THE SECOND EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE EPHESIANS: 





Ignatius, who is [also called| Theophorus, to the 
Church which ts blessed in the greatness of God 
the Father, and perfected; to her who was 
selected* from eternity, that she might be at all 
times for glory, which abideth, and is unchange- 
able, andis perfected and chosen in the purpose 
of truth by the will of the Father of Jesus Christ 
our God; to her who ts worthy of happiness ; 
to her who ts at Ephesus, in Jesus Christ, in joy 
which is unblameable : [wishes] abundance of 
happiness. 

CHAP. I. 


INASMUCH as your name, which is greatly be- 
loved, is acceptable to me in God, [your name] 
which ye have acquired by nature, through a 
right and just will, and also by the faith and love 
of Jesus Christ our Saviour, and ye are imitators 
of God, and are fervent in the blood of God, and 
have speedily completed a work congenial to you ; 
[for] when ye heard that I was bound,’ so as to 
be able to do nothing for the sake of the com- 
mon name and hope (and I hope, through your 
prayers, that I may be devoured by beasts at 
Rome, so that by means of this of which I have 
been accounted worthy, I may be endowed with 
strength to be a disciple of God), ye were dili- 
gent to come and see me. Seeing, then, that 
we have become acquainted with your multitude * 
in the name of God, by Onesimus, who is your 
bishop, in love which is unutterable, whom I 
pray that ye love in Jesus Christ ‘our Lord, and 
that all of you imitate his example,> for blessed 
is He who has given you such a bishop, even as 
ye deserve [to have].° 


CHAP. III.” 
But inasmuch as love does not permit me to 


1 Another inscription is, ‘‘ Epistle the Second, which is to the 
Ephesians.” 

2 Literally, ‘‘ separated.” . 

3 Literally, ‘‘ bound from actions.” 

4 Cureton renders, “‘ have received your abundance,” probably 
referring the words to gifts sent by the Ephesians to Ignatius. 

S Literally, ‘‘ be in his image.” ; 

6 There is no Apodosis, unless it be found in what follows. 

7 The following clause is the whole of chap. iii. in the Greek, 
which is represented in the Syriac. 








be silent in regard to you, on this account I 
have been forward to entreat of you that ye 
would be diligent in the will of God. 


CHAP, viut.8 


For, so long as there is not implanted in you 
any one lust which is able to torment you, be- 
hold, ye live in God. I rejoice in you, and offer 
supplication? on account of you, Ephesians, a 
Church which is renowned in all ages. For 
those who are carnal are not able to do spiritual 
things, nor those that are spiritual carnal things ; 
in like manner as neither can faith [do] those 
things which are foreign to faith, nor want of 
faith [do] what belongs to faith. For those 
things which ye have done in the flesh, even 
these are spiritual, because ye have done every- 
thing in Jesus Christ. 


CHAP. IX. 


And ye are prepared for the building of God 
the Father, and ye are raised up on high by the 
instrument of Jesus Christ, which is the cross ; 
and ye are drawn by the rope, which is the Holy 
Spirit ; and your pulley is your faith, and your 
love is the way which leadeth up on high to 
God. 

CHAP. X. 


Pray for all men; for there is hope of repent- 
ance for them, that they may be counted wor- 
thy of God. By your works especially let them 
be instructed. Against their harsh words be ye 
conciliatory, by meekness of mind and gentle- 
ness. Against their blasphemies do ye give your- 
selves to prayer; and against their error be ye 
armed with faith. Against their fierceness be ye 
peaceful and quiet, and be ye not astounded by 
them. Let us, then, be imitators of our Lord in 
meekness, and strive who shall more especially 
be injured, and oppressed, and defrauded. 





8 Chaps. iv. v. vi. vii. of the Greek are totally omitted in the 
Syriac. eae ; 
: 9 Thus Cureton renders the words, referring in confirmation to the 
Peshito version of Phil. i. 4, but the meaning is doubtful. 
oY 


102 


CHAP. XIV.’ 


The work is not of promise,” 
found in the power of faith, even to the end. 


CHAP. XV. 


It is better that a man should be silent while 
he is something, than that he should be talking 
when he is not; that by those things which he 
speaks he should act, and by those things of 
which he is silent he should be known. 


CHAP. XVIII.3 


My spirit bows in adoration to the cross, 
which is a stumbling-block to those who do not 
believe, but is to you for salvation and eternal 
life. 





1 Chaps. xi, xii. xiii. of the Greek are totally wanting in the 
oS and only these few words of chaps. xiv. and xv. are repre- 
sented. 

_ 2 The meaning seems to be that mere profession, without con- 
tinuous practice, is nothing. 

3 Chaps. xvi. and xvil. of the Greek are totally wanting in the 


Syriac. 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE EPHESIANS. 


CHAP. XIX. 


unless a man be There was concealed from the ruler of this 


world the virginity of Mary and the birth of our 
Lord, and the three renowned mysteries * which 
were done in the tranquillity of God from the 
star. And here, at the manifestation of the Son, 
magic began to be destroyed, and all bonds 
were loosed ; and the ancient kingdom and the 
error of evil was destroyed. Henceforward all 
things were moved together, and the destruction 
of death was devised, and there was the com- 
mencement of that which was perfected in God.5 


Ce ee 

4 Literally, “the mysteries of the shout.” The meaning is here 
confused and obscure. See the Greek, 

: 5 Chaps. xx. and xxi. of the Greek are altogether wanting in the 
yriac. , 

[N.B.—See spurious Epistle to Philippians, cap. 4, 7#fra. This 
concealment from Satan of the mystery of the incarnation is the expla- 
hation, according to the Fathers, of his tempting the Messiah, and 
prompting His crucifixion. Also, Christ the more profoundly humbled 

imself, ‘‘ xe subtiles tlle diaboli oculus magnum hoc pietatis depre- 
henderet sacramentum” (St. Bernard, opp. ii. 1944). Bernard also 
uses this opinion very strikingly (opp. ii. 1953) in one of his sermons, 
supposing that Satan discovered the secret too late for his own pur- 
pose, and then prompted the outcry, Cosme down from the cross, to 
defeat the triumph of the second Adam. (Comp. St. Mark i, 24 and St. 
Luke iv. 34, where, after the first defeat of the tempter, this demon 
suspects the second Adam, and tries to extort the secret). ] 


_ THE THIRD EPISTLE OF THE SAME ST. IGNATIUS: 


denatius, who is [also called | Theophorus, to the 
Church which has received grace through the 
greatness of the Father Most High; to her who 
presideth in the place of the region of the Ro- 
mans, who ts worthy of God, and worthy of 
life, and happiness, and praise, and remem- 
brance, and 1s worthy of prosperity, and pre- 
sideth in love, and is perfected in the law of 
Christ unblameable: |wishes| abundance of 
peace. 

CHAP. I. 


From of old have I prayed to God, that I 
might be counted worthy to behold your faces 
which are worthy of God: now, therefore, be- 
ing bound in Jesus Christ, I hope to meet you 
and salute you, if it be the will [of God] that I 
should be accounted worthy to the end. For 
the beginning is well arranged, if I be counted 
worthy to attain to the end, that I may receive 
my portion, without hindrance, through suffer- 
ing. For I am in fear of your love, lest it 
should injure me. As to you, indeed, it is easy 
for you to do whatsoever ye wish ; but as to me, 
it is difficult for me to be accounted worthy of 
God, if indeed ye spare me not. 


CHAP. II. 


For there is no other time such as this, that I 
should be accounted worthy of God; neither 
will ye, if ye be silent, [ever] be found in a bet- 
ter work than this. If ye let me alone, I shall 
be the word of God; but if ye love my flesh, 
again am I [only] to myself a voice. Ye can- 
not give me anything more precious than this, 
that I should be sacrificed to God, while the 
altar is ready; that ye may be in one concord 
in love, and may praise God the Father through 
Jesus Christ our Lord, because He has deemed 
a bishop worthy to be God’s, having called him 
from the east to the west. It is good that I 
should set from the world in God, that I may 
rise in Him to life.” 





I Another inscription is, ‘‘ The Third Epistle.” 
2 Literally, “‘ in life.” 


CHAP. III. 


Ye have never envied any man. Ye have 
taught others. Only pray ye for strength to be 
given to me from within and from without, that 
I may not only speak, but also may be willing, 
and that I may not merely be called a Christian, 
but also may be found to be [one] ; for if I am 
found to be [so], I may then also be called [so]. 
Then [indeed] shall I be faithful, when I am no 
longer seen in the world. For there is nothing 
visible that is good. The work is not [a mat- 
ter3] of persuasion; but Christianity is great 
when the world hateth it. 


CHAP. IV. 


I write to all the Churches, and declare to all 
men, that I willingly die for the sake of God, if so 
be that ye hinder me not. I entreat of you not 
to be [affected] towards me with a love which 
is unseasonable. Leave me to become [the 
prey of] the beasts, that by their means I may 
be accounted worthy of God. I am the wheat 
of God, and by the teeth of the beasts I shall 
be ground,‘ that I may be found the pure bread 
of God. Provoke ye greatly5 the wild beasts, 
that they may be for me a grave, and may leave 
nothing of my body, in order that, when I have 
fallen asleep, I may not be a burden upon any 
one. Then shall I be in truth a disciple of 
Jesus Christ, when the world seeth not even my 
body. Entreat of our Lord in my behalf, that 
through these instruments I may be found a sac- 
rifice to God. I do not, like Peter and Paul, 
issue orders unto you. They are® apostles, but 
I am one condemned ; they indeed are free, 
but I am a slave, even until now. But if I suf- 
fer, I shall be the freed-man of Jesus Christ, 
and I shall rise in Him from the dead, free. 
And now being in bonds, I learn to desire noth- 


ing. 





3 The meaning is probably similar to that expressed in chap. xiv 
of the Epistle to the ehecane 

4 Literally, ‘I am ground.” 

5 Literally, ‘‘ with provoking, provoke.” 

6 Literally, “‘ they are who are.” 


103 


104 





CHAP. V. 


From Syria, and even unto Rome, I am cast 
among wild beasts, by sea and by land, by night 
and by day, being bound between ten leopards, 
which are the band of soldiers, who, even when 
I do good to them, all the more do evil unto 
me. I, however, am the rather instructed by 
their injurious treatment ;* but not on this ac- 
count am I justified to myself. I rejoice in the 
beasts which are prepared for me, and I pray 
that they may in haste be found for me; and I 
will provoke them speedily to devour me, and 
not be as those which are afraid of some other 
men,? and will not approach them: even should 
they not be willing to approach me, I will go 
with violence against them. Know me from 
myself what is expedient for me.3 Let no one* 
envy me of those things which are seen and 
which are not seen, that I should be accounted 
worthy of Jesus Christ. Fire, and the cross, 
and the beasts that are prepared, cutting off of 
the limbs, and. scattering of the bones, and 
crushing of the whole body, harsh torments of 
the devil —let these come upon me, but’ only 
let me be accounted worthy of Jesus Christ. 


CHAP. VI. 
The pains of the birth stand over against me.® 


CHAP. VII. 


And my love is crucified, and there is no fire 
in me for another love. I do not desire the 
food of corruption, neither the lusts of this 
world. I seek the bread of God, which is the 





I Literally, ‘‘ by their injury.” 

2 Literally, “and not as that which is afraid of some other men.” 
So Cureton translates, but remarks that the passage is evidently cor- 
rupt. _ The reference plainly is to the fact that the beasts sometimes 
refused to attack their intended victims. See the case of Blandina, 
as reported by Eusebius (A7zst. Eccl., v. 1). 

3 Cureton renders interrogatively, ‘‘ What is expedient for me ?” 
and remarks that “the meaning of the Syriac appears to be, ‘I 
crave your indulgence to leave the knowledge of what is expedient 
for me to my own conscience.’ ” 

4 Literally, ‘‘ nothing.” 

5 Literally, ‘‘ and.” 

©: The Latin version translates the Greek here, ‘‘ He adds gain to 
me. 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE ROMANS. 


flesh of Jesus Christ; and I seek His blood, a 
drink which is love incorruptible. 


CHAP. IX.7 


My spirit saluteth you, and the love of the 
Churches which, received me as the name of 
Jesus Christ ; for those also who were near to 
[my] way in the flesh, preceded me in every 
city. 


8 [Now therefore, being about to arrive shortly 
in Rome, I know many things in God; but I 
keep myself within measure, that I may not per- 
ish through boasting: for now it is needful for 
me to fear the more, and not pay regard to 
those who puff me up. For they who say such 
things to me scourge me ; for I desire to suffer, 
but I do not know if I am worthy. For zeal is 
not visible to many, but with me it has war. I 
have need, therefore, of meekness, by which the 
prince of this world is destroyed. I am able to 
write to you of heavenly things, but I fear lest I 
should do you an injury. Know me from my- 
self. For I am cautious lest ye should not be 
able to receive [such knowledge], and should be 
perplexed. For even I, not because I am in 
bonds, and am able to know heavenly things, 
and the places of angels, and the stations of the 
powers that are seen and that are not seen, am 
on this account a disciple ; for I am far short of 
the perfection which is worthy of God.] Be ye 
perfectly strong? in the patience of Jesus Christ 
our God. 


Here end the three Epistles of Ignatius, bishop 
and martyr. 





7 Chap. viii. of the Greek is entirely omitted in the Syriac. 

8 The following passage is not found in this Epistle in the Greek 
recensions, but forms, in substance, chaps. iv. and v. of the Epistle 
to the Trallians. Diverse views are held by critics as to its proper 
place, according to the degree of authority th ascribe to the Syriac 
version, Cureton maintains that this passage has been transferred by 
the forger of the Epistle to the Trallians, ‘‘ to give a fair colour to the 
fabrication by introducing a part of the genuine writing of Ignatius; ” 
while Hefele asserts that it is bound by the “‘ closest connection” to 
the preceding chapter in the Epistle to the Trallians. 

9 Or, as in the Greek, ‘‘ Fare ye well, to the end.” 

N.B. — The aphoristic genius of Ignatius seems to be felt by his 


Syrian abbreviator, who reduces whole chapters to mere maxims. } 


aeenuae rermee 


-INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


TO THE 


SPURIOUS EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS. 


To the following introductory note of the translators nothing need be prefixed, except a 
‘grateful acknowledgment of the value of their labours and of their good judgment in giving 
us even these spurious writings for purposes of comparison. They have thus placed the mate- 
rials for a complete understanding of the whole subject, before students who have a mind to subject 
it to a thorough and candid examination. 

The following is the original Inrropucrory NOTICE : — 


We formerly stated that eight out of the fifteen Epistles bearing the name of Ignatius are now 
universally admitted to be spurious. None of them are quoted or referred to by any ancient 
writer previous to the sixth century. The style, moreover, in which they are written, so differ- 
ent from that of the other Ignatian letters, and allusions which they contain to heresies and 
ecclesiastical arrangements of a much later date than that of their professed author, render it 
perfectly certain that they are not the authentic production of the illustrious bishop of Antioch. 

We cannot tell when or by whom these Epistles were fabricated. They have been thought 
to betray the same hand as the longer and interpolated form of the seven Epistles which are 
generally regarded as genuine. And some have conceived that the writer who gave forth to the 
world the “Apostolic Constitutions” under the name of Clement, was probably the author of 
these letters falsely ascribed to Ignatius, as well as of the longer recension of the seven Epistles 
which are mentioned by Eusebius. 

It was a considerable time before editors in modern times began to discriminate between 
the true and the false in the writings attributed to Ignatius. The letters first published under 
his name were those three which exist only in Latin. These came forth in 1495 at Paris, be- 
ing appended to a life of Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Some three years later, eleven 
Epistles, comprising those mentioned by Eusebius, and four others, were published in Latin, 
and passed through four or five editions. In 1536, the whole of the professedly Ignatian letters 
were published at Cologne in a Latin version; and this collection also passed through several 
editions. It was not till rs57 that the Ignatian Epistles appeared for the first time in Greek at 
Dillingen. After this date many editions came forth, in which the probably genuine were still 
mixed up with the certainly spurious, the three Latin letters only being rejected as destitute of 
authority. Vedelius of Geneva first made the distinction which is now universally accepted, in 
an edition of these Epistles which he published in 1623; and he was followed by Archbishop 
Usher and others, who entered more fully into that critical examination of these writings which 
has been continued down even to our own day. 


The reader will have no difficulty in detecting the internal grounds on which these eight letters 
105 


106 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 





are set aside as spurious. The difference of style from the other Ignatian writings will strike 
him even in perusing the English version which we have given, while it is of course much more 
marked in the original. And other decisive proofs present themselves in every one of the 
Epistles. In that to the Tarsians there is found a plain allusion to the Sabellian heresy, which 
did not arise till after the middle of the third century. In the Epistle to the Antiochians 
there is an enumeration of various Church officers, who were certainly unknown at the period 
when Ignatius lived. The Epistle to Hero plainly alludes to Manichzean errors, and could 
not therefore have been written before the third century. There are equally decisive proofs of 
spuriousness to be found in the Epistle to the Philippians, such as the references it contains to 
the Patripassian heresy originated by Praxeas in the latter part of the second century, and the 
ecclesiastical feasts, etc., of which it makes mention. The letter to Maria Cassobolita is of a 
very peculiar style, utterly alien from that of the other Epistles ascribed to Ignatius. And it is 
sufficient simply to glance at the short Epistles to St. John and the Virgin Mary, in order to see 
that they carry the stamp of imposture on their front; and, indeed, no sooner were they pub- 
lished than by almost universal consent they were rejected. 

But though the additional Ignatian letters here given are confessedly spurious, we have 
thought it not improper to present them to the English reader in an appendix ‘to our first vol- 
ume." We have done so, because they have been so closely connected with the name of the 
bishop of Antioch, and also because they are in themselves not destitute of interest. -. We have, 
moreover, the satisfaction of thus placing for the first time within the reach of one acquainted only 
with our language, all the materials that have entered into the protracted agitation of. the 
famous Ignatian controversy. : 
ee 
; 1 [Spurious writings, if they can be traced to antiquity, are always useful. Sometimes they are evidence of facts, always of Pa Pay 
ideas and fancies of their date; and often they enable us to identify the origin of corruptions. Even interpolations prove what latex 


partisans would be glad to find, if they could, in early writers. They bear unwilling testimony to the absence of genuzne evidence | 
in favour of their assumptions. ] 


4 


THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE TARSIANS. 


| 


Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the 
Church which is at Tarsus, saved in Christ, 
worthy of praise, worthy of remembrance, and 
worthy of love: Mercy and peace from God 
the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, be ever 
multiplied, 


CHAP. I.— HIS OWN SUFFERINGS: 


TO STEDFASTNESS. 


From Syria even unto Rome I fight with beasts : 
not that Iam devoured by brute beasts, for these, 
as ye know, by the will of God, spared Daniel, 
but by beasts in the shape of men, in whom the 
merciless wild beast himself lies hid, and pricks 
and wounds me day by day. But none of these 
hardships “move me, neither count I my life 
dear unto myself,” * in such a way as to love it 
better than the Lord. Wherefore I am prepared 
for [encountering] fire, wild beasts, the sword, 
or the cross, so that only I may see Christ my 
Saviour and God, who died for me. I therefore, 
the prisoner of Christ, who am driven along by 
land and sea, exhort you: “stand fast in the 
faith,” ? and be ye stedfast, “for the just shall 
live by faith;”3 be ye unwavering, for “the 
Lord causes those to dwell in a house who are 
of one and the same character.” 4 


EXHORTATION 


CHAP. IIl.— CAUTIONS AGAINST FALSE DOCTRINE. 


I have learned that certain of the ministers of 
Satan have wished to disturb you, some of them 
asserting that Jesus was born [only 5] in appear- 
ance, was crucified in appearance, and died in 
appearance ; others that He is not the Son of 
the Creator, and others that He is Himself God 
over all.6 Others, again, hold that He is a mere 
man, and others that this flesh is not to rise again, 
so that our proper course is to live and partake 
of a life of pleasure, for that this is the chief 
good to beings who are in a little while to perish. 
ET so ties ee eee ee 

*t Acts xx. 24. 

2 x Cor. xvi. 13. 

3 Hab. ii. 4; Gal. iii. x1. 

4 Ps, Ixviii. 7 (after the LXX.). 

S Some omit this. 

6 That is, as appears afterwards from chap. v., $0 as to have no 
personality distinct from the Father. 


A swarm of such evils has burst in upon us.’ 
But ye have not “given place by subjection to 
them, no, not for one hour.”*® For ye are the 
fellow-citizens as well as the disciples of Paul, 
who “ fully preached the Gospel from Jerusalem, 
and round about unto Illyricum,’® and bare 
about “the marks of Christ”’ in his flesh.’ 


CHAP. III. — THE TRUE DOCTRINE RESPECTING 
CHRIST. 


Mindful of him, do ye by all means know that 
Jesus the Lord was truly born of Mary, being 
made of a woman; and was as truly crucified. 
For, says he, “God forbid that I should glory, 
save in the cross of the Lord Jesus.”'' And He 
really suffered, and died, and rose again. For 
says [Paul], “If Christ should become passible, 
and should be the first to rise again from the 
dead.”2 And again, “In that He died, He died 
unto sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth 
unto God.’""3_ Otherwise, what advantage would 
there be in [becoming subject to] bonds, if 
Christ has not died? what advantage in patience ? 
what advantage in [enduring] stripes? And 
why such facts as the following: Peter was cru- 
cified ; Paul and James were slain with the sword ; 
John was banished to Patmos ; Stephen was 
stoned to death by the Jews who killed the 
Lord? But, [ in truth,] none of these sufferings 
were in vain; for the Lord was really -rucified 
by the ungodly. 


CHAP, IV, — CONTINUATION. 


And [know ye, moreover], that He who was 
born of a woman was the Son of God, and He 
that was crucified was “the first-born of every 
creature,” and God the Word, who also created 
all things. For says the apostle, “There is one 
God, the Father, of whom are all things ; and 


7 The translation is here somewhat doubtful. 
8 Gal. ii. 5. 

9 Rom. xv. 19. 

to Gal. vi. 17. 

1 Gal. vi. 14. 

12 Acts xxvi. 23 (somewhat inaccurately rendered in English vee 
sion). 5 ‘ 
13 Rom, vi. 10. 

14 Col, i. 15. 
307 


108 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE TARSIANS. 





one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things.” ? 
And again, “ For there is one God, and one Medi- 
ator between God and man, the man Christ 
Jesus ;”? and, “ By Him were all things created 
that are in heaven, and on earth, visible and _in- 
visible ; and He is before all things, and by Him 
all things consist.” 3 


CHAP. V.—REFUTATION OF THE PREVIOUSLY MEN- 
TIONED ERRORS. 


And that He Himself is not God over all, and 
the Father, but His Son, He [shows.when He] 
says, “T ascend unto my Father and your Father, 
and to my God and your God.” 4 And again, 
“When all things shall be subdued unto Him, 
then shall He also Himself be subject unto Him 
that put all things under Him, that God may be 
all in all.” 5 Wherefore it is one [Person] who 
put all things under, and who is all in all, and 
another [Person] to whom they were subdued, 
who also Himself, along with all other things, 
becomes subject [to the former]. 


CHAP. VI. — CONTINUATION. 


Nor is He a mere man, by whom and in whom 
all things were made ; for “all things were made 


by Him.”® “When He made the heaven, I. 


was present with Him; and I was there with 
Him, forming [the world along with Him], and 
He rejoiced in me daily.”7_ And how could a 
mere man be addressed in such words as these : 
“Sit Thou at My right hand?”® And how, 
again, could such an one declare: “Before 
Abraham was, Iam?”9 And, “Glorify Me with 
Thy glory which I had before the world was?” ° 
What man could ever say, “I came down from 
heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of 
Him that sent Me?” +: And of what man could 
it be said, “‘ He was the true Light, which light- 
eth every man that cometh into the world: He 
was in the world, and the world was made by 
Him, and the world knew Him not. He came 
unto His own, and His own received Him not ?” 
How could such a one be a mere man, receiving 
the beginning of His existence from Mary, and 
not rather God the Word, and the only-begotten 
Son? For “in the beginning was the Word, and 
the Word was with God,3 and the Word was 
God.”"4 And in another place, “The Lord cre- 
ated Me, the beginning of His ways, for His ways, 
nag ee ge 


t x Cor. viii. 6, 
2° Tim) ii.)5. 


7 Prov. viii, 27, 30. 
8 Ps. cx. x. ee 
9 John viii. 58, 

10 John xvii. 5. 

11 John vi. 38. 

12 John i. 9g, 10, rx. 
13 John i, x 


4 insert here John i, 3, 


for His works. Before the world did He found 
Me, and before all the hills did He beget Me.” '5 


CHAP. VII. — CONTINUATION. 


And that our bodies are to rise again, He 
shows when He Says, “ Verily I say unto you, 
that the hour cometh, in the which all that are 
in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of 
God ; and they that hear shall live.”'"® And 
[says] the apostle, “ For this corruptible must 
put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on 
immortality.” 17 And that we must live soberly 
and righteously, he [shows when he] says again, 
“ Be not deceived : neither adulterers, nor effem- 
inate persons, nor abusers of themselves with 
mankind, nor fornicators, nor revilers, nor drunk- 
ards, nor thieves, can inherit the kingdom of 
God.” *8 And again, “ If the dead rise not, then 
is not Christ raised ; our preaching therefore is 
vain, and your faith is also vain: ye are yet in 
your sins. Then they also that are fallen asleep 
in Christ have perished. If in this life only we 
have hope in Christ, we are of all men most 
miserable. If the dead rise not, let us eat and 
drink, for to-morrow we die.” *9 But if such be 
our condition and feelings, wherein shall we differ 
from asses and dogs, who have no care about the 
future, but think only of eating, and of indul- 
ging ?° such appetites as follow after eating? For 
they are unacquainted with any intelligence 
moving within them. 


CHAP. VIII. — EXHORTATIONS TO HOLINESS AND 
GOOD ORDER. 


May I have joy of you in the Lord! Be ye 
sober. Lay aside, every one of you, all malice 
and beast-like fury, evil-speaking, calumny, 
filthy speaking, ribaldry, whispering, arrogance, 
drunkenness, lust, avarice, vainglory, envy, and 
everything akin to these. “But put ye on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for 
the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”2! Ye pres- 
byters, be subject to the bishop ; ye deacons, to 
the presbyters ; and ye, the people, to the pres- 
byters and the deacons. Let my soul be for 
theirs who preserve this good order; and may 
the’ Lord be with them continually ! 


CHAP. IX.—EXHORTATIONS TO THE DISCHARGE 
OF RELATIVE DUTIES. 


Ye husbands, love your wives; and ye wives, 
your husbands. Ye children, reverence your 
parents. Ye parents, “bring up your children 
in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” 2 


IS Prov. viii. 22, 23, 25. 

16 John v. 25, 28. mite 

17 x Cor. xv. 53. 

i I re Vi. 9. 

9 x Cor, xv. 13, 14, 17, 18, 

30 Literally, “ eeltae whee . : 
eating.” The text is doubtful. 

21 Rom. xiii. 14, 

#2 Eph. vi. 4. 


2. 
the appetite of those things afer 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE TARSIANS. 





109 





Honour those [who continue] in virginity, as 
the priestesses of Christ ; and the widows [that 
persevere] in gravity of behaviour, as the altar 
of God. Ye servants, wait upon your masters 
with [respectful] fear, Ye masters, issue orders 


to your servants with tenderness. Let no one 
among you be idle; for idleness is the mother 
of want. I do not enjoin these things as being a 
person of any consequence, although I am in 
bonds [for Christ] ; but as a brother, I put you 
in mind of them. The Lord be with you! 


CHAP. X. — SALUTATIONS. 
May I enjoy your prayers! Pray ye that I 


may attain to Jesus. I commend unto you the 
Church which is at Antioch. The Churches of 
Philippi,’ whence also I write to you, salute you. 
Philo, your deacon, to whom also I give thanks 
as one who has zealously ministered to me in 
all things, salutes you. Agathopus, the deacon 
from Syria, who follows me in Christ, salutes 
you. “Salute ye one another with a holy 
kiss.”? I salute you all, both male and female, 
who are in Christ. Fare ye well in body, and 
soul, and in one Spirit; and do not ye forget 
me. The Lord be with you! 


3 Literally, “‘ of the Philippians,” 
8: Pet. v. 14. 





THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE ANTIOCHIANS. rt 





fgnatus, who is also called Theophorus, to 


the Lord raise up unto you of your brethren, 


the Church sojourning in Syria, which has| like unto me.” 9 


obtained mercy from God, and been elected by 
Christ, and which first* received the name of 
Christ, [wishes | happiness in God the Father, 
and the Lord Jesus Christ. 


CHAP. I.—-CAUTIONS AGAINST ERROR. 


Tue Lord has rendered my bonds light and 
easy since I learnt that you are in peace, and 
that you live in all harmony both of the flesh 
and spirit. “I therefore, the prisonér of the 
Lord,? beseech you, that ye walk worthy of the 
vocation wherewith ye are called,”3 guarding 
against those heresies of the wicked one which 
have broken in upon us, to the deceiving and 
destruction of those that accept of them; but 
that ye give heed to the doctrine of the apostles, 
and believe both the law and the prophets: that 
ye reject every Jewish and Gentile error, and 
neither introduce a multiplicity of gods, nor yet 
deny Christ under the pretence of [maintaining] 
the unity of God. 


CHAP. Il.—- THE TRUE DOCTRINE RESPECTING GOD 
AND CHRIST. 


For Moses, the faithful servant of God, when 
he said, “The Lord thy God is one Lord,” ¢ and 
thus proclaimed that there was only one God, 
did yet forthwith confess also our Lord when he 
said, “The Lord rained upon Sodom and Go- 
morrah fire and brimstone from the Lord.’’5 
And again, “ And God ® said, Let Us make man 
after our image: and so God made man, after 
the image of God made He him.”7 And further, 
“In the image of God made He man.”® And 
that [the Son of God] was to be made man, 
[Moses shows when] he says, “A prophet shall 
eat ae een Tee ee 


1 Comp. Acts xi. 26. 
2 Literally, “‘in the Lord.” 
3 Eph, iv, 1. 
4 Deut. vi. 4; Mark xii. a9. 
5 Gen, xix. 24. 
6 The ms. has “ Lord.’ 
7 Gen. i. 26, 27. 
Vv. 1, ix. 6. 


110 


CHAP. III.— THE SAME CONTINUED. 


The prophets also, when they speak as in the 
person of God, [saying,] “I am God, the first 
[of beings], and I am also the last,!° and besides 
Me there is no God,” '' concerning the Father 
of the universe, do also speak of our Lord Jesus 
Christ. ‘A Son,” they say, has been given to 
us, on whose shoulder the government is from 
above ; and His name is called the Angel of 
great counsel, Wonderful, Counsellor, the strong 
and mighty God.” * And concerning His in- 
carnation, “ Behold, a virgin shall be with Child, 
and shall bring forth a Son; and they shall call 
his name Immanuel.” "3 And concerning the pas- 
sion, ‘‘ He was led as a sheep to the slaughter ; 
and as a lamb before her shearers is dumb, 
I also was an innocent lamb led to be sacri- 
ficed.” "4 

CHAP. IV. — CONTINUATION, 


The Evangelists, too, when they declared that 
the one Father was “the only true God,” '5 did 
not omit what concerned our Lord, but wrote: 
“Tn the beginning was the Word, and the Word 
was with God, and the Word was God. The 
same was in the beginning with God. All things 
were made by Him, and without Him was not 
anything made that was made.” *® And con- 
cerning the incarnation: “The Word,” says [the 
Scripture], “became flesh, and dwelt among 
us.”"‘7__ And again: “The book of the genera- 
tion of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of 
Abraham.” '8 And those very apostles, who said 
“that there is one God,’’ 9 said also that “there 





9 Deut. xviii. 15; Acts iii. 22, vii. 37. 
10 Literally, ‘“‘ after these things,” 
Il Isa. xliv, 6. 

12 Isa, ix. 6. 

13 Isa. vii. 14; Matt. i. 23. 

4 Isa. liii. 7; Jer. xi. 19. 

1S John xvil. 3. 

16 John i, 1. 

17 John i. 14. 

18 Matt. i x. 

19 1 Cor. viii. 4,6; Gal. iii. a0. 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS 








TOVTHEAAN TIOCHIANS, 114 





is one Mediator between God and men.’' 
Nor were they ashamed of the incarnation and 
the passion. For what says [one]? “The man 
Christ Jesus, who gave Himself”? for the life 
and salvation of the world. 


CHAP. V.— DENUNCIATION OF FALSE TEACHERS. 


Whosoever, therefore, declares that there is 
but one God, only so as to take away the divinity 
of Christ, is a devil,3 and an enemy of all right- 
eousness. He also that confesseth Christ, yet 
not as the Son of the Maker of the world, but 
of some other unknown‘ being, different from 
Him whom the law and the prophets have pro- 
claimed, this man is an instrument of the devil. 
And he that rejects the incarnation, and is 
ashamed of the cross for which I am in bonds, 
this man is antichrist. Moreover, he who affirms 
Christ to bea mere man is accursed, according 
to the [declaration of the] prophet,° since he 
puts. not his trust in God, but in man. Where- 
fore also he is unfruitful, like the wild myrtle-tree. 


CHAP, VI.— RENEWED CAUTIONS. 


These things I write to you, thou new olive- 
tree of Christ, not that I am aware you hold 
any such opinions, but that I may put you on 
your guard, as a father does his children. Be- 
ware, therefore, of those that hasten to work 
mischief, those “enemies of the cross of Christ, 
whose end is destruction, whose glory is in their 
shame.”? Beware of those “dumb dogs,” those 
trailing serpents, those scaly® dragons, those asps, 
and basilisks, and scorpions. For these are 
subtle wolves,? and apes that mimic the appear- 
ance of men. 


CHAP. VII. —— EXHORTATION TO CONSISTENCY OF 
CONDUCT. 


Ye have been the disciples of Paul and Peter ; 
do not lose what was committed to your trust. 
Keep inremembrance Euodias,"° your deservedly- 
blessed pastor, into whose hands the government 
over you was first entrusted by the apostles. 
Let us not bring disgrace upon our Father. Let 
us prove ourselves His true-born children, and 
not bastards. Ye know after what manner I 
have acted among you. The things which, when 
present, I spoke to you, these same, when absent, 
I now write to you. “If any man love not 
the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema.” *" 





i Eph. iv. 5,6; x Tim. ii, 5. 

2 Tim. ii. 5. ae 
3 Comp. John vi. 70. Some read, ‘‘ the son of the devil. 
4 Or, ‘that cannot be known.” 

5 Comp. x John ii. 22, iv. 3; 2 John 7. 
6 Jer. xvii. 5. 

7 Phil, iii, 18, 19. 

8 The text is here doubtful. i + 
9 Literally, “ fox-like thoes,” lynxes being perhaps intended. 

10 Some th? ak that this is the same person as the Euodias referred 
to by St. Paul, Phil. iv. 2; but, as appears from the Greek (ver. 3, 
aires), the two persons there mentioned were women. 

11 x Cor, xvi. 22. 


* 














Be ye followers of me.’? 


My soul be for yours, 
when I attain to Jesus. 


Remember my bonds.*3 


CHAP. VIII.— EXHORTATIONS TO THE PRESBYTERS 
AND OTHERS. 


Ye presbyters, “feed the flock which is among 
you,”’ *4 till God shall show who is to hold the rule 
over you. For “Iam now ready to be offered,” 5 
that I “may win Christ.”'*© Let the. deacons 
know of what dignity they are, and let them study 
to be blameless, that they may be the followers 
of Christ. Let the people be subject to the pres- 
byters and the deacons. Let the virgins know to 
whom they have consecrated themselves. 


CHAP. IX. —— DUTIES OF HUSBANDS, WIVES, PARENTS, 
AND CHILDREN. 


Let the husbands love their wives, remember- 
ing that, at the creation, one woman, and not 
many, was given to one man. Let the wives 
honour their husbands, as their own flesh; and 
let them not presume to address them by their 
names.'?7 Let them also be chaste, reckoning 
their husbands as their only partners, to whom 
indeed they have been united. according to the 
will of God. Ye parents, impart a holy training 
to your children. Ye children, “honour your 
parents, that it may be well with you.” "8 


CHAP. X.— DUTIES OF MASTERS AND SERVANTS. 


Ye masters, do not treat your servants with 
haughtiness, but imitate patient Job, who de- 
clares, ‘I did not despise 9 the cause ?° of my 
man-servant, or of my maid-servant, when they 
contended with me. For what in that case shall 
I do when the Lord makes an inquisition regard- 
ing me?”?! And you know what follows. Ye 
servants, do not provoke your masters to anger 
in anything, lest ye become the authors of in- 
curable mischiefs to yourselves. 


CHAP. XI. —INCULCATION OF VARIOUS MORAL 
DUTIES. 


Let no one addicted to idleness eat,?? lest he 
become a wanderer about, and a whoremonger. 
Let drunkenness, anger, envy, reviling, clamour, 
and blasphemy “be not so much as named 
among you.”?3 Let not the widows live a life 
of pleasure, lest they wax wanton against the 
word. Be subject to Cesar in everything in 
which subjection implies no [spiritual] danger. 





12 Comp. 1 Cor. iv. 16. 

13 Comp. Col. iv. 18. 

14 x Pet, v. 2. 

15 2 Tim. iv. 6. 

16 Phil. iii. 8. 

17 Comp. 1 Pet. iii. 6. 

18 Eph. vi. 1, 3. : 
19 Literally, ‘If I did despise.” 
20 Or, ‘‘ judgment.” 

21 Job xxxi. 13, 14... 

22 Comp. 2 Thess. iil. 10, 
23 Eph. v. 3. 

24 x Tim. v. 6, 11, 


I12 


Provoke not those that rule over you to wrath, 
that you may give no occasion against yourselves 
to those that seek for it. But as to the practice 
of magic, or the impure love of boys, or mur- 
der, it is superfluous to write to you, since such 
vices are forbidden to be committed even by 
the Gentiles. I do not issue commands on 
these points as if I were an apostle; but, as 
your fellow-servant, I put you in mind of them. 


CHAP. XII. — SALUTATIONS., 


I salute the holy presbytery. I salute the 
sacred deacons, and that person most dear to 
me,‘ whom may I behold, through the Holy 
Spirit, occupying my place when [ shall attain 
to Christ. My soul be in place of his. I salute 
the sub-deacons, the readers, the singers, the 
doorkeepers, the labourers,? the exorcists, the 
confessors.3 I salute the keepers of the holy 
gates, the deaconesses in Christ. I salute the 
virgins betrothed to Christ, of whom may I 
have joy in the Lord Jesus.* I salute the peo- 
ple of the Lord, from the smallest to the great- 
est, and all my sisters in the Lord. 


D) 


1 Literally, “‘ the name desirable to me,” referring to Hero the 
leacon. 
2 A class of persons connected with the Church, whose duty it 
was to bury the bodies of the martyrs and others. 
3 Such as voluntarily confe: Christ before Gentile rulers. 
1s 


4 Some insert here a clause referring to wsdozws. 





EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE ANTIOCHIANS. 


CHAP. XIII. — SALUTATIONS CONTINUED. 


I salute Cassian and his partner in life, and 
their very dear children. Polycarp, that most 
worthy bishop, who is also deeply interested in 
you, salutes you ; and to him I have commended 
you in the Lord. The whole Church of the 
Smyrnezans, indeed, is mindful of you in their 
prayers in the Lord. Onesimus, the pastor of 
the Ephesians, salutes you. Damas, the bishop 
of Magnesia, salutes you. Polybius, bishop of 
the Trallians, salutes you. Philo and Agatho- 
pus, the deacons, my companions, salute you, 
“Salute one another with a holy kiss.” ® 


CHAP. XIV. — CONCLUSION, 


I write this letter to you from Philippi. May 
He who is alone unbegotten, keep you stedfast 
both in the spirit and in the flesh, through Him 
who was begotten before time”? began! And 
may I behold you in the kingdom of Christ! I 
salute him who is to bear rule over you in my 
stead: may I have joy of him in the Lord! 
Fare ye well in God, and in Christ, being en- 
lightened by the Holy Spirit. 

5 Or, as some read, ‘‘ Demas.” 


6 2 Cor. xiii, 12. 
7 Literally, ‘‘ before ages.” 


THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO HERO. 


A DEACON OF ANTIOCH. 


lenatius, who ts also called Theophorus, to Hero, 
the deacon of Christ, and the servant of God, 
a man honoured by God, and most dearly 
loved as well as esteemed, who carries Christ 
and the Spirit within him, and who is mine own 
son in faith and love: Grace, mercy, and peace 
Srom Almighty God, and from Christ Jesus our 
Lord, His only-begotten Son, “who gave Him- 
self for our sins, that He might deliver us from 
the present evil world,” * and preserve us unto 
fis heavenly kingdom. 


CHAP. I. —- EXHORTATIONS TO EARNESTINESS AND 
MODERATION. 


I exHorr thee in God, that thou add [speed] 
to thy course, and that thou vindicate thy dignity. 
Have a care to preserve concord with the saints. 
Bear [the burdens of] the weak, that “thou 
mayest fulfil the law of Christ.”? Devote 3 thy- 
self to fasting and prayer, but not beyond meas- 
ure, lest thou destroy thyself+ thereby. Do not 
altogether abstain from wine and flesh, for these 
things are not to be viewed with abhorrence, 
since [the Scripture] saith, “Ye shall eat the 
good things of the earth.”5 And again, “Ye 
shall eat flesh even as herbs.”® And again, 
“Wine maketh glad the heart of man, and oil 
exhilarates, and bread strengthens him.”7 But 
all are to be used with moderation, as being the 
gifts of God. “ For who shall eat or who shall 
drink without Him? For if anything be beauti- 
ful, it is His ; and if anything be good, it is His.”’® 
Give attention to reading, 9 that thou mayest not 
only thyself know the laws, but mayest also ex- 
plain them to others, as the earnest servant ° 
of God. “No man that warreth entangleth 
himself with the affairs of this life, that he may 





1 Gal. i. 4. 
2 Gal. vi. 2. 
. 3 Literally, ‘ have leisure for.” , 
4 Literally, ‘cast thyself down.” 
5 Isa. i. 19. 
6 Gen. ix. 3. 
7 Ps. civ. 15. 4 
8 Eccles. ii. 25 (after LXX.); Zech. ix. 17. 
9 Comp. 1. Tim. iv. 13. 
10 Literally, “ athlete.” 





please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier ; 
and if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he 
not crowned except he strive lawfully.”*" I that 
am in bonds pray that my soul may be in place 
of yours. 


CHAP. II. — CAUTIONS AGAINST FALSE TEACHERS. 


Every one that teaches anything beyond what 
is commanded, though he be [deemed] worthy 
of credit, though he be in the habit of fasting, 
though he live in continence, though he work 
miracles, though he have the gift of prophecy, 
let him be in thy sight as a wolf in sheep’s 
clothing,” labouring for the destruction of the 
sheep. If any one denies the cross, and is 
ashamed of the passion, let him be to thee as 
the adversary himself. ‘Though he gives all his 
goods to feed the poor, though he remove moun- 
tains, though he give his body to be burned,” 3 
let him be regarded by thee as abominable. If 
any one makes light of the law or the prophets, 
which Christ fulfilled at His coming, let him be 
to thee as antichrist. If any one says that the 
Lord is a mere man, he is a Jew, a murderer of 
Christ. 


CHAP. III]. — EXHORTATIONS AS TO ECCLESIAS- 
TICAL DUTIES. 


“ Honour widows that are widows indeed.” ™ 
Be the friend of orphans ; for God is “the Father 
of the fatherless, and the Judge of the widows.” *5 
Do nothing without the bishops; for they are 
priests, and thou a servant of the priests. They 
baptize, offer sacrifice,*® ordain, and lay on hands ; 
but thou ministerest to them, as the holy Stephen 


oe ee ee ee ee 

11 2 Tim. ii. 4. 

12 Comp. Matt. vii, 15. 

13 : Cor. xiii. 2. 

14 1 Tim. v. 3. 

15 Ps, Ixvili. 5. 

16 The term iepoupyéw, which we have translated as above, is one 
whose signification is disputed. It occurs once in the New. Testa- 
ment (Rom. xv. 16) where it is translated in our English version 
simply ‘‘ministering.” Pireolog aly, it means “‘to act asa priest,” 
and we have in our translation followed Hesychius (Cent. iv,), who 
explains it as meaning “to offer sacrifice.” [The whole passage in 
the Epistle to the Romans, where this word occurs may be compa: 
(original Greek) with Mal. i. rz, Heb. v. 1, etc.] 


113 


114 


did at Jerusalem to James and the presbyters. 
Do not neglect the sacred meetings’ [of the 
saints | ; inquire after every one by name. “ Let 
no man despise thy youth, but be thou an ex- 
ample to the believers, both in word and con- 
duct.” ? 


CHAP. IV. — SERVANTS AND WOMEN ARE NOT TO 
BE DESPISED. 


Be not ashamed of servants, for we possess the 
same nature in common with them. Do not 
hold women in abomination, for they have given 
thee birth, and brought thee up. It is fitting, 
therefore, to love those that were the authors of 
our birth (but only in the Lord), inasmuch as a 
man can produce no children without a woman. 

‘It is right, therefore, that we should honour those 

who have had a part in giving us birth. ‘“ Neither 
is the man without the woman, nor the woman 
without the man,” 3 except in the case of those 
who were first formed. For the body of Adam 
was made out of the four elements, and that of 
Eve out of the side of Adam. And, indeed, the 
altogether peculiar birth of the Lord was of a 
virgin alone. [This took place] not as if the law- 
‘ful union [of man and wife] were abominable, 
‘but such a kind of birth was fitting to God. For. 
it became the Creator not to make use of the 
ordinary method of generation, but of one that 
was singular and strange, as being the Creator. 


CHAP, V.— VARIOUS RELATIVE DUTIES. 


Flee from haughtiness, “ for the Lord resisteth 
the proud.” + Abhor falsehood, for says [the 
Scripture], “Thou shalt destroy all them that 
speak lies.” Guard against envy, for its author 
is the devil, and his successor Cain, who envied 
his brother, and out of envy committed murder. 
Exhort my sisters to love God, and be content 
with their own husbands only. In like manner, 
exhort my brethren also to be content with their 
own wives. Watch over the virgins, as the 
precious treasures of Christ. Be long-suffering, ° 
that thou mayest be great in wisdom. Do not 
neglect the poor, inso far as thou art prosperous. 
For “ by alms and fidelity sins are purged away.’’7 


CHAP. VI——-EXHORTATIONS TO PURITY AND 
CAUTION. 


Keep thyself pure as the habitation of God. 
Thou art the temple of Christ. Thou art the in- 
strument of the Spirit. Thou knowest in what way 
I have brought thee up. Though I am the least 
of men, do thou seek to follow me, be thou an 

_imitator of my conduct. I do not glory in the 








! Specially, assemblies for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. 
2 + Tim, iv, 12. 
, t Cor. xi, ee ; 
as, iv. 6; 1 Pet. v. 5. 
5 Bs v. 6. 2 
6 Prov. xiv. 29. ; : 
7 Prov. xv, 27 (after LXX. : xvi. 6 in English version) 








EPISTLE’ OF IGNATIUS TO, HERO: 





world, but in the Lord. I exhort Hero, my son ; 
“but let him that glorieth, glory in the Lord.’’® 
May I have joy of thee, my dear son, whose 
guardian may He be who is the only unbegotten 
God, and the Lord Jesus Christ! Do not be- 
lieve all persons, do not place confidence in all ; 
nor let any man get the better of thee by flattery. 
For many are the ministers of Satan; and “he 
that is hasty to believe is light of heart.’ 9 


CHAP. VII. —- SOLEMN CHARGE TO HERO, AS 
FUTURE BISHOP OF ANTIOCH. 


Keep God in remembrance, and thou shalt 
never sin. Be not double-minded in thy 
prayers ; for blessed is he who doubteth not. For 
I believe in the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and in His only-begotten Son, that God will show 
me, Hero, upon my throne. Add speed, there- 
fore," to thy course. I charge thee before the 
God of the universe, and before Christ, and in 
the presence of the Holy Spirit, and of the 
ministering ranks [of angels], keep in safety that 
deposit which I and Christ have committed to 
thee, and do not judge thyself unworthy of those 
things which have been shown by God [to me] 
concerning thee. I hand over to thee the Church 
of Antioch. I have commended you to Polycarp 
in the Lord Jesus Christ. — 


CHAP. VIII. — SALUTATIONS. 


The bishops, Onesimus, Bitus, Damas, Polyb- 
ius, and all they of Philippi (whence also I 
have written to thee), salute thee in Christ. 
Salute the presbytery worthy of God: salute my 
holy fellow-deacons, of whom may I have joy 
in Christ, both in the flesh and in the spirit. 
Salute the people of the Lord, from the smallest 
to the greatest, every one by name; whom I 
commit to thee as Moses did [the Israelites] to 
Joshua, who was their leader after him. And 
do not reckon this which I have said presump- 
tuous on my part; for although we are not such 
as they were, yet we at least pray that we may 
be so, since indeed we are the children of -Abra- 
ham. Be strong, therefore, O Hero, like a hero, 
and like a man. For from henceforth thou shalt 
lead ? in and out the people of the Lord that 
are in Antioch, and so “ the congregation of the 
a shall not be as sheep which have no shep- 

erd.c 


CHAP. IX.— CONCLUDING _SALUTATIONS AND 


STRUCTIONS. 


Salute Cassian, my host, and his most serious- 
minded partner in life, and their very dear chil- 


IN- 








8 x Cor. i. 3x; 2 Cor. x. 17. 

9 Ecclus, xix. 4. 

10 Comp. Jas. i. 6, 8. : 

tt Comp. Epistle to the Antiochians, chap. xii. 
12 Comp. Deut. xxxi. 7, 23. 

13 Num. xxvii. 17. 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO HERO. 


dren, to whom may “God grant that they find 
mercy of the Lord in that day,” on account of 
their ministrations to us, whom also I commend 
to thee in Christ. Salute by name all the faithful 
in Christ that are at Laodicea. Do not neglect 
those at Tarsus, but look after them steadily, 
confirming them in the Gospel. I salute in the 
Lord, Maris the bishop of Neapolis, near Ana- 
zarbus. Salute thou also Mary my daughter, 


2 2 Tim. i. 18 





115 


distinguished both for gravity and erudition, as 
also “ the Church which is in her house.”? May 
my soul be in place of hers: she is the very 
pattern of pious women. May the Father of 
Christ, by His only-begotten Son, preserve thee 
in good health, and of high repute in all things, 
to a very old age, for the benefit of the Church 
of God! Farewell in the Lord, and pray thou 
that I may be perfected. ve 





2 Col. iv. 15. 


THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 





enatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the| begotten Son,” saith [the Scripture], “who is in 


Church of God which is at Philippi, which 


has obtained mercy in faith, and patience, and| Lord Jesus Christ.” ? 


love unfeigned: Mercy and peace from God 
the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, “who 
ts the Saviour of all men, specially of them that 
believe.” * 


CHAP. I.— REASON FOR WRITING THE EPISTLE. 


Bemnc mindful of your love and of your zeal 
in Christ, which ye have manifested towards us, 
we thought it fitting to write to you, who display 
such a godly and spiritual love to the brethren,? 
to put you in remembrance of your Christian 
course,’ “that ye all speak the same thing, being 
of one mind, thinking the same thing, and walk- 
ing by the same rule of faith,’* as Paul ad- 
monished you. For if there is one God of the 
universe, the Father of Christ, “of whom are 
all things ;”"’ and one Lord Jesus Christ, our 
[Lord], “by whom are all things;’5 and also 
one Holy Spirit, who wrought © in Moses, and in 
the prophets and apostles ; and also one baptism, 
which is administered that we should have fellow- 
ship with the death of the Lord ;7 and also one 
elect Church; there ought likewise to be but 
one faith in respect to Christ. For “there is 
one Lord, one faith, one baptism ; one God and 
Father of all, who is through all, and in all.” 8 


CHAP. II.— UNITY OF THE THREE DIVINE PERSONS. 


There is then one God and Father, and not 
two or three ; One who is; and there is no other 
besides Him, the only true [God]. For “the 
Lord thy God,” saith [the Scripture], “is one 
Lord.”9 And again, “ Hath not one God created 
us? Have we not all one Father?” *° And there 
is also one Son, God the Word. For “the only- 

a et ee 


1 x Tim. iv. 10. 
eerie £ “to your brother-loving spiritual love according to 
3 Literally, “ course in Christ.” 

41 Cor. i. 10; Phil. ii. 2, iii, 16, 

5 x Cor. viii. 6. 

6 x Cor. xii, rr. 

7 Literally, “‘ which is given unto the death of the Lord.” 

§ Eph. iv. 5. 

9 Deut. vi. 4; Mark xii. a9. 

® Mal. ii. ro. 


11s 


the bosom of the Father.” '* And again, “One 
And in another place, 
“What is His name, or what His Son’s name, 
that we may know?”'3 And there is also one 
Paraclete.* For “there is also,” saith [the Scrip- 
ture], “one Spirit,” '5 since “we have been called 
in one hope of our calling.” And again, “ We 
have drunk of one Spirit,” ‘5 with what follows. 
And it is manifest that all these gifts [possessed 
by believers] “worketh one and the self-same 
Spirit.”"7_ There are not then either three Fa- 
thers,"® or three Sons, or three Paracletes, but 
one Father, and one Son, and one Paraclete. 
Wherefore also the Lord, when He sent forth the 
apostles to make disciples of all nations, com- 
manded them to “baptize in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” *9 
not unto one [person] having three names, nor 
into three [persons] who became incarnate, but 
into three possessed of equal honour. 


CHAP. IIIl.— CHRIST WAS TRULY BORN, AND DIED, 
ETC. 


For there is but One that became incarnate, 
and that neither the Father nor the Paraclete, 
but the Son only, [who became so] not in ap- 
pearance or imagination, but in reality. For 
“the Word became flesh.”?° For “Wisdom 
builded for herself a house.”?* And God the 
Word was born as man, with a body, of the Vir- 
gin, without any intercourse of man. For [it is 
written], “A virgin shall conceive in her womb, 
and bring forth a son.”?2, He was then truly 
born, truly grew up, truly ate and drank, was 
truly crucified, and died, and rose again. He 
who believes these things, as they really were, 


It John i. 18. 

12 x Cor. viii. 6. 

13 Prov. xxx. 4. 

14 i.e., “ Advocate” or “ Comforter; ” 
18 Eph. iv. 4. 

6 : Cor. xii. 13. 

1 x Cor. xii. rr. 


comp. John xiv. 26, 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 


117 





and as they really took place, is blessed. He 
who believeth them not is no less accursed than 
those who crucified the Lord. For the prince 
of this world rejoiceth when any one denies the 
cross, since he knows that the confession of 
the cross is his own destruction. For that is 
the trophy which has been raised up against his 
power, which when he sees, he shudders, and 
when he hears of, is afraid. 


CHAP, IV.— THE MALIGNITY AND FOLLY OF SATAN. 


And indeed, before the cross was erected, he 

(Satan) was eager that it should be so; and he 
“wrought ” [for this end] “in the children of dis- 
obedience.””* He wrought in Judas, in the. 
Pharisees, in the Sadducees, in the old, in the 
young, and in the priests. But when it was just 
about to be erected, he was troubled, and in- 
fused repentance into the traitor, and pointed 
him to a rope to hang himself with, and taught 
him [to die by] strangulation. He terrified also 
the silly woman, disturbing her by dreams ; and 
he, who had tried every means to have the cross 
prepared, now endeavoured to put a stop to its 
erection ;? not that he was influenced by repent- 
ance on account of the greatness of his crime 
(for in that case he would not be utterly de- 
praved), but because he perceived his own de- 
struction [to be at hand]. For the cross of 
Christ was the beginning of his condemnation, 
the beginning of his death, the beginning of his 
destruction. Wherefore, also, he works in some 
that they should deny the cross, be ashamed of 
the passion, call the death an appearance, muti- 
late and explain away the birth of the Virgin, and 
calumniate the [human] nature itself as being 
abominable. He fights along with the Jews to a 
denial of the cross, and with the Gentiles to the 
calumniating of Mary,* who are heretical in hold- 
ing that Christ possessed a mere phantasmal 
body.s For the leader of all wickedness assumes 
manifold © forms, beguiler of men as he is, incon- 
sistent, and even contradicting himself, project- 
ing one course and then following another. For 
he is wise to do evil, but as to what good may 
-be he is totally ignorant. And indeed he is full 
‘of ignorance, on account of his voluntary want of 
reason: for how can he be deemed anything 
else who does not perceive reason when it lies 
at his very feet? 


CHAP. V.— APOSTROPHE TO SATAN. 
For if the Lord were a mere man, possessed 





1 Eph. ii. 2. 

2 [This is the idea worked out by St. Bernard. See my note 
(supra) suffixed to the Syriac Epistle to Ephesians’ ] 

3 The various Gnostic sects are here referred to, who held that 
matter was essentially evil, and therefore denied the reality of our 
Lord’s incarnation. 

4 The ms. has payetas, ‘‘ of magic; ” we have followed the emen- 
dation proposed by Faber. | . a 

5 Literally, ‘‘ heretical in respect to phantasy. 

6 Literally, is “ various,” or “‘ manifo! 





of a soul and body only, why dost thou mutilate 
and explain away His being born with the com- 
mon nature of humanity? Why dost thou call 
the passion a mere appearance, as if it were any 
strange thing happening toa[mere] man? And 
why dost thou reckon the death of a mortal to 
be simply an imaginary death? But if, [on the 
other hand, ] He is both God and man, then why 
dost thou call it unlawful to style Him “the 
Lord of glory,” 7 who is by nature unchangeable ? 
Why dost thou say that it is unlawful to declare 
of the Lawgiver who possesses a human soul, 
“The Word was made flesh,”*® and was a per- 
fect man, and not merely one dwelling in a man? 
But how came this magician into existence, who 
of old formed all nature that can be appre- 
hended either by the senses or intellect, accord- 
ing to the will of the Father; and, when He 
became incarnate, healed every kind of disease 
and infirmity ?9 


CHAP. VI.— CONTINUATION. 


And how can He be but God, who raises up 
the dead, sends away the lame sound of limb, 
cleanses the lepers, restores sight to the blind, 
and either increases or transmutes existing sub- 
stances, as the five loaves and the two fishes, and 
the water which became wine, and who puts to 
flight thy whole host by a mere word? And why 
dost thou abuse the nature of the Virgin, and 
style her members disgraceful, since thou didst 
of old display such in public processions,’° and 
didst order them to be exhibited naked, males 
in the sight of females, and females to stir up 
the unbridled lust of males? But now these are 
reckoned by thee disgraceful, and thou pretend- 
est to be full of modesty, thou spirit of fornication, 
not knowing that then only anything becomes 
disgraceful when it is polluted by wickedness. 
But when sin is not present, none of the things 
that have been created are shameful, none of 
them evil, but all very good. But inasmuch as 
thou art blind, thou revilest these things. 


CHAP. VII. — CONTINUATION : INCONSISTENCY OF 
SATAN. 


And how, again, does Christ not at all appear 
to thee to be of the Virgin, but to be God over 
all," and the Almighty? Say, then, who sent 
Him? Who was Lord over Him? And whose 
will did He obey? And what laws did He fulfil, 
since He was subject neither to the will nor 
power of any one? And while you deny that 
Christ was born,” you affirm that the unbegotten 
was begotten, and that He who had no begin- 


aig eee 
7 x Cor. ii. 8. 
8 John i. 14. 
9 Matt. iv. 23, ix. 35. 5 
10 Reference seems here to be made to obscene heathen practices. 
II j,e., so as to have no separate personality from the Father. 
Comp. Epistle to the Tarsians, chap. ii, ; 
12 Literally, ‘ and taking away Christ from being born. 


118 





ning was nailed to the cross, by whose permis- 
sion Iam unable to say. But thy changeable 
tactics do not escape me, nor am I ignorant that 
thou art wont to walk with slanting and uncer- 
tain' steps. And thou art ignorant who really was 
born, thou who pretendest to know everything. 


CHAP. VIII. — CONTINUATION : IGNORANCE OF SATAN. 


For many things are unknown? to thee ; [such 
as the following]: the virginity of Mary; the 
wonderful birth ; Who it was that became incar- 
nate ; the star which guided those who were in 
the east ; the Magi who presented gifts ; the salu- 
tation of the archangel to the Virgin; the 
marvellous conception of her that was betrothed ; 
the announcement of the boy-forerunner re- 
specting the son of the Virgin, and his leaping 
in the womb on account of what was foreseen ; 
the songs of the angels over Him that was born ; 
the glad tidings announced to the shepherds ; the 
fear of Herod lest his kingdom should be 
taken from him; the command to slay the in- 
fants; the removal into Egypt, and the return 
from that country to the same region ; the infant 
swaddling-bands ; the human registration; the 
nourishing by means of milk; the name of 
father given to Him who did not beget; the 
manger because there was not room [elsewhere ] ; 
no human preparation [for the Child]; the 
gradual growth, human speech, hunger, thirst, 
journeyings, weariness ; the offering of sacrifices, 
and then also circumcision, baptism ; the voice 
of God over Him that was baptized, as to who 
He was and whence [He had come] ; the testi- 
mony of the Spirit and the Father from above ; 
the voice of John the prophet when it signified the 
passion by the appellation of “the Lamb;” 
the performance of divers miracles, manifold 
healings ; the rebuke of the Lord ruling both 
the sea and the winds; evil spirits expelled ; 
thou thyself subjected to torture, and, when af- 
flicted by the power of Him who had been 
manifested, not having it in thy power to do any- 
thing. 


CHAP. IX. -— CONTINUATION : IGNORANCE OF SATAN. 


Seeing these things, thou wast in utter per- 
plexity.3 And thou wast ignorant that it was a 
virgin that should bring forth; but the angels’ 
song of praise struck thee with astonishment, as 
well as the adoration of the Magi, and the ap- 
pearance of the star. Thou didst revert to thy 
state of [wilful] ignorance, because all the cir- 
cumstances seemed to thee trifling ;+ for thou 
didst deem the swaddling-bands, the circumcision, 





! Literally, ‘ double.” 

? According to many of the Fathers, Satan was in great ignorance 
as to a multitude of points connected with Christ. [See my note at 
end of the Syriac Epistle to Ephesians, supra. ] 

3 Literally, ‘‘ thou wast dizzy in the head.” 

* Literally, “on account of the paltry things.” 





EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 


and the nourishment by means of milk con- 
temptible :5 these things appeared to thee un- 
worthy of God. Again, thou didst behold a man 
who remained forty days and nights without 
tasting human food, along with ministering an- 
gels at whose presence thou didst shudder, when 
first of all thou hadst seen Him baptized. as a 
common man, and knewest not the reason there- 
of. But after His [lengthened] fast thou didst 
again assume thy wonted audacity, and didst 
tempt Him when hungry, as if He had been an 
ordinary man, not knowing who He was. For 
thou saidst, “If thou be the Son of God, com- 
mand that these stones be made bread.” ® Now, 
this expression, “‘ If thou be the Son,” is an indi- 
cation of ignorance. For if thou hadst possessed 
‘real knowledge, thou wouldst have understood 
that the Creator can with equal ease both create 
what does not exist, and change that which al- 
ready hasa being. And thou temptedst by means 
of hunger? Him who nourisheth all that require 
food. And thou temptedst the very “ Lord of 
glory,” ® forgetting in thy malevolence that “ man 
shall not live by bread alone, but by every word 
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” 
For if thou hadst known that He was the Son of 
God, thou wouldst also have understood that He 
who had kept his 9 body from feeling any want for 
forty days and as many nights, could have also 
done the same for ever. Why, then, does He 
suffer hunger? In order to prove that He had 
assumed a body subject to the same feelings as 
those of ordinary men. By the first fact He 
showed that He was God, and by the second 
that He was also man. 


CHAP. X.— CONTINUATION : AUDACITY OF SATAN. 


Darest thou, then, who didst fall “as lightning”’ '° 
from the very highest glory, to say to the Lord, 
“Cast thyself down from hence '! [to Him] to 
whom the things that are not are reckoned as if 
they were,” and to provoke to a display of vain- 
glory Him that was free from all ostentation? 
And didst thou pretend to read in Scripture con- 
cerning Him: “For He hath given His angels 
charge concerning Thee, and in their hands they 
shall bear Thee up, lest thou shouldest dash Thy 
foot against a stone?” "3 At the same time thou 
didst pretend to be ignorant of the rest, furtively 
concealing what [the Scripture] predicted con- 
cerning thee and thy servants : “Thou shalt tread 
upon the adder and the basilisk; the lion and 
the dragon shalt thou trample under foot.” 


5 Literally, ‘‘ small.” 

© Matt. iv. 3. 

Aer ate the belly.” 

8 x Cor. ii. 8. 

9 Some insert, “‘ corruptible,” 
to Luke x. 18. 

11 Matt. iv. 6. 

12 Comp. Rom. iv. 17. 

13 Matt. iv. 6. 

14 Ps, xci. 13. 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS 


CHAP. XI. — CONTINUATION : AUDACITY OF SATAN. 


If, therefore, thou art trodden down under 
the feet of the Lord, how dost thou tempt Him 
that cannot be tempted, forgetting that precept 
of the lawgiver, “Thou shall not tempt the Lord 
thy God?”? Yea, thou even darest, most ac- 
cursed one, to appropriate the works of God to 
thyself, and to declare that the dominion over 
these was delivered to thee.2 And thou dost 
set forth thine own fall as an example to the 
Lord, and dost promise to give Him what is 
really His own, if He would fall down and wor- 
ship thee.3 And how didst thou not shudder, 
O thou spirit more wicked through thy malevo- 
lence than all other wicked spirits, to utter such 
words against the Lord? Through thine appe- 
tite was thou overcome, and through thy vain- 
glory wast thou brought to dishonour: through 
avarice and ambition dost thou [now] draw on 
[others] to ungodliness. Thou, O Belial, dragon, 
apostate, crooked serpent, rebel against God, out- 
cast from Christ, alien from the Holy Spirit, exile 
from the ranks of the angels, reviler of the laws 
of God, enemy of all that is lawful, who didst 
rise up against the first-formed of men, and 
didst drive forth [from obedience to] the com- 
mandment [of God] those who had in no re- 
spect injured thee; thou who didst raise up 
against Abel the murderous Cain; thou who 
didst take arms against Job: dost thou say to the 
Lord, “ If Thou wilt fall down and worship me?” 
Oh what audacity! Oh what madness! Thou 
runaway slave, thou incorrigible 5 slave, dost thou 
rebel against the good Lord? Dost thou say to 
so great a Lord, the God of all that either the 
mind or the senses can perceive, “If Thou wilt 
fall down and worship me?” 


CHAP. XII. — THE MEEK REPLY OF CHRIST. 


But the Lord is long-suffering, and does not 
reduce to nothing him who in his ignorance 
dares [to utter] such words, but meekly replies, 
““Get thee hence, Satan.”®° He does not say, 
“ Get thee behind JZ,” for it is not possible that 
he should be converted ; but, “ Begone, Satan,” 
to the course which thou hast chosen. ‘“ Begone”’ 
to those things to which, through thy malevo- 
lence, thou hast been called. For I know Who 
I am, and by Whom I have been sent, and 
Whom it behoves Me to worship. For “thou 
shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only 
shalt thou serve.” 7 I know the one [God] ; Iam 
acquainted with the only [Lord] from whom 
thou hast become an apostate. I am not an ene- 





I Deut. vi. 16. 

2 Luke iv. 6. 

3 Matt. iv. 9. 

4 Or, “belly.” gts 

5 Or, “that always needs whipping.” 
6 Matt. iv. 10. ; 

7 Matt, iv. 19; Deut. vi. 13. 








TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 119 








my of God ; I acknowledge His pre-eminence ; 
I know the Father, who is the author of my 
generation. 


CHAP. XIII, — VARIOUS EXHORTATIONS AND DIREC- 
TIONS, 


These things, brethren, out of the affection 
which I entertain for you, I have felt compelled 
to write, exhorting you with a view to the giory 
of God, not as if I were a person of any conse- 
quence, but simply as a brother. Be ye subject 
to the bishop, to the presbyters, and to the dea- 
cons. Love one another in the Lord, as being 
the images of God. Take heed, ye husbands, 
that ye love your wives as your own members. 
Ye wives also, love your husbands, as being one 
with them in virtue of your union. If any one 
lives in chastity or continence, let him not be 
lifted up, lest he lose his reward. Do not lightly 
esteem the festivals. Despise not the period of 
forty days, for it comprises an imitation of the 
conduct of the Lord. After the week of the 
passion, do not neglect to fast on the fourth and 
sixth days, distributing at the same time of thine 
abundance to the poor. If any one fasts on the 
Lord’s Day or on the Sabbath, except on the 
paschal Sabbath only, he is a murderer of Christ. 


CHAP. XIV.— FAREWELLS AND CAUTIONS. 


Let your prayers be extended to the Church 
of Antioch, whence also I as a prisoner am being 
led to Rome. I salute the holy bishop Poly- 
carp; I salute the holy bishop Vitalius, and the 
sacred presbytery, and my fellow-servants the 
deacons ; in whose stead may my soul be found. 
Once more I bid farewell to the bishop, and 
to the presbyters in the Lord. If any one 
celebrates the passover along with the Jews, or 
receives the emblems of their feast, he is a 
partaker with those that killed the Lord and 
His apostles. 


CHAP. XV.—-SALUTATIONS. CONCLUSION. 


Philo and Agathopus the deacons salute you. 
I salute the company of virgins, and the order 
of widows ; of whom may I have joy! I salute 
the people of the Lord, from the least unto the 
greatest. I have sent you this letter through 
Euphanius the reader, a man honoured of God, 
and very faithful, happening to meet with him at 
Rhegium, just as he was going on board ship. 
Remember my bonds,® that I may be made 
perfect in Christ. Fare ye well in the flesh, the 
soul, and the spirit, while ye think of things per- 
fect, and turn yourselves away from the workers 
of iniquity, who corrupt the word of truth, and 
are strengthened inwardly by the grace of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. 
————— ni—ninwnwnwnwnkVhkh PhvwXKX\qmOOOO 

8 Comp. Col. iv. 28 


THE EPISTLE OF MARIA THE PROSELYTE TO IGNATIUS. 





MARY OF CASSOBEL! TO IGNATIUS. 


Maria, a proselyte of Jesus Christ, to lgnatius 
Theophorus, most blessed bishop of the apostolic 
Church which ts at Antioch, beloved in God the 
Father, and Jesus: Happiness and safety. We 
all* beg for thee joy and health in Him. 


CHAP. I.—- OCCASION OF THE EPISTLE. 


Since Christ has, to our wonder,3 been made 
known among us to be the Son of the living God, 
and to have become man in these last times by. 
means of the Virgin Mary,‘ of the seed of David 
and Abraham, according to the announcements 
previously made regarding Him and through 
Him by the company of the prophets, we there- 
fore beseech and entreat that, by thy wisdom, 
Maris our friend, bishop of our native Neapolis,$ 
which is near Zarbus,° and Eulogius, and Sobelus 
the presbyter, be sent to us, that we be not des- 
titute of such as preside over the divine word ; 
as Moses also says, ‘‘ Let the Lord God look out 
a man who shall guide this people, and the con- 
-gregation of the Lord shall not be as sheep 
which have no shepherd.” 7 


CHAP. i1.— YOUTH MAY BE ALLIED WITH PIETY 
AND DISCRETION. 


But as to those whom we have named being 
young men, do not, thou blessed one, have any 
apprehension. For I would have you know that 
they are wise about the flesh, and are insensible 
to its passions, they themselves glowing with all 
the glory of a hoary head through their own® 
intrinsic merits, and though but recently called 


1 Nothing can be said with certainty as to the place here referred 
to. Some have conceived that the ordinary reading, Maria Casso- 
Solrta, is incorrect, and that it should be changed to Marta Casta- 
balitrs, supposing the reference to be to Castabala, a well-known city 
of Cilicia, But this and other proposed emendations rest upon mere 
conjecture. 

2 Some propose to read, ‘‘ always.” 

3 Or, “ wonderfully.” 

4 The ms. has, ‘‘ and.” 

5 The ms. has ’HyeAarns, which Vossius and others deem a mis- 
take for nuedamis, as translated above. 

6 The same as Azarbus (comp. Epist. to Hero, chap, ix.). 

7 Num. xxvii. 16, 17. 

8 Literally, “‘ in themselves.” 


129 





as young men to the priesthood.? Now, cali 
thou into exercise *° thy thoughts through the 
Spirit that God has given to thee by Christ, and 
thou wilt remember ™ that Samuel, while yet a 
little child, was called a seer, and was reckoned ir 
the company of the prophets, that he reproved the 
aged Eli for transgression, since he had honoured 
his infatuated sons above God the author of all 
things, and had allowed them to go unpunished, 
when they turned the office of the priesthood into 
ridicule, and acted violently towards thy people. 


CHAP. III.—EXAMPLES OF YOUTHFUL DEVOTEDNESS. 


Moreover, the wise Daniel, while he was a 
young man, passed judgment on certain vigorous 
old men,’? showing them that they were aban- 
doned wretches, and not [worthy to be reck- 
oned | elders, and that, though Jews by extraction, 
they were Canaanites in practice. And Jeremiah, 
when on account of his youth he declined the 
office of a prophet entrusted to him by God, 
was addressed in these words: “Say not, I am a 
youth ; for thou shalt go to all those to whom 1 
send thee, and thou shalt speak according to all 
that I command thee ; because I am with thee.’ 3 
And the wise Solomon, when only in the twelfth 
year of his age,"* had wisdom to decide the impor- 
tant question concerning the children of the two 
women,'5 when it was unknown to whom these 
respectively belonged ; so that the whole people 
were astonished at such wisdom in a child, and 
venerated him as being not a mere ycuth, but a 
full-grown man. And he solved the hard ques- 
tions of the queen of the Ethiopians, which had 
profit in them as the streams of the Nile [have 
fertility], in such a manner that that woman, 





9 Literally, “‘ in recent newness of priesthood.” 

10 Literally, ‘call up.” 

It Literally, ‘ know.” 

12 The ancient Latin version translates omoyépovras “ cruel old 
mace perhaps suits the reference better, 

er. i. 7. 

4 Comp. for similar statements to those here made, Epistle to the 
Magnesians (longer ), chap. iii. 

15 Literally, “understood the great question of the ignorance of 
the women respecting their children.” 


EPISTLE OF MARIA THE PROSELYTE TO IGNATIUS. 


121 





though herself so wise, was beyond measure as- 
tonished.* 


CHAP. IV.— THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 


Josiah also, beloved of God, when as yet he 
could scarcely speak articulately, convicts those 
who were possessed of a wicked spirit as being 
false in their speech, and deceivers of the people. 
He also reveals the deceit of the demons, and 
openly exposes those that are no gods; yea, 
while yet an infant he slays their priests, and 
overturns their altars, and defiles the place where 
sacrifices were offered with dead bodies, and 
throws down the temples, and cuts down the 
groves, and breaks in pieces the pillars, and 
breaks open the tombs of the ungodly, that not 
a relic of the wicked might any longer exist. 
To such an extent did he display zeal in the 
cause of godliness, and prove himself a punisher 
of the ungodly, while he as yet faltered in speech 
like a child. David, too, who was. at once a 
_ prophet and a king, and the root of our Saviour 
according to the flesh, while yet a youth is 
anointed by Samuel to be king.3 For he himself 


1 Literally, “ out of herself.” 
2 2 Kings xxii. xxiii. 
3: Sam, xvi. 





says in a certain place, “I was small among my 
brethren, and the youngest in the house of 
my father.” 4 


CHAP, V.—— EXPRESSIONS OF RESPECT FOR IGNA- 
TIUS, 


But time would fail me if I should endeavour 
to enumerate 5 all those that pleased God in their 
youth, having been entrusted by God with either 
the prophetical, the priestiy, or the kingly office. 
And those which have been mentioned may suf- 
fice, by way of bringing the subject to thy re- 
membrance. But I entreat thee not to reckon 
me presumptuous or ostentatious [in writing as 
I have done]. For I have set forth these state- 
ments, not as instructing thee, but simply as 
suggesting the matter to the remembrance of my 
father in God. For I know my own place,° and 
do not compare myself with such as you. I sa- 
lute thy holy clergy, and thy Christ-loving people 
who are ruled under thy care as their pastor. 
All the faithful with us salute thee. Pray, blessed 
shepherd, that I may be, in health as respects 
God. 





4 Ps, cl. x (in the Septuagint; not found at all in Hebrew). 
5 Literally, “‘totraceup.” 
iterally, ‘‘ measure” or “‘ limits.” 


THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO MARY AT NEAPOLIS, NEAR 
ZARBUS. 





Jenatius, who is also called Theophorus, to her 


worthy [to be compared] with the glory which 


who has obtained mercy through the grace of|shall be revealed in us.” 4 


the most high God the Father, and Jesus 
Christ the Lord, who died for us, to Mary, my 
daughter, most faithful, worthy of God, and 
bearing Christ [in her heart], wishes abun- 
dance of happiness in God. 


CHAP, I. —- ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HER EXCELLENCE 
AND WISDOM. 


SicuT indeed is better than writing, inasmuch 
as, being one‘ of the company of the senses, it 
not only, by communicating proofs of friendship, 
honours him who receives them, but also, by 
those which it in turn receives, enriches the 
desire for better things. But the second har- 
bour of refuge, as the phrase runs, is the prac- 
tice of writing, which we have received, as a 
convenient haven, by thy faith, from so great a 
distance, seeing that by means of a letter we 
have learned the excellence that is in thee. For 
the souls of the good, O thou wisest? of women ! 
resemble fountains of the purest water ; for they 
allure by their beauty passers-by to drink of 
them, even though these should not be thirsty. 
And thy intelligence invites us, as by a word of 
command, to participate in those divine draughts 
which gush forth so abundantly in thy soul. 


CHAP. Il.——- HIS OWN CONDITION. 


But I, O thou blessed woman, not being now 
so much my own master as in the power of 
others, am driven along by the varying wills of 
many adversaries,3 being in one sense in exile, 
in another in prison, and in a third in bonds. 
But I pay no regard to these things. Yea, by 
the injuries inflicted on me through them, I ac- 
quire all the more the character of a disciple, 
that I may attain to Jesus Christ. May I enjoy 
the torments which are prepared for me, seeing 
that “the sufferings of this present time are not 





I Literally, “a part.” 
2 Literally, “ alba” 
3 Literally, “ by the many wills of the adversaries.” 


126 


CHAP. Il]. — HE HAD COMPLIED WITH HER REQUEST. 


I have gladly acted as requested in thy letter,’ 
having no doubt respecting those persons whom 
thou didst prove to be menof worth. For I am 
sure that thou barest testimony to them in the 
exercise of a godly judgment,° and not throug? 
the influence of carnal favour. And thy numer 
ous quotations of Scripture passages exceedingly 
delighted me, which, when I had read, I had no 
longer a single doubtful thought respecting the 
matter. For I did not hold that those things 
were simply to be glanced over by my eyes, of 
which I had received from thee such an incon- 
trovertible demonstration. May I be in place 
of thy soul, because thou lovest Jesus, the Son 
of the living God. Wherefore also He Himself 
says to thee, “I love them that love Me; and 
those that seek Me shall find peace.”’7 


CHAP. IV.— COMMENDATION AND EXHORTATION, 


Now it occurs to me to mention, that the 
report is true which I heard of thee whilst thou 
wast at Rome with the blessed father® Linus, 
whom the deservedly-blessed Clement, a hearer 
of Peter and Paul, has now succeeded. And by 
this time thou hast added a hundred-fold to thy 
reputation ; and may thou, O woman! still fur- 
ther increase it. I greatly desired to come unto 
you, that I might have rest with you; but “ the 
way of man is not in himself.’9 For the mili- 
tary guard [under which I am kept] hinders my 
purpose, and does not permit me to go further. 
Nor indeed, in the state I am now in, can J 
either do or suffer anything. Wherefore deem- 
ing the practice of writing the second resource 





4 Rom, viii. 18. 
._ > Literally, “I have gladly fulfilled the things commanded by thee 
in the letter,’ 

© Literally, “‘ by a judgment of God.” 

7 Prov. viil. 17 (loosely quoted from LXX.). 

8 The original is wag, }common to primitive bishops. ] 

9 Jer. x. 23. 


EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO MARY AT NEAPOLIS. 


i23 





of friends for their mutual encouragement, I sa- 
lute thy sacred soul, beseeching of thee to add 
still further to thy vigour. For our present 
labour is but little, while the reward which is 
expected is great. 


CHAP. V.—SALUTATIONS AND GOOD WISHES. 


Avoid those that deny the passion of Christ, 
and His birth according to the flesh: and there 
are many at present who suffer under this disease. 
But it would be absurd to admonish thee on 


other points, seeing that thou art perfect in every 
good work and word, and able also to exhort 
others in Christ. Salute all that are like-minded 
with thyself, and who hold fast to their salvation 
in Christ. The presbyters and deacons, and 
above all the holy Hero, salute thee. Cassian 
my host salutes thee, as well as my sister, his 
wife, and their very dear children. May the 
Lord sanctify thee for evermore in the enjoyment 
both of bodily and spiritual health, and may I 
see thee in Christ obtaining the crown! 


THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO ST. JOHN THE APOSTLE. 


Ignatius, and the brethren who are with him, to 
John the holy presbyter. 


WE are deeply grieved at thy delay in strength- 
ening us by thy addresses and consolations. If 
thy absence be prolonged, it will disappoint 
many of us. Hasten then to come, for we be- 
lieve that it is expedient. There are also many 
of our women here, who are desirous to see 
Mary [the mother] of Jesus, and wish day by 
day to run off from us to you, that they may 
meet with her, and touch those breasts of hers 
which nourished the Lord Jesus, and may inquire 
of her respecting some rather secret matters. 
But Salome also, [the daughter of Anna, ] whom 
thou lovest, who stayed with her five months at 
Jerusalem, and some other well-known persons, 
relate that she is full of all graces and all virtues, 
after the manner of a virgin, fruitful in virtue 
and grace. And, as they report, she is cheerful 
in persecutions and afflictions, free from mur- 
muring in the midst of penury and want, grate- 
ful to those that injure her, and rejoices when 
exposed to troubles: she sympathizes with the 
wretched and the afflicted as sharing in their 
afflictions, and is not slow to come to their as- 


124 


sistance. Moreover, she shines forth gloriously 
as contending in the fight of faith against th 

pernicious conflicts of vicious’ principles ¢ 

conduct. She is the lady of our new religin 
and repentance,” and the handmaid among the 
faithful of all works of piety. She is indeed 
devoted to the humble, and she humbles herself 
more devotedly than the devoted, and is won- 
derfully magnified by all, while at the same time 
she suffers detraction from the Scribes and 
Pharisees. Besides these points, many relate to 
us numerous other things regarding her. We 
do not, however, go so far as to believe all in 
every particular; nor do we mention such to 
thee. But, as we are informed by those who 
are worthy of credit, there is in Mary the mother 
of Jesus an angelic purity of nature allied with 
the nature of humanity.3 And such reports as 
these have greatly excited our emotions, and 
urge us eagerly to desire a sight of this (if it be 
lawful so to speak) heavenly prodigy and most 
sacred marvel. But do thou in haste comply 
with this our desire ; and fare thou well. Amen. 

1 Literally, “‘ of vices.” 


2 Some Mss. and editions seem with propriety to omit this word. 
5 Literally, “a nature of angelic purity is allied to human nature.” 


A SECOND EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO ST. JOHN. 





His friend* Ignatius to John the holy’ 
presbyter. 

lr thou wilt give me leave, I desire to go up 
to Jerusalem, and see the faithful? saints who 
are there, especially Mary the mother, whom 
they report to be an object of admiration and of 
affection to all. For who would not rejoice to 
behold and to address her who bore the true 
God from her? own womb, provided he is a 
friend of our faith and religion? And in like 


eee 
3 Literally, “his own.” 
3 Some omit this word. 
3 Literally, “of herself.” Some read, instead of “de se,” “ deo- 
rum,” when the translation will be, “‘ the true God of gods. 


manner [I desire to see] the venerable James, 
who is surnamed Just, whom they relate to be 
very like Christ Jesus in appearance,‘ in life, 
and in method of conduct, as if he were a twin- 
brother of the same womb. They say that, if I 
see him, I see also Jesus Himself, as to all the 
features and aspect of His body. Moreover, 
[I desire to see] the other saints, both male and 
female. Alas! why do I delay? Why am I 
kept back? Kind5 teacher, bid me hasten [to 
fulfil my wish], and fare thou well. Amen. 

GE as Bie) eS, 


4 Or, “‘ face.” Some omit the word. 
5 Or, “‘ goed.” 


125 


THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE VIRGIN MARY. 





Her friend* Ignatius to the Christ-bearing |REPLY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN TO THIS 


Mary. 

THou oughtest to have comforted and con- 
soled me who am a neophyte, and a disciple of 
thy [beloved] John. For I have heard things 
wonderful to tell respecting thy [son] Jesus, and 
I am astonished by such a report. But I desire 
with my.whole heart to obtain information con- 
cerning the things which I have heard from thee, 
who wast always intimate and allied with Him, 
and who wast acquainted with [all] His secrets. 
I have also written to thee at another time, and 
have asked thee concerning the same things. 
Fare thou well; and let the neophytes who are 
with me be comforted of thee, and by thee, and 
in thee. Amen. 


* Literally, “her own.. [Mary is here called xptorordxos, and 
not deordxos, which suggests a Nestorian forgery.} 


126 


LETTER. 


The lowly handmaid of Christ Jesus to. Igna- 
tius, her beloved fellow-disciple. 


Tue things which thou hast heard and learned 
from John concerning Jesus are true. Believe 
them, cling to them, and hold fast the profession 
of that Christianity which thou hast embraced, 
and conform thy habits and life to thy profes- 
sion. Now I will come in company with John 
to visit thee, and those that are with thee. 
Stand fast in the faith,? and show thyself a man ; 
nor let the fierceness of persecution move thee, 
but let thy spirit be strong and rejoice in God 
thy Saviour.3 - Amen. ; 
marie ee Se Se a ee ee 


2 x Cor. xvi, 13. 
3 Luke i. 4y. 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


MARTYRDOM OF IGNATIUS. 





Tue learned dissertation of Pearson, on the difficulties of reconciling the supposed year of 
the martyrdom with the history of Trajan, etc., is given entire in Jacobson (vol. ii. p. 524), against 
the decision of Usher for a.p. 107. Pearson accepts A.D. 116. Consult also the preface of 
Dr. Thomas Smith,’ in the same work (p. 518), on the text of the original and of the Latin 
versions, and on the credibility of the narrative. Our learned translators seem to think the text 
they have used, to be without interpolation. If the simple-minded faithful of those days, so near 
the age of miracles, appear to us, in some degree, enthusiasts, let us remember the vision of Col. 
Gardiner, accredited by Doddridge, Lord Lyttleton’s vision (see Boswell, awno 1784, chap. xi.), 
accepted by Johnson and his contemporaries, and the interesting narrative of the pious Mr. 
Tennent of New Jersey, attested by so many excellent and intelligent persons, almost of our own 
times. 

The following is the Inrropucrory Notice of the translators : — 

Tue following account of the martyrdom of Ignatius professes, in several passages, to have 
been written by those who accompanied him on his voyage to Rome, and were present on the 
occasion of his death (chaps. v. vi. vii.). And if the genuineness of this narrative, as well as of 
the Ignatian Epistles, be admitted, there can be little doubt that the persons in question were 
Philo and Agathopus, with Crocus perhaps, all of whom are mentioned by Ignatius (Zfzs¢. fo 
Smyr., chap. x.; to Philad., chap. xi.; 40 Rom., chap. x.) as having attended him on that journey » 
to Rome which resulted in his martyrdom. But doubts have been started, by Daillé and others, 
as to the date and authorship of this account. Some of these rest upon internal considerations, 
but the weightiest objection is found in the fact that no reference to this narrative is to be traced 
during the first six centuries of our era.’ This is certainly a very suspicious circumstance, and 
may well give rise to some hesitation in ascribing the authorship to the immediate companions and 
friends of Ignatius. On the other hand, however, this account of the death of Ignatius is in 
perfect harmony with the particulars recounted by Eusebius and Chrysostom regarding him. Its 
comparative simplicity, too, is greatly in its favour. It makes no reference to the legends which 
by and by connected themselves with the name of Ignatius. As is well known, he came in course 
of time to be identified with the child whom Christ (Matt. xviii. 2) set before His disciples as a 
pattern of humility. It was said that the Saviour took him up in His arms, and that hence Ignatius 





1 He published an edition of Ignatius, Oxford, 1709. ; : * 
2 [A most remarkable statement. “ References ” may surely be traced, at least in Eusebius (iii, 36) and Irenzus ( Adv. Heres, 
1, 28), if not in Jerome, etc. But the sermon of St. Chrysostom (Opp. ii., 593) seems almost, in parts, a paraphrase. ] 
127 


128 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
ee Ee ee ee 


derived his name of Zheophorus; * that is, according to the explanation which this legend gives of 
the word, one carried by God. But in chap. ii. of the following narrative we find the term explained 
to mean, “one who has Christ in his breast ;”” and this simple explanation, with the entire silence 
preserved as to the marvels afterwards connected with the name of Ignatius, is certainly a strong 
argument in favour of the early date and probable genuineness of the account. Some critics, 
such as Usher and Grabe, have reckoned the latter part of the narrative spurious, while accepting 
the former; but there appears to be a unity about it which requires us either to accept it 1” ‘oto, 
or to reject it altogether.? 





~ 


I [See on this matter Jacobson’s note (vol. ii. p. 262), and reference to Pearson (Vind. [gnat., part ii, cap. 12). The false accentuation 
(@eéopos) occurs in some copies to support the myth of the child Ignatius as the God-borne instead of the God-bearing s i.e, carried by 
Christ, instead of carrying the Spirit of Christ within.] 

% [But see the note in Jacobson, vol. ii. p. 559} 





THE MARTYRDOM OF IGNATIUS. 





CHAP. I.— DESIRE OF IGNATIUS FOR MARTYRDOM. 


WHEN Trajan, not long since,’ succeeded to 
the empire of the Romans, Ignatius, the disciple 
of John the apostle, a man in all respects of an 
apostolic character, governed the Church of the 
Antiochians with great care, having with difficulty 
escaped the former storms of the many persecu- 
tions under Domitian, inasmuch as, like a good 
pilot, by the helm of prayer and fasting, by the 
earnestness of his teaching, and by his [constant?] 
spiritual labour, he resisted the flood that rolled 
against him, fearing [only] lest he should lose 
any of those who were deficient in courage, or 
apt to suffer from their simplicity Wherefore 
he rejoiced over the tranquil state of the Church, 


when the persecution ceased for a little time, but 


was grieved as to himself, that he had not yet 
attained to a true love to Christ, nor reached the 
perfect rank of a disciple. For he inwardly re- 
flected, that the confession which is made by 
martyrdom, would bring him into a yet more 
intimate relation to the Lord. Wherefore, con- 
tinuing a few years longer with the Church, and, 
like a divine lamp, enlightening every one’s un- 
derstanding by his expositions of the [Holy *] 
Scriptures, he [at length] attained the object of 
his desire. 


CHAP. Il. — IGNATIUS IS CONDEMNED BY TRAJAN. 


For Trajan, in the ninth’ year of his reign, 
being lifted up [with pride], after the victory he 
had gained over the Scythians and Dacians, and 
many other nations, and thinking that the reli- 
gious body of the Christians were yet wanting to 
complete the subjugation of all things to himself, 
and [thereupon] threatening them with persecu- 
tion unless they should agree to® worship de- 
mons, as did all other nations, thus compelled 7 








1 The date of Trajan’s accession was A.D. 98. 

2 The text here is somewhat doubtful. Pate ; 

3 Literally, “‘ any of the faint-hearted and mere guileless.” 

4 This word is of doubtful authority. : ; 

5 The numeral is uncertain, In the old Latin version we find 
“the fourth,” which Grabe has corrected into the nineteenth. The 
choice lies between “‘ ninth” and “‘ nineteenth,” i.e., A.D 107 OF 116. 

6 Literally, ‘‘ would choose to submit te” 

7 Some read, “ fear compelled.” 


all who were living godly lives either to sacrifice 
[to idols] or die. Wherefore the noble soldier 
of Christ [Ignatius], being in fear for the Church 
of the Antiochians, was, in accordance with his 
own desire, brought before Trajan, who was at 
that time staying at Antioch, but was in haste 
[to set forth] against Armenia and the Parthians. 
And when he was set before the emperor Trajan, 
[that prince] said unto him, “Who art thou, 
wicked wretch,® who settest 9 thyself to transgress 
our commands, and persuadest others to do the 
same, so that they should miserably perish?” 
Ignatius replied, “‘ No one ought to call Theoph- 
orus'° wicked ; for all evil spirits"? have departed 
from the servants of God. But if, because I 
am an enemy to these [spirits], you call me 
wicked in respect to them, I quite agree with 
you ; for inasmuch as I have Christ the King of 
heaven [within me], I destroy all the devices 
of these [evil spirits].” Trajan answered, “And 
who is Theophorus?” Ignatius replied, “He 
who has Christ within his breast.” Trajan said, 
“Do we not then seem to you to have the gods 
in our mind, whose assistance we enjoy in fight- 
ing against our enemies?” Ignatius answered, 
“Thou art in error when thou callest the daemons 
of the nations gods. For there is but one God, 
who made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and 
all that are in them; and one Jesus Christ, the 
only-begotten Son of God, whose kingdom may 
Ienjoy.” Trajan said, “ Do you mean Him who 
was crucified under Pontius Pilate?” Ignatius 
replied, “I mean Him who crucified my sin, 
with him who was the inventor of it, and who 
has condemned [and cast down] all the deceit 
and malice of the devil under the feet of those 
who carry Him in their heart.” Trajan said, 
“Dost thou then carry within thee Him that was 
crucified?” Ignatius replied, “Truly so ; for it 
is written, ‘I will dwell in them, and walk in 
ee PAPE AN eee aE EE a AT 


8 Literally, “ evil-demon.” 

9 Literally, ‘‘ art zealous.” 

10 Or, ‘one who carries God.” 

11 Literally, “ the demons.” ce ae oe 

{2 The Latin version reads, “‘Him who bore my sin, with its in- 
yentor, upon the crosse” 


129 


130 


THE MARTYRDOM OF IGNATIUS. 


ct eT eee een SSS 


them.’”* Then Trajan pronounced sentence 
as follows: “We command that Ignatius, who 
affirms that he carries about within him Him 
that was crucified, be bound by soldiers, and 
carried to the great [city] Rome, there to be 
devoured by the beasts, for the gratification of 
the people.” When the holy martyr heard this 
sentence, he cried out with joy, “I thank thee, 
O Lord, that Thou hast vouchsafed to honour me 
with a perfect love towards Thee, and hast made 
me to be bound with iron chains, like? Thy 
Apostle Paul.” Having spoken thus, he then, 
with delight, clasped the chains about him ; and 
when he had first prayed for the Church, and 
commended it with tears to the Lord, he was 
hurried away by the savage cruelty of the sol- 
diers, like a distinguished ram,* the leader of a 
goodly flock, that he might be carried to Rome, 
there to furnish food to the bloodthirsty beasts. 


CHAP. II]. — IGNATIUS SAILS TO SMYRNA. 


Wherefore, with great alacrity and joy, through 
his desire to suffer, he came down from Antioch 
to Seleucia, from which place he set sail. And 
after a great deal of suffering he came to Smyrna, 
where he disembarked with great joy, and has: 
tened to see the holy Polycarp, [formerly] his 
fellow-disciple, and [now] bishop of Smyrna. 
For they had both, in old times, been disciples 
of St. John the Apostle. Being then brought to 
him, and having communicated to him some 
spiritual gifts, and glorying in his bonds, he en- 
treated of him to labour 5 along with him for the 
fulfilment of his desire ; earnestly indeed asking 
this of the whole Church (for the cities and 
Churches of Asia had welcomed ® the holy man 
through their bishops, and presbyters, and dea- 
cons, all hastening to meet him, if by any means 
they might receive from him some’? spiritual 
gift), but above all, the holy Polycarp, that, by 
means of the wild beasts, he soon disappearing 
from this world, might be manifested before the 
face of Christ. 


CHAP. IV.— IGNATIUS WRITES TO THE CHURCHES. 


And these things he thus spake, and thus tes- 
tified, extending his love to Christ so far as one 
who was about to® secure heaven through his 
good confession, and the earnestness of those 
who joined their prayers to his in regard to his 
[approaching] conflict; and to give a recom- 





1 2 Cor. vi. 16. 

2 Literally, ‘‘ with.” 

3 Or, ‘‘ beast-like.” 

4 [Better, “‘like the noble leader,” etc.; remitting xptds to the 
margin, as an ignoble word to English ears. 

5 It is doubtful if this clause should be referred to Polycarp. 

© Or, ‘ received.” 

7 Literally, “a portion of.” 

8 The Latin version has, ‘‘that he was to.” [But compare the 
martyr’s Epistle to the Romans (cap. 5), ‘yet am I not thereby 
justified,” —a double reference to St. Paul’s doctrine, x Cor. iv. 4 and 
xiii. 3- See also his quotation (Sefz., Prov. xviii. x7). Epistle to 
Magnesians, cap. 12.] : 





pense to the Churches, who came to meet him 
through their rulers, sending? letters of thanks- 
giving to them, which dropped spiritual grace, 
along with prayer and exhortation. Wherefore, 
seeing all men so kindly affected towards him, 
and fearing lest ‘the love of the brotherhood 
should hinder his zeal towards the Lord,’ while 
a fair door of suffering martrydom was opened 
to him, he wrote to the Church of the Romans 
the Epistle which is here subjoined. 
(See the Epistle as formerly given.) 


CHAP. V.— IGNATIUS IS BROUGHT TO ROME. 


Having therefore, by means of this Epistle, 
settled,"' as he wished, those of the brethren at 
Rome who were unwilling [for his martyrdom] ; 
and setting sail from Smyrna (for Christophorus 
was pressed by the soldiers to hasten to the pub- 
lic spectacles in the mighty [city] Rome, that, 
being given up to the wild beasts in the sight 
of the Roman people, he might attain to the 
crown for which he strove), he [next] landed 
at Troas. Then, going on from that place to 
Neapolis, he went [on foot] by Philippi through 
Macedonia, and on to that part of Epirus which 
is near Epidamnus; and finding a ship in one 
of the seaports, he sailed over the Adriatic Sea, 
and entering from it on the Tyrrhene, he passed 
by the various islands and cities, until, when 
Puteoli came in sight, he was eager there to dis- 
embark, having a desire to tread in the footsteps 
of the Apostle Paul.’? But a violent wind arising 
did not suffer him to do so, the ship being driven 
rapidly forwards ;"3 and, simply expressing his 
delight '* over the love of the brethren in that 
place, he sailed by. Wherefore, continuing to 
enjoy fair winds, we were reluctantly hurried on 
in one day and a night, mourning [as we did] 
over the coming departure from us of this right- 
eous man. But to him this happened just as he 
wished, since he was in haste as soon as possible 
to leave this world, that he might attain to the 
Lord whom he loved. Sailing then into the 
Roman harbour, and the unhallowed sports be- 
ing just about to close, the soldiers began to be 
annoyed at our slowness, but the bishop rejoi- 
cingly yielded to their urgency, ; 


CHAP. VI.— IGNATIUS IS DEVOURED BY THE BEASTS 
AT ROME. “ek 


They pushed forth therefore from the place 
which is called Portus ; '5 and (the °° fame of all 
relating to the holy martyr being already spread 





9 The punctuation and construction are here doubtful. 
10 Or, “‘ should prevent him from hastening to the Lord.” 
II Or, “ corrected.” : 
12 Comp. Acts xxviii, 13 14. 
13 Literally, ‘‘ the ship being driven onwards from the stern.” 
14 Literally, “‘deolaring happy.” 
15 [Of which we shall learn more when we come to Hippolytus. 
Fes had just improved the work of Claudius at this haven, near 
stia. : Gis ys 
16 Litrelty, “for the.” 


THE MARTYRDOM OF IGNATIUS. 





sbroad) we met the brethren full of fear and 
joy ; rejoicing indeed because they were thought 
worthy to meet with Theophorus, but struck 
with fear because so eminent a man was being 
led to death. Now he enjoined some to keep 
silence who, in their fervent zeal, were saying ' 
that they would appease the people, so that 
they should not demand the destruction of this 
just one. He being immediately aware of this 
through the Spirit,? and having saluted them all, 
and begged of them to show a true affection 
towards him, and having dwelt [on this point] 
at greater length than in his Epistle,3 and hav- 
ing persuaded them not to envy him hastening 
to the Lord, he then, after he had, with all the 
brethren kneeling [beside him], entreated the 
Son of God in behalf of the Churches, that a 
stop might be put to the persecution, and that 
mutual love might continue among the brethren, 
was led with all haste into the amphitheatre. 
Then, being immediately thrown in, according 
to the command of Cesar given some time ago, 
the public spectacles being just about to close 
(for it was then a solemn day, as they deemed 
it, being that which is called the thirteenth + in 
the Roman tongue, on which the people were 
wont to assemble in more than ordinary num- 
bers 5), he was thus cast to the wild beasts close 
beside the temple,° that so by them the desire 
of the holy martyr Ignatius should be fulfilled, 
according to that which is written, “The desire 
of the righteous is acceptable” [to God],” to 
the effect that he might not be troublesome to 
any of the brethren by the gathering of his re- 
mains, even as he had in his Epistle expressed 
a wish beforehand that so his end might be. 
For only the harder portions of his holy remains 


1 Literally, “‘ boiling, and saying.” 

2 Or, ‘‘in spirit.” 

3 ie., in his Epistle to the Romans, 

4 The Saturnalia were then celebrated. 

5 Literally, “‘ they came together zealously.” 

6 The amphitheatre itself was sacred to several of the gods. 
[But (wapa t@ vas) the original indicates the ce//a, or shrine, in the 
centre of the amphitheatre where the image of Pluto was exhibited. 
44 plain cross, until the late excavations, marked the very spot. ] 

7 Prov. x. 24. 


131 





were left, which were conveyed to Antioch and 
wrapped ® in linen, as an inestimable treasure 
left to the holy Church by the grace which was 
in the martyr. . 


CHAP. VII.— IGNATIUS APPEARS IN A VISION AFTER 
HIS DEATH, 


Now these things took place on the thirteenth 
day before the Kalends of January, that is, on 
the twentieth of December,? Sura and Senecio 
being then the consuls of the Romans for the 
second time. Having ourselves been eye-wit- 
nesses of these things, and having spent the 
whole night in tears within the house, and hav- 
ing entreated the Lord, with bended knees and 
much prayer, that He would give us weak men 
full assurance respecting the things which were 
done,*° it came to pass, on our falling into a brief 
slumber, that some of us saw the blessed Igna- 
tius suddenly standing by us and embracing us, 
while others beheld him again praying for us, 
and others still saw him dropping with sweat, as 
if he had just come from his great labour, and 
standing by the Lord. When, therefore, we 
had with great joy witnessed these things, and 
had compared our several visions '' together, we 
sang praise to God, the giver of all good things, 
and expressed our sense of the happiness of the 
holy [martyr] ; and now we have made known 
to you both the day and the time [when these 
things happened], that, assembling ourselves 
together according to the time of his martyr- 
dom, we may have fellowship with the champion 
and noble martyr of Christ, who trode under 
foot the devil, and perfected the course which, 
out of love to Christ, he had desired, in Christ 
Jesus our Lord; by whom, and with whom, be 
glory and power to the Father, with the Holy 
Spirit, for evermore! Amen. 


8 Or, ‘‘ deposited.” : : 
9 [The Greeks celebrate this martyrdom, to this day, on the twen- 
tieth of December. } : 
10 To the effect, viz., that the martyrdom of Ignatius had been 
acceptable to God. : a 
11 Literally, ‘‘ the visions of the dreams. 





INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


TO THE 


EPISTLE OF BARNABAS. 





[a.D. r00.] The writer of this Epistle is supposed to have been an Alexandrian Jew of the 
times of Trajan and Hadrian. He was a layman ; but possibly he bore the name of “ Barnabas,” 
and so has been confounded with his holy and apostolic name-sire. It is more probable that the 
Epistle, being anonymous, was attributed to St. Barnabas, by those who supposed that apostle to 
be the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and who discovered similarities in the plan and pur- 
pose of the two works. It is with great reluctance that I yield to modern scholars, in dismissing 
the ingenious and temperate argument of Archbishop Wake ! for the apostolic origin of this trea- 
tise. The learned Lardner? shares his convictions ; and the very interesting and ingenious views 
of Tones 3 never appeared to me satisfactory, weighed with preponderating arguments, on the other 
side.t 

The Maccabzean spirit of the Jews never burned more furiously than after the destruction of 
Jerusalem, and while it was kindling the conflagration that broke out under Barchochebas, and 
blazed so terribly in the insurrection against Hadrian.’ It is not credible that the Jewish Chris- 
tians at Alexandria and elsewhere were able to emancipate themselves from their national spirit ; 
and accordingly the old Judaizing, which St. Paul had anathematized and confuted, would assert 
itself again. If such was the occasion of this Epistle, as I venture to suppose, a higher character 
must be ascribed to it than could otherwise be claimed. This accounts, also, for the degree of 
favour with which it was accepted by the primitive faithful. 

It is interesting as a specimen of their conflicts with a persistent Judaism which St. Paul had 
defeated and anathematized, but which was ever cropping out among believers originally of the 
Hebrews.° Their own habits of allegorizing, and their Oriental tastes, must be borne in mind, if 
we are readily disgusted with our author’s fancies and refinements. St. Paul himself pays a prac- 
tical tribute to their modes of thought, in his Epistle to the Galatians (iv. 24). This is the ad 
hominem form of rhetoric, familiar to all speakers, which laid even the apostle open to the slander 
of enemies (2 Cor. xii. 16), — that he was “ crafty,” and caught men with guile. It is interesting 
to note the more Occidental spirit of Cyprian, as compared with our author, when he also con- 
tends with Judaism. Doubtless we have in the pseudo- Barnabas something of that economy which 





I Discourse (p. 148) to his Genuine Epzsiles of the Apostolical Fathers. Philadelphia, 1846. 
2 Works, ii. 250, note; and iv. 128, 
3 On the Canon, vol. ii. p. 431. 

4 To those who may adhere to the older opinion, let me commend the eloquent and instructive chapter (xxiii.) in Farrar’s Life of 


St. Paul, 
5 Hadrian's purpose to rebuild their city seems to be pointed at in chap. xvi. 
6 M, Renan may be read with pain, and yet with profit, in much that his Gallio-spirit suggests on this subject. Chap. v., S¢. Paul, 


Paris, 1884. y 


333 


134 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 


is always capable of abuse, and which was destined too soon to overleap the bounds of its mora: 
limitations. 

It is to be observed that this writer sometimes speaks as a Gentile, a fact which some have 
found it difficult to account for, on the supposition that he was a Hebrew, if not a Levite as well. 
But so, also, St. Paul sometimes speaks as a Roman, and sometimes as a Jew; and, owing to the 
mixed character of the early Church, he writes to the Romans (iv. 1) as if they were all Israelites, 
and again to the same Church (Rom. xi. 13) as if they were all Gentiles. So this writer some- 
times identifies himself with Jewish thought as a son of Abraham, and again speaks from the 
Christian position as if he were a Gentile, thus identifying himself with the catholicity of the 
Church. 

But the subject thus opened is vast; and “the Epistle of Barnabas,” so called, still awaits a 
critical editor, who at the same time shall be a competent expositor. Nobody can answer these 
requisitions, who is unable, for this purpose, to be a Christian of the days of Trajan. 

But it will be observed that this version has great advantages over any of its predecessors, and 
is a valuable acquisition to the student. The learned translators have had before them the entire 
Greek text of the fourth century, disfigured it is true by corruptions, but still very precious, the 
rather as they have been able to compare it with the text of Hilgenfeld: Their editorial notes 
are sufficient for our own plan; and little has been left for me to do, according to the scheme of 
this publication, save to revise the “copy” for printing. I am glad to presume no further into 
such a labyrinth, concerning which the learned and careful Wake modestly professes, “I have 
endeavoured to attain to the sense of my author, and to make him as plain and easy as I was 
able. If in anything I have chanced to mistake him, I have only this to say for myself: that he 
must be better acquainted with the road than I pretend to be, who will undertake to travel se 
long a journey in the dark and never to miss his way.” 

The following is the original INrropucrory Norice : — 


Noruinc certain is known as to the author of the following Epistle. The writer’s name is Bar- 
nabas, but scarcely any scholars now ascribe it to the illustrious friend and companion of St. Paul. 
External and internal evidence here come into direct collision. The ancient writers who refer to 
this Epistle unanimously attribute it to Barnabas the Levite, of Cyprus, who held such an hon- 
ourable place in the infant Church. Clement of Alexandria does so again and again (S¢rom., ii. 
6, ii. 7, etc.). Origen describes it as “a Catholic Epistle” (Cont, Cels., i. 6 3), and seems to rank 
it among the Sacred Scriptures (Comm. tx Rom.,i. 24). Other statements have been quoted 
from the fathers, to show that they held this to be an authentic production of the apostolic Bar- 
nabas ; and certainly no other name is ever hinted at in Christian antiquity as that of the writer. 
But notwithstanding this, the internal evidence is now generally regarded as conclusive against 
this opinion. On perusing the Epistle, the reader will be in circumstances to judge of this matter 
for himself. He will be led to consider whether the spirit and tone of the writing, as so decidedly 
opposed to all respect for Judaism — the numerous inaccuracies which it contains with respect to 
Mosaic enactments and observances — the absurd and trifling interpretations of Scripture which 
it suggests — and the many silly vaunts of superior knowledge in which its writer indulges — can 
possibly comport with its ascription to the fellow-labourer of St. Paul. When it is remembered 
that no one ascribes the Epistle to the apostolic Barnabas till the times of Clement of Alexandria, 
and that it is ranked by Eusebius among the “ spurious ” writings, which, however much known 
and read in the Church, were never regarded as authoritative, little doubt can remain that the 
external evidence is of itself weak, and should not make us hesitate for a moment in refusing to 
ascribe this writing to Barnabas the Apostle. ; 

The date, object, and intended readers of the Epistle can only be doubtfully inferred from 
some statements which it contains. It was clearly written after the destruction of Jerusalem, 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 135 


since reference is made to that event (chap. xvi.), but how long after is matter of much dispute. 
The general opinion is, that its date is not later than the middle of the second century, and that 
it cannot be placed earlier than some twenty or thirty years before. In point of style, both as 
respects thought and expression, a very low place must be assigned it. We know nothing certain 
of the region in which the author lived, or where the first readers were to be found. The inten- 
tion of the writer, as he himself states (chap. i.), was “to perfect the knowledge” of those to 
whom he wrote. Hilgenfeld, who has devoted much attention to this Epistle, holds that “it was 
written at the close of the first century by a Gentile Christian of the school of Alexandria, with 
the view of winning back, or guarding from a Judaic form of Christianity, those Christians belong- 
ing to the same class as himself.” 

Until the recent discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus by Tischendorf, the first four and a half 
chapters were known only in an ancient Latin version. The whole Greek text is now happily 
recovered, though it is in many places very corrupt. _We have compared its readings throughout, 
and noted the principal variations from the text represented in our version. We have also made 
frequent reference to the text adopted by Hilgenfeld in his recent edition of the Epistle (Lipsiz, 
T. O. Weigel, 1866). 







—— Loe 


, § } 
ty pine. p vas Sas, Rs 


Set Sigh ve ind yi 


PY cere, 
pt ere OTe 
pois eee 
+ ae yy paul» 

vty OCR PA : 

. ¢ ,, ~. 


os 2 wae 
h DS ORE ATS 


- =e a 








THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS: 





CHAP. I.— AFTER THE SALUTATION, THE WRITER 
DECLARES THAT HE WOULD COMMUNICATE TO 
HIS BRETHREN SOMETHING OF THAT WHICH HE 
HAD HIMSELF RECEIVED. ; 


ALL hail, ye sons and daughters, in the name 
of our Lord? Jesus Christ, who loved us in 
peace. 

Seeing that the divine fruits 3 of righteousness 
abound among you, I rejoice exceedingly and 
above measure in your happy and honoured 
spirits, because ye have with such effect received 
the engrafted ¢ spiritual gift. Wherefore also I 
inwardly rejoice the more, hoping to be saved, 
because I truly perceive in you the Spirit poured 
forth from the rich Lord 5 of love. Your greatly 
desired appearance has thus filled me with aston- 
ishment over you.® I am therefore pursuaded of 
this, and fully convinced in my own mind, that 
since I began to speak among you I understand 
many things, because the Lord hath accompanied 
me in the way of righteousness. I am also on 
this account bound 7 by the strictest obligation 
to love you above my own soul, because great 
are the faith and love dwelling in you, while you 
hope for the life which He has promised.* Con- 
sidering this, therefore, that if I should take the 
trouble to communicate to you some portion of 
what I have myself received, it will prove to me 
a sufficient reward that I minister to such spirits, 
I have hastened briefly to write unto you, in 
order that, along with your faith, ye might have 
perfect knowledge. The doctrines of the Lord, 





3 The Codex Sinaiticus has simply “ Epistle of Barnabas” for 
title; Dressel gives, ‘‘ Epistle of Barnabas the Apostle,” from the 
Vatican ms. of the Latin text. 

2 The Cod. Sin. has simply, “‘ the Lord.” 

3 Literally, “ the judgments of God being great and rich towards 
you;” but, as Hefele remarks, 6:xaiwpa seems here to have the mean- 
ing of righteousness, as in Rom. v. 18. } 

4 This appears to be the meaning of the Greek, and is con- 
firmed by the ancient Latin version. Hilgenfeld, however, following 
Cod. Sin., reads ‘‘ thus,” instead of “because,” and separates the 
clauses. 

5 The Latin reads, “a spirit infused into you from the honourable 
fountain of God.” f 

6 This sentence is entirely omitted in the Latin. : 

7 The Latin text is here quite different, and seems evidently cor- 
tpt. We have followed the Cod. Sin., as does Hilgenfeld. 

3 Literally, ‘‘ in the hope of His life.” 





then, are three : 9 the hope of life, the beginning 
and the completion of it. For the Lord hath 
made known to us by the prophets both the 
things which are past and present, giving us also 
the first-fruits of the knowledge '° of things to 
come, which things as we see accomplished, one 
by one, we ought with the greater richness of 
faith '* and elevation of spirit to draw near to 
Him with reverence.” I then, not as your 
teacher, but as one of yourselves, will set forth 
a few things by which in present circumstances 
ye may be rendered the more joyful. 


CHAP, II.—-THE JEWISH SACRIFICES 


ABOLISHED. 


Since, therefore, the days are evil, and Satan '3 
possesses the power of this world, we ought to 
give heed to ourselves, and diligently inquire 
into the ordinances of the Lord. Fear and 
patience, then, are helpers of our faith; and 
long-suffering and continence are things which 
fight on our side. While these remain pure in 
what respects the Lord, Wisdom, Understanding, 
Science, and Knowledge rejoice along with 
them.’ For He hath revealed to us by all the 
prophets that He needs neither sacrifices, nor 
burnt-offerings, nor oblations, saying thus, ‘‘ What 
is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me, saith 
the Lord? I am full of burnt-offerings, and de- 
sire not the fat of lambs, and the blood of bulls 
and goats, not when ye come to appear before 


ARE NOW 


9 The Greek is here totally unintelligible: it seems impossible 
either to punctuate or construe it. We may attempt to represent it 
as follows: “ The doctrines of the Lord, then, are three: Life, Faith, 
and Hope, our beginning and end; and Righteousness, the beginning 
and the end of judgment; Love and Joy and the Testimony of glad- 
ness for works of righteousness.” We have followed the ancient Latin 
text, which Hilgenfeld also adopts, though Weitzacker and others 
prefer the Greek. 

10 Instead of “knowledge” (yvdaews), Cod. Sin. has “taste” 
(yedoews) , 

11 Literally, ‘we ought more richly and loftily to approach His 
fear.” 

12 Instead of “to Him with fear,” the reading of Cod. Sin., the 
Latin has, “ to His altar,” which Hilgenfeld adopts. 

13 The Latin text is literally, ‘the adversary; ” the Greek has, 
“Cand he that worketh possesseth power;” Hilgenfeld reads, ‘he 
that worketh against,” the idea expressed above being intended. 

14 Or, ‘‘ while these things continue, those which respect the Lord 
rejoice in purity along with them — Wisdom,” etc. 


137 


138 


THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS. 


a ee ea yee ee ee 


Me: for who hath required these things at your 
hands? ‘Tread no more My courts, not though 
ye bring with you fine flour. Incense is a vain 
abomination unto Me, and your new moons and 
sabbaths I cannot endure.”’! He has therefore 
abolished these things, that the new law of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, which is without the yoke of 
necessity, might have a human oblation.2 And 
again He says to them, “ Did I command your 
fathers, when they went out from the land of 
Egypt, to offer unto Me burnt-offerings and sac- 
rifices? But this rather I commanded them, Let 
‘no one of you cherish any evil in his heart against 
his neighbour, and love not an oath of falsehood.” 3 
We ought therefore, being possessed of under- 
standing, to perceive the gracious intention of our 
Father ; for He speaks to us, desirous that we, 
not ¢ going astray like them, should ask how we 
may approach Him. To us, then, He declares, 
“A sacrifice [pleasing] to God is a broken spirit ; 
a smell of sweet savour to the Lord is a heart 
that glorifieth Him that made it.”5 We ought 
therefore, brethren, carefully to inquire concern- 
ing our salvation, lest the wicked one, having 
made his entrance by deceit, should hurl® us 
forth from our [true] life. 


CHAP. III.—THE FASTS OF THE JEWS ARE NOT 
TRUE FASTS, NOR ACCEPTABLE TO GOD. 


He says then to them again concerning these 
things, “ Why do ye fast to Me as on this day, 
saith the Lord, that your voice should be heard 
with acry? I have not chosen this fast, saith 
the Lord, that a man should humble his soul. 
Nor, though ye bend your neck like a ring, and 
put upon you sackcloth and ashes, will ye call it 
an acceptable fast.” 7 To us He saith, “ Behold, 
this is the fast that I have chosen, saith the Lord, 
not that a man should humble his soul, but that 
he should loose every band of iniquity, untie the 
fastenings of harsh agreements, restore to liberty 
them that are bruised, tear in pieces every unjust 
engagement, feed the hungry with thy bread, 
clothe the naked when thou seest him, bring the 
homeless into thy house, not despise the humble 
if thou behold him, and not [turn away] from 
the members of thine own family. Then shall 
thy dawn break forth, and thy healing shall 
quickly spring up, and righteousness shall go 
forth before thee, and the glory of God shall en- 
compass thee ; and then thou shalt call, and God 


1 Isa. i, r1-14, from the Sept., as is the case throughout. We 
have gives the quotation as it stands in Cod. Sin. 

2 Thus in the Latin, The Greek reads, “ might not have a man- 
made oblation.” The Latin text seems preferable, implying: that, in- 
stead of the outward sacrifices of the law, there is now required a 
dedication of man himself, Wilgenfeld follows the Greek. 

3 Jer. vii. 22; Zech. viii. 17. 

4 So the Greek. Hitgenteld, with the Latin, omits ‘‘ not.” 

5 Ps. li. 19. There is nothing in Scripture corresponding to the 
last clause. 5 

6 Literally, “ sling us.out.” 

7 Isa, lviil. 4, 5. 





shall hear thee ; whilst thou art yet speaking, He 
shall say, Behold, I am with thee ; if thou take 
away from thee the chain [binding others], and 
the stretching forth of the hands® [to swear 
falsely], and words of murmuring, and give 
cheerfully thy bread to the hungry, and show 
compassion to the soul that has been humbled.” ? 
To this end, therefore, brethren, He is long- 
suffering, foreseeing how the people whom He 
has prepared shall with guilelessness believe in 
His Beloved. ' For He revealed all these things 
to us beforehand, that we should not rush for- 
ward as rash acceptors of their laws.*° 


CHAP. IV.— ANTICHRIST IS AT HAND: LET US 


THEREFORE AVOID JEWISH ERRORS. 


‘It therefore behoves us, who inquire much 
concerning events at hand,"! to search diligently 
into those things which are able tosave us. Let 
us then utterly flee from all the works of iniquity, 
lest these should take hold of us; and let us 
hate the error of the present time, that we may set 
our love on the world to come: let us not give 
loose reins to our soul, that it should have power 
to run with sinners and the wicked, lest we be- 
come like them. The final stumbling-block (or 
source of danger) approaches, concerning which 
it is written, as Enoch says, “ For for this end 
the Lord has cut short the times and the days, 
that His Beloved may hasten ; and He will come 
to the inheritance.” And the prophet also speaks 
thus: “Ten kingdoms shall reign upon the-earth, 
and a little king shall rise up after them, who 
shall subdue under one three of the kings.'3 . In 
like manner Daniel says concerning; the same, 
“And I beheld the fourth beast, wicked and 
powerful, and more savage than all the beasts of 
the earth, and how from it sprang up ten horns, 
and out of them a little budding ‘horn, and how 
it subdued under one three of the great horns.” ' 
Ye ought therefore to understand. And this also 
I further beg of you, as being one of you, and 
loving you both individually and collectively 
more than my own soul, to take heed now to 
yourselves, and not to be like some, adding 
largely to your sins, and saying, “The covenant 
is both theirs and ours.” '5 But they thus finally 
lost it, after Moses had already received it. For 
the Scripture saith, “And Moses was fasting in 


8 The original here is Xe:poroviav, from the LXX. . Hefele re- 
marks, that it may refer to the stretching forth of the hands, either 
to swear falsely, or to mock and insult one’s neighbour. 

9 Isa, lviii. 6-10. 

1o The Greek is here unintelligible: the Latin has, “that we 
should not rush on, as if proselytes to their law.” 

1 Or it might be rendered, ‘‘ things present,” » Cotelerius reads, 
“de his instantibus.” 

_ P The Latin reads “ Daniel” instead of ‘ Enoch; ”.- comp. Dan, 
1X. 24-27, ; ' 

13 Dan. vii. 24, very loosely quoted. 

14 Dan. vii. Zi 8, also very inaccurately cited. 

15 We here follow the Latin text in preference to the Greek, which 
reads merely, ‘‘ the covenant is ours.” What follows seems to show 
the correctness of the Latin, as the authc-r proceeds to deny that the 
Jews had any further interest in the promises, 


THE EPISTLE OF. BARNABAS.. 





the mount forty days and forty nights, and re- 
ceived the covenant from the Lord, tables of 
stone written with the finger of the hand of the 
Lord ;”’' but turning away to idols, they lost it. 
For the Lord speaks thus to Moses: “ Moses, 
go down quickly; for the people whom thou 
hast brought out of the land of Egypt have 
transgressed.’’?, And Moses understood [the 
meaning of God], and cast the two tables out 
of his hands ; and their covenant was broken, in 
order that the covenant of the beloved Jesus 
might be sealed upon our heart, in the hope 
which flows from believing in Him.s Now, be- 
ing desirous to write many things to you, not as 
your teacher, but as becometh one who loves 
you, I have taken care not to fail to write 
to you from what I myself possess, with a view 
to your purification.+ We take earnest 5 heed 
in these last days ; for the whole [past] time of 
your faith will profit you nothing, unless now 
in this wicked time we also withstand coming 
sources of danger, as becometh the sons of God. 
That the Black One® may find no means of en- 
trance, let us flee from every vanity, let us utterly 
hate the works of the way of wickedness. Do 
not, by retiring apart, live a solitary life, as if 
you were already [fully] justified ; but coming 
together in one place, make common inquiry 
concerning what tends to your general welfare. 
For the Scripture saith, ‘“ Woe to them who are 
wise to themselves, and prudent in their own 
sight!’’7 Let us be spiritually-minded : let us 
be a perfect temple to God. As much as in us 
lies, let us meditate upon the fear of God, and 
let us keep His commandments, that we may 
rejoice in His ordinances. The Lord will judge 
the world without respect of persons. Each will 
receive as he has done: if he is righteous, his 
righteousness will precede him ; if he is wicked, 
the reward of wickedness is before him. Take 
heed, lest resting at our ease, as those who are 
the called [of God], we should fall asleep in 
our sins, and the wicked prince, acquiring power 
over us, should thrust us away from the kingdom 
of the Lord. And all the more attend to this, 
my brethren, when ye reflect and behold, that 
after so great signs and wonders were wrought 
in Israel, they were thus [at length] abandoned. 
Let us beware lest we be found [fulfilling that 


nh ne 


1 Ex, xxxi. 18, xxxiv. 28. 

2 Ex. xxxii. 7; Deut. ix. 12. 

3 Literally, “‘ in hope of His faith.” ~§ ; 

4 The Greek is here incorrect and unintelligible; and as the Latin 
omits the clause, our translation is merely conjectural. Hilgenfeld’s 
text, if we give a somewhat peculiar meaning to éAAuwetv, may be 
translated: “ but as it is becoming inone who loves _you not to fail in 
giving you what we have, I, though the very offscquring of you, have 
been eager to write to you.”’ 5 ae 

5 So the Cod. Sin: Hilgenfeld reads, with the Latin, ‘ let us 
take.” 

6 ‘Phe Latin here departs entirely from the Greek text, and quotes 
ns a saying of ‘‘ the Son of God the following precept, nowhere to be 
found in the New Testament: “‘ Let us resist all iniquity, and hold it 
in hatred.” Hilgenfeld joins this clause to the former sentence. 

7 Isa, v. a1. 








139 


saying], as it is written, “ Many are called, but 
few are chosen.” 8 


CHAP. V.— THE NEW COVENANT, FOUNDED ON THE 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST, TENDS TO OUR SALVA- 
TION, BUT TO THE JEWS’ DESTRUCTION. 


For to this end the Lord endured to deliver 
up His flesh to corruption, that we might be 
sanctified through the remission of sins, which is 
effected by His blood of sprinkling. For it is 
written concerning Him, partly with reference 
to Israel, and partly to us; and [the Scripture] 
saith thus: “He was wounded for our trans- 
gressions, and bruised for our iniquities: with 
His stripes we are healed. He was brought as 
a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb which is 
dumb before its shearer.””9 Therefore we ought 
to be deeply grateful to the Lord, because He 
has both made known to us things that are past, 
and hath given us wisdom concerning things 
present, and hath not left us without understand- 
ing in regard to things which are to come. 
Now, the Scripture saith, “Not unjustly are 
nets spread out for birds.” '° This means that 
the man perishes justly, who, having a knowl- 
edge of the way of righteousness, rushes off into 
the way of darkness. And further, my brethren : 
if the Lord endured to suffer for our soul, He 
being Lord of all the world, to whom God said 
at the foundation of the world, “ Let us make 
man after our image, and after our likeness,” ™ 
understand how it was that He endured to suffer 
at the hand of men. The prophets, having ob- 
tained grace from Him, prophesied concerning 
Him. And He (since it behoved Him to ap- 
pear in flesh), that He might abolish death, and 
reveal the resurrection from the dead, endured 
[what and as He did], in order that He might 
fulfill the promise made unto the fathers, and 
by preparing a new people for Himself, might 
show, while He dwelt on earth, that He, when 
He has raised mankind, will also judge them, 
Moreover, teaching Israel, and doing so great 
miracles and signs, He preached [the truth] to 
him, and greatly loved him. But when He 
chose His own apostles who where to preach 
His Gospel, [He did so from among those ] 
who were sinners above all sin, that He might 
show He came “not to call the righteous, but 
sinners to repentance.” 7 Then He manifested 
Himself to be the Son of God. For if He had 
not come in the flesh, how could men have been 
saved by beholding Him? *3 Since looking upon 





8 An exact quotation from Matt. xx. 16 or xxii. 14. It is worthy 
of notice that this is the first example in the writings of the Fathers of 
a citation from any book of the New Testament, preceded by the 
authoritative formula, “it is written.” 

9 Isa. ‘lili. 5, 7. p ; : 

10 Pryoy, i. 17, from the LXX., which has mistaken the meaning. 

11 Gen. i. 26. 

12 Matt. ix. 13; Mark ii. 17; Luke v. ?: 

13 The Cod Sin, reads, “neither would men have been saved by 
secing Him.” 


140 





the sun which is to cease to exist, and is the 
work of His hands, their eyes are not able to 
bear his rays. The Son‘of God therefore came 
in the flesh with this view, that He might bring 
to a head the sum of their sins who had perse- 
cuted His prophets' to the death. For this 
purpose, then, He endured. For God saith, 
“The stroke of his flesh is from them ;”? and 3 
‘when I shall smite the Shepherd, then the 
sheep of the flock shall be scattered.”*+ He 
himself willed thus to suffer, for it was necessary 
that He should suffer on the tree. For says he 
who prophesies regarding Him, “Spare my soul 
from the sword, 5 fasten my flesh with nails ; for 
the assemblies of the wicked have risen up 
against me.’’© And again he says, “ Behold, I 
have given my back to scourges, and my cheeks 
to strokes, and I have set my countenance as a 
firm rock.” 7 


e 
CHAP. VI.— THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST, AND THE 
NEW COVENANT, WERE ANNOUNCED BY THE 
PROPHETS. 


When, therefore, He has fulfilled the com- 
mandment, what saith He? “Who is he that 
will contend with Me? let him oppose Me: or 


who is he that will enter into judgment with 


Me? let him draw near to the servant of the 
Lord.’’® Woe unto you, for ye shall all wax 
old, like a garment, and the moth shall eat you 
up.”9 And again the prophet says, “Since '° as 
a mighty stone He is laid for crushing, behold 
I cast down for the foundations of Zion a 
stone, precious, elect, a corner-stone, honoura- 
ble.” Next, what says He? “And he who 
shall trust’! in it shall live for ever.” Is our 
hope, then, upon a stone? Far from it. But 
[the language is. used] inasmuch as He laid his 
flesh [as a foundation] with power ; for He says, 
“And He placed me as a firm rock.” '? And 
the prophet says again, “The stone which the 
builders rejected, the same has become the 
head of the corner.’”*3 And again he says, 
“This is the great and wonderful day which 
the Lord hath made.* I write the more simply 
unto you, that ye may understand. I am the off- 
scouring of your love.'s What, then, again says 


_ 1? Cod, Sin. has, ‘‘ their prophets,” but the corrector has changed 
it as above. 

2A vag fee reference to Isa. liii, 8. ‘ 

3 Cod. Sin. omits “and,” and reads, “‘ when they smite their own 
shepherd, then the sheep of the pasture shall be scattered and fail.” 

4 Zech. xiii. 7. 

5 Cod. Sin. inserts ‘ and.” 

6 These are inaccurate and confused quotations from Ps, xxii, 21, 
17, and cxix, 120, 

7 Isa. 1, 6, 7. 

8 Isa. 1. 8. 

9 Isa. 1. 9. 

3¢ The Latin omits ‘‘ since,” but it is found in all the Greek mss. 

™ Cod. Sin, has “‘ believe.” Isa, viii, 14, xxviii. 16, 

12 Isa. 1. 7. 

33 Ps, cxviii, 22, 

14 Ps, cxviii. 24. 

%5 Comp. 1 Cor. iv. 13. The caine 


“My love to i 
great, that I am ready to be or to do all t pe evaty 


gs for you,” 








THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS. 


the prophet? “The assembly of the wicked sur- 
rounded me; they encompassed me as bees do 
a honeycomb,” * and “upon my garment they 
cast lots.” #7 Since, therefore, He was about to 
be manifested and to suffer in the flesh, His suf- 
fering was foreshown. For the prophet speaks 
against Israel, “Woe to their soul, because they 
have counselled an evil counsel against them- 
selves," saying, Let us bind the just one, because 
he is displeasing to us.” "9 And Moses also says 
to them,”° “ Behold these things, saith the Lord 
God: Enter into the good land which the Lord 
sware [to give] to Abraham, and Isaac, and 
Jacob, and inherit ye it, a land flowing with 
milk and honey.” 2! What, then, says Knowl- 
edge??? Learn: “Trust,” she says, “in Him 
who is to be manifested to you in the flesh— 
that is, Jesus.” For man is earth in a suffering 
state, for the formation of Adam was from the 
face of the earth. What, then, meaneth this: 
“into the good land, a land flowing with milk and 
honey?” Blessed be our Lord, who has placed 
in us wisdom and understanding of secret things. 
For the prophet says, “ Who shall understand 
the parable of the Lord, except him who is wise 
and prudent, and who loves his Lord?” 3 Since, 
therefore, having renewed us by the remission of 
our sins, He hath made us after another pattern, 
[it is His purpose] that we should possess the 
soul of children, inasmuch as He has created us 
anew by His Spirit.24 For the Scripture says 
concerning us, while He speaks to the Son, 
“Let Us make man after Our image, and after 
Our likeness ; and let them have dominion over 
the beasts of the earth, and the fowls of heaven, 
and the fishes of the sea.”’?5_ And the Lord said, 
on beholding the fair creature © man, “ Increase, 
and multiply, and replenish the earth.”’?7 These 
things [were spoken] to the Son. Again, I will 
show thee how, in respect to us,?* He has accom- 
plished a second fashioning in these last days. 
The Lord says, “ Behold, I will make ?9 the last 
like the first.” 3° In reference to this, then, the 
prophet proclaimed, “Enter ye into the land 


16 Ps, xxii. 17, Cxvili, 12. 

17 Ps, xxii. 19. 

18 Isa, iii, 9. 

19 Wisd. ii. 12. This apocryphal book is thus quoted as Scripture, 
and intertwined with it, : 
: ee Sin. reads, ‘‘ What says the other prophet Moses unto 
them?” 

21 Ex, xxxiii. 1; Lev. xx. 24 ; 

22 The original word is “Gnosis,” the knowledge peculiar to 
advanced Christians, by which they understand the mysteries of 
Scripture: ; 

23 Not found in Scripture. Comp. Isa. xl. 13; Prov. i. 6. Hil- 
genfeld, however, changes the usual punctuation, which ‘places a 
colon after prophet, and reads, ‘‘ For the prophet speaketh the para- 
ble of the Lord. Who shall understand,” etc. : 
_ 34 The Greek is here very elliptical and obscure: “‘ His Spirit” is 
inserted above, from the Latin. j 

25 Gen. i, 26. 

26 Cod, Sin. has “‘ our fair formation.” 

27 Gen, i. 28. 

28 Cod, Sin. inserts, ‘the Lord says.” 

29 Cod, Sin. has “I make.’’ 

3° Not in Scripture, but comp. Matt. xx. 16, and 2 Car, v. 19. 


THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS. 


I4I 





flowing with milk and honey, and have domin- 
ion over it.”* Behold, therefore, we have been 
refashioned, as again He says in another prophet, 
“ Behold, saith the Lord, I will take away from 
these, that is, from those whom the Spirit of the 
Lord foresaw, their stony hearts, and I will put 
hearts of “flesh within them,”? because He 
was to be manifested in flesh, and to sojourn 
among us. For, my brethren, the habitation of 
our heart is a holy temple to the Lord.* For 
again saith the Lord, “And wherewith shall I 
appear before the Lord my God, and be glori- 
fied?’”’5 He says,° “I will confess to thee in 
the Church in the midst 7 of my brethren ; and I 
will praise thee in the midst of the assembly of 
the saints.”* We, then, are they whom He has 
led into the good land. What, then, mean the 
milk and honey? This, that as the infant is 
kept alive first by honey, and then by milk, so 
also we, being quickened and kept alive by the 
faith of the promise and by the word, shall live 
ruling over the earth. But He said above,? “ Let 
them increase, and rule over the fishes.” '° Who 
then is able to govern the beasts, or the fishes, or 
the fowls of heaven? For we ought to perceive 
that to govern implies authority, so that one 
should command and rule. If, therefore, this 
does not exist at present, yet still He has prom- 
ised it to us. When? When we ourselves also 
have been made perfect [so as] to become heirs 
of the covenant of the Lord." 


CHAP. VII. — FASTING, AND THE GOAT SENT AWAY, 
WERE TYPES OF CHRIST. 


Understand, then, ye children of gladness, 
that the good Lord has foreshown all things to 
us, that we might know to whom we ought for 
everything to render thanksgiving and praise. 
If therefore the Son of God, who is Lord [of 
all things], and who will judge the living and 
the dead, suffered, that His stroke might give 
us life, let us believe that the Son of God could 
not have suffered except for our sakes. More- 
over, when fixed to the cross, He had given 
Him to drink vinegar and gall. Hearken how 
the priests of the people * gave previous indica- 
tions of this. His commandment having been 
written, the Lord enjoined, that whosoever did 
not keep the fast should be put to death, be- 
cause He also Himself was to offer in sacrifice 





1 Ex, xxxiii. 3. 

2 Ezek, xi. 19, xxxvi. 26. “ 

3 Cod, Sin inserts “ Himself; ” comp. John i. 14. 
4 Comp. Eph, ii. 21. 

5 Comp. Ps. xlii. 2. 

6 Cod, Sin. omits ‘‘ He says.” 4 

7 Cod. Sin. omits ‘‘ in the midst.” 

ii, 23; Heb. ii. 12. 

: ‘‘ But we said above.” 

10 Gen. i. 28. 


11 These are specimens of the ‘ Gnosis,” or faculty of bringing out 
the hidden spiritual meaning of Scripture referred to before. Many 


more such interpretations follow. : 
32 Cod. ig. reads “ temple,” which is adopted by Hilgenfeld. 








for our sins the vessel of the Spirit, in order 
that the type established in Isaac when he was 
offered upon the altar might be fully accom- 
plished. What, then, says He in the prophet? 
‘And let them eat of the goat which is offered, 
with fasting, for all their sins.” "3 Attend care- 
fully: “And let all the priests alone eat the 
inwards, unwashed with vinegar.” Wherefore ? 
Because to me, who am to offer my flesh for 
the sins of my new people, ye are to give gall 
with vinegar to drink; eat ye alone, while the 
people fast and mourn in sackcloth and ashes. 
[These things were done] that He might show 
that it was necessary for Him to suffer for 
them.'* How,'S then, ran the commandment? 
Give your attention. Take two goats of goodly 
aspect, and similar to each other, and offer 
them. And let the priest take one as a burnt- 
offering for sins.*° And what should they do 
with the other? ‘“Accursed,” says He, “is the 
one.” Mark how the type of Jesus ‘7 now comes 
out. “And all of you spit upon it, and pierce 
it, and encircle its head with scarlet wool, and 
thus let it be driven into the wilderness.” And 
when all this has been done, he who bears the 
goat brings it into the desert, and takes the 
wool off from it, and places that upon a shrub 
which is called Rachia,® of which also we are 
accustomed to eat the fruits'? when we find 
them in the field. Of this ° kind of shrub alone 
the fruits are sweet. Why then, again, is this? 
Give good heed. [You see] “one upon the 
altar, and the other accursed ;” and why [do 
you behold] the one that is accursed crowned? 
Because they shall see Him then in that day 
having a scarlet robe about his body down to 
his feet; and they shall say, Is not this He 
whom we once despised, and pierced, and 
mocked, and crucified? Truly this is?" He who 
then declared Himself to be the Son of God. 
For how like is He to Him!?? With a view 
to this, [He required] the goats to be of goodly 
aspect, and similar, that, when they see Him 
then coming, they may be amazed by the like- 
ness of the goat. Behold, then,” the type of 
Jesus who was to suffer. But why is it that they 





13 Not to be found in Scripture, as is the case also with what fol- 
lows. Hefele remarks, that “ certain false traditions respecting the 
Jewish rites seem _to have prevailed among the Christians of the 
second century, of which Barnabas here adopts some, as do Justin 
(Dial. c. Try. 40) and Tertullian (adv. Sud. 14; adv. Marc. 


iii, 7). 

t Cod. Sin. has “‘ by them.” 

15 Cod, Sin. reads, “‘ what commanded He?” ; 

16 Cod, Sin. reads, ‘ one as a burnt-offering, and one for sins.” 

17 God, Sin. reads, “type of God,” but it has been corrected to 

esus.” 

J 18 In Cod. Sin. we find “ Rachel.” The orthography is doubtful, 
but there is little question that a kind of bramble-bush is intended. 

19 Thus the Latin interprets; others render “‘ shoots.” 

20 Cod, Sin. has “ thus” instead of “‘ this.” 

21 Literally, ‘‘ was.” : at 

22 The text is here in great confusion, though the meaning is 
plain. Dressel reads, “ For how are they alike, and why [does He 
enjoin] that the goats should be good and alike?” The Cod, Sin. 
reads, ‘‘ How is He like Him? For this that,” etc. 

23 Cod, Sin, here inserts ‘‘ the goat.” 


i43 





place the wool in the midst of thorns? It isa 
type of Jesus set before the view of the Church. 
[They* place the wool among thorns], that 
any one who wishes to bear it away may find it 
necessary to suffer much, because the thorn is 
formidable, and thus obtain it only as the result 
of suffering. ‘Thus also, says He, “Those who 
wish to behold Me, and lay hold of My king- 
dom, must through tribulation and suffering ob- 
tain Me.”’? 


CHAP. VIII.— THE RED HEIFER A TYPE OF CHRIST. 


Now what do you suppose this to be a type 
of, that a command was given to Israel, that 
men of the greatest wickedness; should offer a 
heifer, and slay and burn it, and that then boys 
should take the ashes, and put these into vessels, 
and bind round a stick4 purple wool along with 
hyssop, and that thus the boys should sprinkle 
the people, one by one, in order that they might 
be purified from their sins? Consider how He 
speaks to you with simplicity. The calf5 is 
Jesus: the sinful men offering it are those who 
led Him to the slaughter. But now the men are 
no longer guilty, are no longer regarded as sin- 
ners.° And the boys that sprinkle are those that 
have proclaimed to us the remission of sins and 
purification of heart. To these He gave author- 
ity to preach the Gospel, being twelve in number, 
corresponding to the twelve tribes” of Israel. 
But why are there three boys that sprinkle? To 
correspond § to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, 
because these were great with God. And why 
was the wool [placed] upon the wood? Be- 
cause by wood Jesus holds His kingdom, so 
that [through the cross] those believing on Him 
shall live for ever. But why was hyssop joined 
with the wool? Because in His kingdom the 
days will be evil and polluted in which we shall 
be saved, [and] because he who suffers in body 
is cured through the cleansing? efficacy of hys- 
sop. And on this account the things which 
stand thus are clear to us, but obscure to them, 
because they did not hear the voice of the Lord. 


CHAP. IX.— THE SPIRITUAL MEANING OF CIRCUM- 
CISION, 


He speaks moreover concerning our ears, how 
He hath circumcised both them and our heart. 





1 Cod. Sin, reads, “‘ for as he who .. . 

2 Comp. Acts xiv. 22, 

3 Literally, ‘“‘men in whom sins are perfect.” Of this, and much 
more that follows, no mention is made in Scripture. 


so, says he,” etc. 


4 Cod. Sin. has “ upon sticks,” and adds, ‘‘ Behold again the type 
of the cross, both the scarlet wool and the hyliee adopter | by 
Hilgenfeld. 


5 Cod. Sin, has, “ the law is Christ Jesus,” corrected to the above. 

6 The Greek text is, “then no longer [ sinful } men, no longer the 
glory of sinners,” which Dressel defends and Hilgenfeld adopts, but 
which is surely corrupt. 

7 Literally, ‘‘ in witness of the tribes.” 

8 “Tn witness of.” 

9 Thus the sense seems to require, and thus Dressel translates, 
eas it is difficult to extract such a meaning from the Greek 

xt. 


THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS. 





The Lord saith in the prophet, “In the hearing: 
of the ear they obeyed me.’ And again He 
saith, “ By hearing, those shall hear who.are afar 
off ; they shall know what I have done.” ** And, 
“Be ye circumcised in your hearts, saith the 
Lord.” ??_ And again He says, “ Hear, O Isrzel, 
for these things saith the Lord thy Gode” 3 And 
once more the Spirit of the Lord proclaims, 
““Who is he that wishes to live for ever? By 
hearing let him hear the voice of my servant.” "4 
And again He saith, “ Hear, O heaven, and give 
ear, O earth, for God '5 hath spoken.’ "© These 
are in proof.'7 And again He saith, “‘ Hear the 
word of the Lord, ye rulers of this people.” '* 
And again He saith, “ Hear, ye children, the 
voice gf one crying in the wilderness.” "9 There- 
fore He hath circumcised our ears, that we 
might hear His word and believe, for the cir- 
cumcision in which they trusted is abolished.?° 
For He declared that circumcision was not of. 
the flesh, but they transgressed because an evil 
angel deluded them.?" He saith to them, 
“These things saith the Lord your God” — 
(here ?? I find a new*3 commandment) — ‘Sow 
not among thorns, but circumcise yourselves to 
the Lord.” 24 And why speaks He thus: “ Cir- 


‘cumcise the stubbornness of your heart, and 


harden not your neck?”*5 And again: “ Behold, 
saith the Lord, all the nations are uncircumcised ?° 
in the flesh, but this people are uncircumcised 
in heart.’”’?7_ But thou wilt say, “ Yea, verily the 
people are circumcised for a seal.” But so also 
is every Syrian and Arab, and all the priests of 
idols: are these then also within the bond of His 
covenant??® Yea, the Egyptians also practise 
circumcision. Learn then, my children, con- 
cerning all things richly,?9 that Abraham, the 
first who enjoined circumcision, looking forward 
in spirit to Jesus, practised that rite, having re- 
ceived the mysteries 3° of the three letters. For 
[ the Scripture ] saith, “And Abraham circum- 





10 Ps, xviii. 44 
11 Isa. xxxiii. 13. 


12 Jer. iv. 4 

13 Jer, vii. 2. 

14 Ps. xxxiv, 11-13. The first clause of this sentence is wanting 
in Cod. Sin. 

15 Cod. Sin. has “ Lord.” 

16 Isa, i. 2. 

17 In proof of the spiritual meaning of circumcision; 
feld joins the words to the preceding sentence. 

18 Isa. i. ro. 

19 Cod. Sin. reads, “‘ it is the voice,” corrected, however, as ‘above: 

20 Cod. Sin. has, *‘ that we might hear the word, and not only be- 
lieve,” Sterne a corrupt text. 

: 21 Cod. Sin., at first hand, has ‘‘ slew them,” but is corrected as 

above. 

22 The meaning is here very obscure, but the above rendering and 
punctuation seem preferable to any other. 

23 Cod. Sin., with several other ss., leaves out “‘ new.” 

24 Jer. iv. 3. Cod. Sin. has ‘‘ God” instead of “ Lord.” 

25 Deut. x. 16. 

26 This contrast seems to be marked in the original. Cod. Sin. 
has, “ Behold, receive again.” ; 
27 yer. ix, 25, 26, 
_ 78 Dressel and Hilgenfeld read, “their covenant,” as does Cod. 
Sin.; we have followed Hefele. 
. 29 Cod. Sin, has “ children of love ,” omitting “ richly;” and insert 
ing it before ‘‘ looking forward.” 

3° Literally, “‘ doctrines.” 


but Hilgen- 


THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS. 





cised ten, and eight, and three hundred men 
of his household.”! What, then, was the knowl- 
edge given to him in this? Learn the eighteen 
first, and then the three hundred.? The ten 
and the eight are thus denoted — Ten by I, and 
Eight by H.3 You have [the initials of the 
name of] Jesus. And because* the cross was 
to express the grace [of our redemption] by the 
letter T, he says also, “Three Hundred.” He 
signifies, therefore, Jesus by two letters, and the 
cross by one. He knows this, who has put 
within us the engrafteds gift of His doctrine. 
No one has been admitted by me to a more 
excellent piece of knowledge® than this, but I 
know that ye are worthy. 


CHAP. X.— SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PRE- 
CEPTS OF MOSES RESPECTING DIFFERENT KINDS 
OF FOOD. 


Now, wherefore did Moses say, “Thou shalt 
not eat the swine, nor the eagle, nor the hawk, 
nor the raven, nor any fish which is not possessed 
of scales?’”??7 He embraced three doctrines in 
his mind [in doing so]. Moreover, the Lord 
saith to them in Deuteronomy, “ And I will es- 
tablish my ordinances among this people.”* Is 
there then not a command of God that they 
should not eat [these things]? There is, but 
Moses spoke with a spiritual reference.? For 
this reason he named the swine, as much as to 
say, “Thou shalt not join thyself to men who 
resemble swine.” For when they live in pleas- 
ure, they forget their Lord ; but when they come 
to want, they acknowledge the Lord. And [in 
like manner] the swine, when it has eaten, does 
not recognize its master; but when hungry it 
cries out, and on receiving food is quiet again. 
“Neither shalt thou eat,” says he “the eagle, 
nor the hawk, nor the kite, nor the raven.” 
“Thou shalt not join thyself,” he means, “to 
such men as know not how to procure food for 
themselves by labour and sweat, but seize on 
that of others in their iniquity, and although 
wearing an aspect of simplicity, are on the watch 
to plunder others.” "° So these birds, while they 
sit idle, inquire how they may devour the flesh 





1 Not found in Scripture; but comp. Gen. xvii. 26, 27, xiv. 14. 

2 Cod, Sin. inserts, “ and then making a pause.” 5 ‘ 

3 This sentence is altogether omitted by inadvertence in Cod. Sin. 

4 Some mss. here read, “and further:” the above is the reading 
in Cod. Sin., and is also that of Hefele. ee 

5 This isrendered in the Latin, “the more profound gift,” re- 
ferring, as it does, to the Gzoszs of the initiated. The same word is 
used in chap. i. : 

6 Literally, ‘has learned a more germane (or genuine) word 
from me,” being an idle vaunt on account of the ingenuity in inter- 
preting Scripture he has just displayed. 

7 €od. in, has “ portion,” corrected, however, 
Lev. xi. and Deut. xiv. 

8 Deut. iv. 1. 

9 Literally, ‘‘ in spirit.” 

10 Cod. Sin. inserts, ‘and gaze about for some way of escape on 
account of their greediness, even as these birds alone do not procure 
food for themselves (by labour), but sitting idle, seek to devour the 
flesh of others.” The text as above seems preferable: Hilgenfeld, 
however, follows the Greek. 


as above. See 








143 


of others, proving themselves pests [to all] by 
their wickedness. ‘And thou shalt not eat,” he 
says, “the lamprey, or the polypus, or the cuttle- 
fish.”” He means, “Thou shalt not join thyself 
or be like to such men as are ungodly to the 
end, and are condemned" to death.” In like 
manner as those fishes, above accursed, float in 
the deep, not swimming [on the surface] like 
the rest, but make their abode in the mud which 
lies at the bottom. Moreover, “Thou shalt 
not,” he says, “eat the hare.” Wherefore? 
“Thou shalt not be a corrupter of boys, nor 
like unto such.”’ 2 Because the hare multiplies, 
year by year, the places of its conception ; for 
as many years as it lives so many’ it has. 
Moreover, “Thou shalt not eat the hyena.” 
He means, “Thou shalt not be an adulterer, 
nor a corrupter, nor be like to them that are 
such.” Wherefore? Because that animal an- 
nually changes its sex, and is at one time male, 
and at another female. Moreover, he has rightly 
detested the weasel. For he means, “Thou 
shalt not be like to those whom we hear of as 
committing wickedness with the mouth,"t on ac- 
count of their uncleanness ; nor shalt thou be 
joined to those impure women who commit ini- 
quity with the mouth. For this animal conceives 
by the mouth.” Moses then issued '5 three doc- 
trines concerning meats with a spiritual signifi- 
cance; but they received them according to 
fleshly desire, as if he had merely spoken of 
[literal] meats. David, however, comprehends 
the knowledge of the three doctrines, and speaks 
in like manner: “ Blessed is the man who hath 
not walked in the counsel of the ungodly,” * 
even as the fishes [referred to] go in darkness 
to the depths [of the sea]; “and hath not 
stood in the way of sinners,” even as those who 
profess to fear the Lord, but go astray like swine ; 
“ and hath not sat in the seat of scorners,” "7 even 
as those birds that lie in wait for prey. Take a 
full and firm grasp of this spiritual '* knowledge. 
But Moses says still further, ‘‘ Ye shall eat every 
animal that is cloven-footed and ruminant.” 
What does he mean? [The ruminant anima 
denotes him] who, on receiving food, recognizes 
Him that nourishes him, and being satisfied 
by Him," is visibly made glad. Well spake 
[Moses], having respect to the commandment. 





11 Cod. Sin. has, “‘ condemned already.” 

12 Dressel has a note upon this passage, in which he refers the 
words we have rendered “‘corrupters of boys,” to those who by their 
dissolute lives waste their fortunes, and so entail destruction on their 
children; but this does not appear satisfactory. Comp. Clem, Alex. 
Pedag. ii. 10. 

13 Wehave left rp¥mas untranslated. [Cavities, i.e, of conception]. 

14 Cod. Sin. has, “ with the body through uncleanness,” and so 
again in the last clause. 3 ; 

15 Cod. Sin. inserts, ‘ having received.” 

16 Ps, i. 1. 

17 Literally, “‘of the pestilent.’ 

18 Cod. Sin. reads “ perfectly ” instead of “ perfect,” as do most 
mss.; but, according to edt: we should read, ‘‘ have a ‘gas 
knowledge concerning the food.” Hilgenfeld follows the Greek, 

19 Or, ‘resting upon Him,” 


. 


144 THE EPISTLE 


OF BARNABAS. 





What, then, does he mean? That we ought to 
join ourselves to those that fear the Lord, those 
who meditate in their heart on the command- 
ment which they have received, those who both 
utter the judgments of the Lord and observe 
them, those who know that meditation is a work 
of gladness, and who ruminate' upon the word 
of the Lord. But what means the cloven- 
footed? That the righteous man also walks in 
this world, yet looks forward to the holy state ? 
[to come]. Behold how well Moses legislated. 
But how was it possible for them to understand 
or comprehend these things? We then, rightly 
understanding his commandments,3 explain them 
as the Lord intended. For this purpose He cir- 
cumcised our ears and our hearts, that we might 
understand these things. 


CHAP. XI.— BAPTISM AND THE CROSS PREFIGURED 
IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


Let us further inquire whether the Lord took 
any care to foreshadow the water [of baptism] 
and the cross. Concerning the water, indeed, 
it is written, in reference to the Israelites, that 
they should not receive that baptism which leads 
to the remission of sins, but should procure ¢ 
another for themselves. The prophet therefore 
declares, “‘ Be astonished, O heaven, and let the 
earth tremble 5 at this, because this people hath 
committed two great evils: they have forsaken 
Me, a living fountain, and have hewn out for 
themselves broken cisterns.° Is my holy hill 
Zion a desolate rock? For ye shall be as the 
fledglings of a bird, which fly away when the 
nest is removed.””7 And again saith the prophet, 
“T will go before thee and make level the moun- 
tains, and will break the brazen gates, and bruise 
in pieces the iron bars; and I will give thee the 
secret,? hidden, invisible treasures, that they 
may know that I am the Lord God.”9 And 
“He shall dwell in a lofty cave of the strong 
rock.” '° Furthermore, what saith He in refer- 
ence to the Son? “ His water is sure ;'! ye shall 
see the King in His glory, and your soul shall 
meditate on the fear of the Lord.” And again 
He saith in another prophet, “The man who 
doeth these things shall be like a tree planted 
by the courses of waters, which shall yield its 
fruit in due season ; and his leaf shall not fade, 
and all that he doeth shall prosper. Not so are 








I Cod. Sin. here has the singular, “ one who ruminates.” 
2 Literally, ‘‘ holy age.” 
3 Cod. Sin. inserts again, “ rightly,” 
4 Literally, “ should build.” 
5 Cod. Sin. has, “confine still more,” corrected to “ tremble still 
more. 
© Cod. Sin. has, “ have dug a pit of death.” See Jer. ii. 12, 13. 
7 Comp. Isa. xvi. 1, 2. 
8 Literally, “dark.” Cod. Sin. has, “of darkness.” 
9 Isa, xlv, 2, 3. 
10 Tsa. xxxiii. 16, Cod. Sin, has, “‘ thou shalt dwell.” 
i 11 Cod. Sin. entirely omits the question given above, and joins 
the water is sure” to the former sentence. 
12 Isa, xxxiii, 16-18, 





the ungodly, not so, but even as chaff, which the 
wind sweeps away from the face of the earth. 
Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in judg- 
ment, nor sinners in the counsel of the just ; for 
the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but 


the way of the ungodly shall perish.” *3 Mark 
how He has described at once both the water and 
the cross. For these words imply, Blessed are 
they who, placing their trust in the cross, have 
gone down into the water; for, says He, they 
shall receive their reward in due time: then He 
declares, I will recompense them. But now 
He saith,'* “‘ Their leaves shall not fade.’”’ This 
meaneth, that every word which proceedeth out 
of your mouth in faith and love shall tend to 
bring conversion and hope to many. Again, 
another prophet saith, “ And the land of Jacob 
shall be extolled above every land.”'5 This 
meaneth the vessel of His Spirit, which He shall 
glorify. Further, what says He? “ And there 
was a river flowing on the right, and from it 
arose beautiful trees; and whosoever shall eat 
of them shall live for ever.” ‘© This meaneth,'7 
that we indeed descend into the water full of 
sins and defilement, but come up, bearing fruit 
in our heart, having the fear [of God] and trust 
in Jesus in our spirit. ‘And whosoever shall 
eat of these shall live for ever.”” This meaneth : 
Whosoever, He declares, shall hear thee speak- 
ing, and believe, shall live for ever. 


CHAP. XII.— THE CROSS OF CHRIST FREQUENTLY 
ANNOUNCED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


In like manner He points to the cross of Christ 
in another prophet, who saith,'® “ And when shall 
these things be accomplished? And the Lord 
saith, When a tree shall be bent down, and again 
arise, and when blood shall flow out of wood.” 9 
Here again you have an intimation concerning 
the cross, and Him who should be crucified. 
Yet again He speaks of this?° in Moses, when 
Israel was attacked by strangers. And that He 
might remind them, when assailed, that it was 
on account of their sins they were delivered to 
death, the Spirit speaks to the heart of Moses, 
that he should make a figure of the cross,?" and 
of Him about to suffer thereon ; for unless they 
put their trust in Him, they shall be overcome 
for ever. Moses therefore placed one weapon 
above another in the midst of the hill,2? and 

13 Ps, i, 3-6. 

14 Cod. Sin has, “ what meaneth?” 

15 Zeph. iii. 19. 

16 Ezek. xlvii. 12. 

17 Omitted in Cod. Sin, 


18 Cod. Sin. refers this to God, and not to the rophet. 


19 From some unknown apocryphal book. ilgenfeld compares 
Hab. ii. rx. 


20 Cod, Sin. reads, ‘‘ He speaks to Moses,” 

21 Cod, Sin, omits ‘ and,” 

22 Cod, Sin, reads mvyus, which must here be translated “ heap” 
or “‘mass.” According to Hilgenfeld, however, mvypy is here equivas 
lent to rvypayia, “a fight.” The meaning would then be, that 
“Moses piled weapon upon weapon in the midst of the batile,” in- 
stead of “hill” (wyys), as above. 





THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS. 


145 





standing upon it, so as to be higher than all the 
people, he stretched forth his hands,’ and thus 
again Israel acquired the mastery. But when 
again he let down his hands, they were again 
destroyed. For what reason? That they might 
know that they could not be saved unless they 
put their trust in Him? And in another prophet 
He declares, “All day long I have stretched 
forth My hands to an unbelieving people, and one 
that gainsays My righteous way.’’3 And again 
- Moses makes a type of Jesus, [signifying] that 
it was necessary for Him to suffer, [and also] 
that He would be the author of life+ [to others], 
whom they believed to have destroyed on the 
cross 5 when Israel was falling. For since trans- 
gression was committed by Eve through means 
of the serpent, [the Lord] brought it to pass 
that every [kind of] serpents bit them, and they 
died,° that He might convince them, that on ac- 
count of their transgression they were given over 
to the straits of death. Moreover Moses, when 
he commanded, “ Ye shall not have any graven 
or molten [image] for your God,”7 did so that 
he might reveal a type of Jesus. Moses then 
makes a brazen serpent, and places it upon 
a beam,’ and by proclamation assembles the 
people. When, therefore, they were come to- 
gether, they besought Moses that he would offer 
sacrifice? in their behalf, and pray for their re- 
covery. And Moses spake unto them, saying, 
“When any one of you is bitten, let him come 
to the serpent placed on the pole; and let him 
hope and believe, that even though dead, it is 
able to give him life, and immediately he shall 
be restored.” '° And they did so. Thou hast 
in this also [an indication of] the glory of 
Jesus ; for in Him and to Him are all things.” 
What, again, says Moses to Jesus (Joshua) the 
son of Nave, when he gave him ” this name, as 
being a prophet, with this view only, that all the 
people might hear that the Father would reveal 
all things con~erning His Son Jesus to the son "3 
of Nave? This name then being given him 
when he sent him to spy out the land, he said, 
“Take a book into thy hands, and write what 
the Lord declares, that the Son of God will in 
the last days cut off from the roots all the house 
of Amalek.” 4 Behold again: Jesus who was 





1 Thus standing in the form of a cross. 
2 Or, as some read, “in the cross,” 
3 Isa, Ixv. 2. ‘ wae 
4 Cod. Sin. has, “and He shall make him alive. 
5 Literally, “‘ the sign.” : 
6 Comp. Num. xxi, 6-9; John iii. 14-18. . 
7 Deut. xxvii. 15. Cod, Sin. reads, “‘ molten or graven, 
8 Instead of ev dox@, “on a beam,” Cod. Sin. with other Mss. has 
év8dgws, ‘ manifestly,” which is adopted by Hilgenfeld, 
9 Cod. Sin. simply reads, ‘‘ offer supplication. 
to Num. xxi. 9. 
11 Comp. Col. i. 16. ee. eat 
12 Cod Sin, has the imperative, ‘‘ Put on him; ” but it is connected 
as above. 3 é a 
13 Cod. Sin. closes the sentence with ¥esus, and imserts, ‘‘ Moses 
said therefore to Jesus.” 
14 Ex, xvil. 14 





manifested, both by type and in the flesh,"5 is 
not the Son of man, but the Son of God. Since, 
therefore, they were to say that Christ was the 
son '® of David, fearing and understanding the 
error of the wicked, he saith, “The Lord said 
unto my Lord, Sit at My right hand, until I 
make Thine enemies Thy footstool.”'7 And 
again, thus saith Isaiah, “The Lord said to 
Christ,"* my Lord, whose right hand I have 
holden,’? that the nations should yield obedience 
before Him; and I will break in pieces the 
strength of kings.” 2° Behold how David calleth 
Him Lord and the Son of God. 


CHAP. XIII.—- CHRISTIANS, AND NOT JEWS, THE 
HEIRS OF THE COVENANT. 


But let us see if this people?! is the heir, or 
the former, and if the covenant belongs to us 
or to them. Hear ye now what the Scripture 
saith concerning the people. Isaac prayed for 
Rebecca his wife, because she was barren; and 
she conceived.??_ Furthermore also, Rebecca went 
forth to inquire of the Lord; and the Lord said 
to her, “Two nations are in thy womb, and two 
peoples in thy belly ; and the one people shall 
surpass the other, and the elder shall serve the 
younger.” ?3_ You ought to understand who was 
Isaac, who Rebecca, and concerning what per- 
sons He declared that this people should be 
greater than that. And in another prophecy 
Jacob speaks more clearly to his son Joseph, 
saying, “Behold, the Lord hath not deprived 
me of thy presence ; bring thy sons to me, that 
I may bless them.” 74 And he brought Manasseh 
and Ephraim, desiring that Manasseh?5 should 
be blessed, because he was the. elder. With 
this view Joseph led him to the right hand of 
his father Jacob. But Jacob saw in spirit the 
type of the people to arise afterwards. And 
what says [the Scripture]? And Jacob changed 
the direction of his hands, and laid his right 
hand upon the head of Ephraim, the second 
and younger, and blessed him. And Joseph 
said to Jacob, “Transfer thy right hand to the 
head of Manasseh,”5 for he is my first-born son.” 7° 
And Jacob said, “I know it, my son, I know it; 
but the elder shall serve the younger: yet he also 
shall be blessed.””27. Ye see on whom he laid’® 
[his hands], that this people should be first, and 





1s Comp. 1 Tim. iii. 16. : : 

16 ‘That is, merely human: a reference is supposed to the Ebio 
nites. on ts 

17 Ps, cx, 1; Matt. xxil. 43-45. 

18 Cod. Sin. corrects “‘ to Cyrus,” as LXX. 

19 Cod, Sin. has, “he has taken hold.” 

20 Isa. xlv. 1. 

21 That is, ‘‘ Christians,” 

22 Gen. xxv. 21. 

23 ney XXV. 23. 

24 Gen. xlviil, 11, 9- ; F 

25 Cod. Sin. ete pach time “ Ephraim,” by a manifest mistake, 
instead of Manasseh. 

26 Gen. xlviii. 18. 

27 Gen. xlviii. 19. 


28 Or, “ of whom he willed.” 


146 


THE, EPISTLE OF BARNABAS. 





heir of the covenant. If then, still further, the 
same thing was intimated through Abraham, we 
reach the perfection of our knowledge. What, 
then, says He to Abraham? “Because thou 
hast believed,' it is imputed to thee for right- 
eousness: behold, I have made thee the father 
of those nations who believe in the Lord while 
in [a state of] uncircumcision.” ? 


CHAP, XIV.—THE. LORD HATH GIVEN US THE TES- 
TAMENT WHICH MOSES RECEIVED AND BROKE, 


Yes [it is even so] ; but let us inquire if the 
Lord has really given that testament which He 
swore to the fathers that He would give3 to the 
people. He did give it; but they were not 
worthy to receive it, on account of their sins. 
For the prophet declares, “ And Moses was fast- 
ing forty days and forty nights on Mount Sinai, 
that he might receive the testament of the Lord 
for the people.”* And he received from the 
Lord 5 two tables, written in the spirit by the 
finger of the hand of the Lord. And Moses 
having received them, carried them down to give 
to the people. And the Lord said to Moses, 
“‘Moses, Moses, go down quickly ; for thy peo- 
ple hath sinned, whom thou didst bring out of 
the land of Egypt.”° And Moses understood: 
that they had again”? made molten images ; and 
he threw the tables out of his hands, and the 
tables of the testament of the Lord were broken. 
Moses then received it, but they proved them- 
selves unworthy. Learn now how we have re- 
ceived it. Moses, as a servant,® received it; but 
the Lord himself, having suffered in our behalf, 
hath given it to us, that we should be the people 
of inheritance. But He was manifested, in order 
that they might be perfected in their iniquities, 
and that we, being constituted heirs through 
Him,’ might receive the testament of the Lord 
Jesus, who was prepared for this end, that by 
His personal manifestation, redeeming our hearts 
(which were already wasted by death, and given 
over to the iniquity of error) from darkness, He 
might by His word enter into a covenant with 
us. For it is written how the Father, about to 
redeem '° us from darkness, commanded Him 
to prepare‘ a holy people for Himself. The 
prophet therefore declares, “I, the Lord Thy 
God, have called Thee in righteousness, and will 


1 Cod. Sin. has, ‘‘ when alone believing,” and is followed by Hil- 
genfeld to this effect: ‘‘ What, then, says He to Abraham, when, 
alone believing, he was placed in righteousness? Behold,” etc. 

2 Gen. xv. 6, xvii. 5; comp. Rom. iv. 3. 

3 Cod. Sin. absurdly repeats ‘‘ to give.” 

4 Ex. xxiv. 18, 

5 Ex, xxxi. 18. . 

6 Ex, xxxii. 7; Deut. ix. x2. 

7 Cod. Sin. reads, “for themselves.” 

* § Comp. Heb. iii. 5. 
9 Cod. Sin. and other mss, read, “ through Him who inherited.” 
Cod. Sin. refers this to Christ. 
11 Cod. Sin. reads, “be prepared.” Hilgenfeld follows Cod. Sin. 
so far, and reads, “ For it is written how the Father commanded Him 
who was to redeem us from darkness (avT@ -— Avrpwodevos) to pre- 
pare a holy people for Himself.” ; 





hold Thy hand, and will strengthen Thee ; and 
I have given Thee for a covenant to the people, 
for alight to the nations, to open the eyes of the 
blind, and to bring forth from fetters them that 
are bound, and those that sit in darkness out of 
the prison-house.” Ye perceive,'3 then, whence 
we have been redeemed. And again, the prophet 
says, “ Behold, I have appointed Thee as a light 
to the nations, that Thou mightest be for salva- 
tion even to the ends of the earth, saith the Lord 
God that redeemeth thee.” ‘4 And again, the 
prophet saith, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon 
me; because He hath anointed me to preach 
the Gospel to the humble: He hath sent me to 
heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim deliverance 
to the captives, and recovery of sight to the 
blind ; to announce the acceptable year of the 
Lord, and the day of recompense ; to comfort 
all that mourn.” #5 


CHAP. XV.—THE FALSE AND THE TRUE SABBATH. 


Further, * also, it is written concerning the 
Sabbath in the Decalogue which [the Lord] 
spoke, face to face, to Moses on Mount Sinai, 
“ And sanctify ye the Sabbath of the Lord with 
clean hands and a pure heart.” 17. And He says 
in another place, “ If my sons keep the Sabbath, 
then will I cause my mercy to rest upon them.’’® 
The Sabbath is mentioned at the beginning of 
the creation [thus]: “And God made in six 
days the works of His hands, and made an end 
on the seventh day, and rested on it, and sancti- 
fied it.” '9 Attend, my children, to the meaning 
of this expression, “‘ He finished in six days.” 
This implieth that the Lord will finish all things 
in six thousand years, for a day is 7° with Him a 
thousand years. And He Himself testifieth, 7* 
saying, “ Behold, to-day 2? will be as a thousand 
years.” 23 Therefore, my children, in six days, 
that is, in six thousand years, all things will be 
finished. “And He rested on the seventh day.” 
This meaneth: when His Son, coming [again], 
shall destroy the time of the wicked man, 74 and 
judge the ungodly, and change the sun, and the 
moon,?5 and the stars, then shall He truly rest 
on the seventh day. Moreover, He says, “Thou 
shalt sanctify it with pure hands and a pure 
heart.” If, therefore, any one can now sanctify 





12 Isa, xlii. 6, 7. 

13 Cod. Sin. has, “‘we know.” 

14 Isa. xlix.6. The text of Cod. Sin., and of the other mss., is 
here in great confusion: we have followed that given by Hefele. 

15 Tsa. Ixi. 1, 2. 

16 Cod. Sin. reads ‘‘ because,” but this is corrected to ‘‘ moreover.” 

17 Ex, xx. 8; Deut. v. 12. 

18 Jer. xvii. 24, 25. ; 

19 Gen. ii. 2. The Hebrew text is here followed, the Septuagint 
ey sixth” instead of “‘ seventh.” 

20 Cod. Sin. reads “ signifies.” F 

21 Cod. Sin. adds, “to me.” 

22 Cod. Sin. reads, “‘ The day of the Lord shall be as a thousand 
years. 

23 Ps. xc. 4; 

24 Cod. Sin. 

26 Ced. Sin, 


2 Pet. iii. 8. } 
seems properly to omit “‘ of the wicked man.” 
places stars before msoore. 


THE EPISTLE 





OF BARNABAS. 149 





the day which God hath sanctified, except he is 
pure in heart in all things, we are deceived.? 
Behold, therefore : 3 certainly then one properly 
resting sanctifies it, when we ourselves, having 
received the promise, wickedness no longer ex- 
isting, and all things having been made new by 
“the Lord, shall be able to work righteousness.‘ 
‘Then we shall be able to sanctify it, having been 
first sanctified ourselves.5 Further, He says to 
them, “Your new moons and your Sabbaths I 
cannot endure.’’® Ye perceive how He speaks : 
Your present Sabbaths are not acceptable to Me, 
but that is which I have made, [namely this, ] 
when, giving rest to all things, I shall make a 
beginning of the eighth day, that is, a beginning 
of another world. Wherefore, also, we keep the 
eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which 
Jesus rose again from the dead.? And ® when 
He had manifested Himself, He ascended into 
the heavens. 


CHAP. XVI.— THE SPIRITUAL TEMPLE OF GOD. 


Moreover, I will also tell you concerning the 
temple, how the wretched [Jews], wandering in 
‘error, trusted not in God Himself, but in the 
temple, as being the house of God. For almost 
after the manner of the Gentiles they worshipped 

- Him in the temple.? But learn how the Lord 
‘speaks, when abolishing it: “Who hath meted 
out heaven with a span, and the earth with his 
palm? Have notI?”'° “Thus saith the Lord, 
’ Heaven is My throne, and the earth My foot- 
‘stool: what kind of house will ye build to Me, 
‘or what is the place of My rest?” '* Ye per- 
ceive that their hope is vain. Moreover, He 
again says, “ Behold, they who have cast down 
this temple, even they shall build it up again.” 
It has so happened.*3 For through their going to 
war, it was destroyed by their enemies ; and now 
they, as the servants of their enemies, shall re- 
build it. Again, it was revealed that the city 
and the temple and the people of Israel were to 
be given up. For the Scripture saith, “And it 
shall come to pass in the last days, that the Lord 


I Cod. Sin. reads “‘ again,” but is corrected as above. 

2 The meaning is, “If the Sabbaths of the Jews were the true 
Sabbath, we should have been deceived by God, who demands pure 
hands and a pure heart.” — HEFELE. f 

3 Cod. Sin. has, ‘‘ But if not.” Hilgenfeld’s text of this confused 

assage reads as follows: ‘‘ Who then can senclly the day which God 
oe sanctified, except the man who is of a pure heart? We are de- 
ceived (or mistaken) in all things. Behold, therefore,” etc. . 

4 Cod. Sin. reads, “ resting aright, we shall sanctify it, having 
been justified, and received the promise, iniquity no longer existing, 
but all things having been made new by the Lord.” 

5 Cod. Sis. reads, “ Shall we not then?” 

6 Isa, i. 13. , 

7. « Barnabas here bears testimony to the observance of the Lord’s 
Day in early times.”"— HEFELE. | 

8 We here follow the punctuation of Dressel: Hefele places only a 
comma between the clauses, and inclines to think that the writer im- 
plies that the ascension of Christ took place on the first day of the 

* week. oe 

9 That is, “ they worshipped the temple instead of Him. 

to [sa. xl. 12. ’ 

It Jsa. Ixvi. 1. 

12 Comp. Isa. xlix..17 (Sept.). 

%3 Cod, Sin, omits this, 


will deliver up the sheep of His pasture, and 
their sheep-fold and tower, to destruction.” 
And it so happened as the Lord had spoken. 
Let us inquire, then, if there still is a temple of 
God. There is—where He himself declared 
He would make and finish it. For it is written, 
“And it shall come to pass, when the week is 
completed, the temple of God shall be built in 
glory in the name of the Lord.” "5 I find, there- 
fore, that a temple does exist. Learn, then, how 
it shall be built in the name of the Lord. Before 
we believed in God, the habitation of our heart 
was corrupt and weak, as being indeed like a 
temple made with hands. For it was full of 
idolatry, and was a habitation of demons, through 
our doing such things as were opposed to [the 
will of | God. But it shall be built, observe ye, 
in the name of the Lord, in order that the tem- 
ple of the Lord may be built in glory. How? 
Learn [as follows]. Having received the for- 
giveness of sins, and placed our trust in the name 
of the Lord, we have become new creatures, 
formed again from the beginning. Wherefore 
in our habitation God truly dwells in us. How? 
His word of faith; His calling ** of promise; 
the wisdom of the statutes; the commands of 
the doctrine ; He himself prophesying in us; 
He himself dwelling in us; opening to us who 
were enslaved by death the doors of the temple, 
that is, the mouth ; and by giving us repentance 
introduced us into the incorruptible temple.:7 He 
then, who wishes to be saved, looks not to man,’® 
but. to Him who dwelleth in him, and speaketh 
in him, amazed at never having either heard him 
utter such words with his mouth, nor himself 
having ever desired to hear them.:9 This is the 
spiritual temple built for the Lord. 


CHAP. XVII. — CONCLUSION OF THE FIRST PART OF 
THE EPISTLE. 


As far as was possible, and could be done 
with perspicuity, I cherish the hope that, accord- 
ing to my desire, I have omitted none ”° of those 





things at present [demanding consideration], 
which bear upon your salvation. For if I should 
write to you about things future,?" ye would not 
understand, because such knowledge is hid in 
parables. These things then are so. 


14 Comp. Isa. v., Jer. xxv.; but the words do not occur in Scrip. 
ture. 

15 Dan. ix. 24-27; Hagg. ii. 10. 

16 Cod. Sin. reads, ‘‘the calling.” 

17 Cod. Sin. gives the clauses of this sentence separately, each 
occupying a line. ; ‘ ; 

18 ‘That is, the man who is engaged in preaching the Gospel. _ 

19 Such is the punctuation adopted by Hefele, Dressel, and Hil- 

enfeld. 

aa Cod. Sin. reads, ‘‘my soul hopes that it has not omitted any- 
thing.” 

at Cod. 'Sin., ** about things present or future.” 
of this passage is as follows: ‘‘ My mind and soul hopes that, accord- 
ing to my desire, I have omitted none of the things that pertain to 
salvatiod? For if I should write to you about things present or 
future,” etc. Hefele gives the text as above, and understands the 
meaning to be, “‘ points bearing on the sresen? argument.” 


Hilgenfeld’s text 


148 


THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS. 


erence 


CHAP. XVIII.—SECOND PART OF THE EPISTLE. 
THE TWO WAYS. 


But let us now pass to another sort of knowl- 
edge and doctrine. There are two ways of doc- 
trine and authority, the one of light, and the 
other of darkness. But there is a great differ- 
ence between these two ways. For over one 
are stationed the light-bringing angels of God, 
but over the other the angels' of Satan. And 
He indeed (i.e., God) is Lord for ever and 
ever, but he (i.e., Satan) is prince of the time’ 
of iniquity. 


CHAP. XIX.— THE WAY OF LIGHT. 


The way of light, then, is as follows. If any 
one desires to travel to the appointed place, he 
must be zealous in his works. The knowledge, 
therefore, which is given to us for the purpose of 
walking in this way, is the following. Thou 
shalt love Him that created thee :3 thou shalt 
glorify Him that redeemed thee from death. 
Thou shalt be simple in heart, and rich in spirit. 
Thou shalt not join thyself to those who walk in 
the way of death. Thou shalt hate doing what 
is unpleasing to God: thou shalt hate all hypoc- 
risy.. Thou shalt not forsake the commandments 
of the Lord. Thou shalt not exalt thyself, but 
shalt be of a lowly mind.4 Thou shalt not take 
glory to thyself. Thou shalt not take evil coun- 
sel against thy neighbour. Thou shalt not allow 
‘over-boldness to enter into thy soul.’ Thou 
shalt not commit fornication: thou shalt not 
commit adultery: thou shalt not be a corrupter 
of youth. Thou shalt not let the word of God 
issue from thy lips with any kind of impurity.® 
Thou shalt not accept persons when thou reprov- 
est any one for transgression. Thou shalt be 
meek: thou shalt be peaceable. Thou shalt 
tremble at the words which thou hearest.? 
Thou shalt not be mindful of evil against thy 
brother. Thou shalt not be of doubtful mind ® 
as to whether a thing shall be or not. Thou 
shalt not take the name? of the Lord in vain. 
Thou shalt love thy neighbour more than thine 
own soul.'? Thou “shalt not slay the child by 
procuring abortion ; nor, again, shalt thou destroy 
it after it is born. Thou shalt not withdraw thy 
hand from thy son, or from thy daughter, but from 
their infancy thou shalt teach them the fear of 
the Lord." Thou shalt not covet what is thy 


t Comp. 2 Cor. xii. 7. 
2 Cod. Sin. reads, “‘ of the present time of iniquity.” 
3 Cod. Sin, inserts, ‘‘ Thou shalt fear Him that formed thee.” 
4 Cod. Sin. adds, “ in all things.” 
5 Literally, ‘‘ shalt not give insolence to thy soul.” 
6 “* That is, while proclaiming the Gospel, thou shalt not in any 
way be of corrupt morals.” — HEFELE. 
_ 7 Isa, Ixvi. 2. All the preceding clauses are given in Cod, Sin, in 
distinct lines. 
8 Comp. James i. 8. 
9 Cod. Sin. has ‘‘ thy name,” bat this is corrected as above. 
To Cod. Sin. corrects to, “as thine own soul.” 
“11 Cod. Sin, has, “ of God.” 





neighbour’s; nor shalt thou be avaricious. Thou 
shalt not be joined in soul with the haughty, but 
thou shalt be reckoned with the righteous and 
lowly. Receive thou as good things the trials * 
which come upon thee.’ Thou shalt not be of 
double mind or of double tongue,’* for a double 
tongue is a snare of death. Thou shalt be sub- 
ject *5 to the Lord, and to [other] masters as the 
image of God, with modesty and fear. Thou 
shalt not issue orders with bitterness to thy maid- 
servant or thy man-servant, who trust in the same 
[God "©], lest thou shouldst not ‘7 reverence that 
God who is above both; for He came to call 
men not according to their outward appearance,” 
but according as the Spirit had prepared them.’9 
Thou shalt communicate in all things with thy 
neighbour; thou shalt not call?° things thine 
own; for if ye are partakers in common of 
things which are incorruptible," how much more 
[should you be] of those things which are cor- 
ruptible !?2, Thou shalt not be hasty with thy 
tongue, for the mouth is a snare of death. As 
far as possible, thou shalt be pure in thy soul. 
Do not be ready to stretch forth thy hands to 
take, whilst thou contractest them to give. 
Thou shalt love, as the apple of thine eye, every 
one that speaketh to thee the word of the Lord. 
Thou shalt remember the day of judgment, 
night and day. Thou shalt seek out every day 
the faces of the saints,?3 either by word examin- 
ing them, and going to exhort them, and medi- 
tating how to save a soul by the word,” or by 
thy hands thou shalt labour for the redemption 
of thy sins. Thou shalt not hesitate to give, 
nor murmur when thou givest. “Give to every 
one that asketh thee,’’?5 and thou shalt know 
who is the good Recompenser of the reward. 
Thou shalt preserve what thou hast received [in 
charge], neither adding to it nor taking from it. 
To the last thou shalt hate the wicked.?° [one].?7 
Thou shalt judge righteously. Thou shalt not 
make a schism, but thou shalt pacify those that 
contend by bringing them together. Thou shalt 


12 “ Difficulties,” or *‘ troubles.” 

13 Cod. Sin. adds, ‘‘ knowing that without God nothing happens,” 

14 Cod. Sin. has “ talkative,” and omits the following clause. 

15 Cod. Sin. has, ‘‘ Thou shalt be subject (Urorayyoy — untouched 
by the corrector) to masters as a type a God.” 

16 Inserted in Cod. Sin. 

17 Cod. Sin. has, ‘‘ they should not.” 

18 Comp. Eph. vi, 9. 

19 Comp. Rom, viil. 29, 30. 

20 Cod. Sin. has, ‘‘ and not call.” 

21 Cod. Sin. has, ‘ in that which is incorruptible.” 

22 Cod. Sin. has, “in things that are subject to death,” but is core 
rected as above. 

23 Or, ‘‘ the persons of the saints.” Cod. Sin. omits this clause, 
but it is added by a corrector. : 

24 The text is here confused in all the editions; we have followed 
that of Dressel. Sin. is defective. Hilgenfeld’s text reads, 
‘* Thou shalt seek out every day the faces of the saints, either labour- 
ing by word and going to exhort them, and meditating to save a soul 
by the word, or by thy hands thou shalt labour‘for the redemption of 
eg ad sete Apentical with shat given above. 

. Sin. omits this quotation from Matt. v. 42 or Luke vi. 
but it is added by a carnation ara 

26 . Sin. has, “‘ hate evil.” 

37 Ced. Sin. inserts “ and.” 


THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS. 


146 





confess thy sins. Thou shalt not go to prayer 
with an evil conscience. This is the way of 
light.* 


CHAP, XX.—- THE WAY OF DARKNESS. 


But the way of darkness? is crooked, and full 
of cursing ; for it is the way of eternal3 death 
with punishment, in which way are the things 
that destroy the soul, viz., idolatry, over-con- 
fidence, the arrogance of power, hypocrisy, 
double-heartedness, adultery, murder, rapine, 
haughtiness, transgression,* deceit, malice, self- 
sufficiency, poisoning, magic, avarice,5 want of 
the fear of God. [In this way, too,] are those 
who persecute the good, those who hate truth, 
those who love falsehood, those who know not 
the reward of righteousness, those who cleave 
not to that which is good, those who attend not 
with just judgment to the widow and orphan, 
those who watch not to the fear of God, [but 
incline] to wickedness, from whom meekness 
and patience are far off ; persons who love vanity, 
follow after a reward, pity not the needy, labour 
not in aid of him who is overcome with toil ; 
who are prone to evil-speaking, who know not 
Him that made them, who are murderers of 
children, destroyers of the workmanship of God ; 
who turn away him that is in want, who oppress 
the afflicted, who are advocates of the rich, who 
are unjust judges of the poor, and who are in 
every respect transgressors. 


CHAP, XXI. — CONCLUSION. 


It is well, therefore,° that he who has learned 
the judgments of the Lord, as many as have 
been written, should walk in them. For he who 
keepeth these shall be glorified in the kingdom 


Seen 


I Cod. Sin. omits this clause: it is inserted by a corrector. 
2 Literally, ‘‘ of the Black One.” A 

3 Cod. Sin. joins “eternal” with way, instead of death. 
4 Cod. Sin. reads “‘ transgressions.” 

5 Cod. Sin, omits “‘ magic, avarice.” 

6 Cod. Sin. omits “‘ therefore.” 


of God; but he who chooseth other things’ 
shall be destroyed with his works. On this 
account there will be a resurrection,’ on this 
account a retribution. I beseech you who are 
superiors, if you will receive any counsel of my 
good-will, have among yourselves those to whom 
you may show kindness: do not forsake them. 
For the day is at hand on which all things shall 
perish with the evil [one]. The Lord is near, 
and His reward. Again, and yet again, I be- 
seech you: be good lawgivers% to one another ; 
continue faithful counsellors of one another ; 
take away from among you all hypocrisy. And 
may God, who ruleth over all the world, give to 
you wisdom, intelligence, understanding, knowl- 
edge of His judgments,’ with patience. And 
be ye! taught of God, inquiring diligently what 
the Lord asks from you; and do it that ye may 
be safe in the day of judgment.’ And if you 
have any remembrance of what is good, be 
mindful of me, meditating on these things, in 
order that both my desire and watchfulness may 
result in some good. I beseech you, entreating 
this as a favour. While yet you are in this fair 
vessel,'3 do not fail in any one of those things," 
but unceasingly seek after them, and fulfil every 
commandment; for these things are worthy.’s 
Wherefore I have been the more earnest to 


_write to you, as my ability served,’® that I might 


cheer you. Farewell, ye children of love and 
peace. The Lord of glory and of all grace be 
with your spirit. Amen.’7 





7 The things condemned in the previous chapter. 

8 Cod. Sin. has “ resurrections,’”’ but is corrected as above. 

9 Cod. Sin. has, “ lawgivers of good things.” 

to Cod. Sin. omits the preposition. 

11 Cod. Sin. omits this. 

12 Cod. Sin. reads, “‘ that ye may be found in the day of judgment,” 

which Hilgenfeld adopts. Aha , 

13 Literally, ‘‘ While yet the good vessel is with you,” i.e., as long 
‘ou are in the body. pats) 
4 Cod. Sin. reads, “‘ fail not in any one of yourselves,” which is 

adopted by Hilgenfeld. , 

15 Corrected in Cod. Sin. to, ‘‘ it is worthy.” 

16 Cod. Sin. omits this clause, but it is inserted by the corrector. 

17 Cod. Sin, omits “‘ Amen,” and adds at the close, “ Epistle af 
Barnabas.” 


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INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


TO TNE 


FRAGMENTS OF PAPIAS. 


[a.D. 70-155.] Ir seems unjust to the holy man of whose comparatively large contributions to 
early Christian literature such mere relics have been preserved, to set them forth in these ver- 
sions, unaccompanied by the copious annotations of Dr. Routh. If even such crumbs from his 
table are not by any means without a practical value, with reference to the Canon and other 
matters, we may well credit the testimony (though disputed) of Eusebius, that he was a learned 
man, and well versed in the Holy Scripture.' All who name poor Papias are sure to do so with 
the apologetic qualification of that historian, that he was of slender capacity. Nobody who attrib- 
utes to him the millenarian fancies, of which he was but a narrator, as if these were the characteris- 
tics rather than the blemishes of his works, can fail to accept this estimate of our author. But more 
may be said when we come to the great name of Irenzeus, who seems to make himself responsible 
for them. ? 

Papias has the credit of association with Polycarp, in the friendship of St. John himself, and of 
“ others who had seen the Lord.” He is said to have been bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia, and 
to have died about the same time that Polycarp suffered ; but even this is questioned. So little 
do we know of one whose lost books, could they be recovered, might reverse the received judgment, 
and establish his claim to the disputed tribute which makes him, like Apollos, “ an eloquent man, 
and mighty in the Scriptures.” 

The following is the original InrropucTory NOTICE : — 


Tue principal information in regard to Papias is given in the extracts made among the frag- 
ments from the works of Irenzeus and Eusebius. He was bishop of the Church in Hierapolis, a 
city of Phrygia, in the first half of the second century. Later writers affirm that he suffered mar- 
tyrdom about A.D. 163; some saying that Rome, others that Pergamus, was the scene of his 
death. 

He was a hearer of the Apostle John, and was on terms of intimate intercourse with many 
who had known the Lord and His apostles. From these he gathered the floating traditions in 
regard to the sayings of our Lord, and wove them into a production divided into five books. This 
work does not seem to have been confined to an exposition of the sayings of Christ, but to have 
contained much historical information. 








1 See Lardner, ii. p. 119. : : 
2 Against Heresies, book v. chap. xxxiii. See the prudent note of Canon Robertson (History of the Christ. Church, vol. i. p. 116). 
15% 


152 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
NN 
Eusebius ' speaks of Papias as a man most learned in all things, and well acquainted with the 
Scriptures. In another passage * he describes him as of small capacity. The fragments of Papias 
are translated from the text given in Routh’s Religuie Sacre, vol. 1.3 
Fe EEE A a Serna ees we eee a es et ee Ee 
1 Hist. Eccl, iii. 39. , 


2 Jbrd. 
3 [Where the fragments with learned annotations and elucidations fill forty-four pages.] 


FRAGMENTS 


OF PAPIAS. 





I, 


FROM THE EXPOSITION OF THE ORACLES OF THE 
LORD." 


[THE writings of Papias in common circulation 
are five in number, and these are called an Ex- 
position of the Oracles of the Lord. Irenzus 
makes mention of these as the only works writ- 
ten by him, in the following words: “Now 
testimony is borne to these things in writing by 
Papias, an ancient man, who was a hearer of 
John, and a friend of Polycarp, in the fourth 
of his books ; for five books were composed by 
him.” Thus wrote Irenzeus. Moreover, Papias 
himself, in the introduction to his books, makes 
it manifest that he was not himself a hearer and 
eye-witness of the holy apostles ; but he tells us 
that he received the truths of our religion? from 
those. who were aquainted with them [the apos- 
tles] in the following words : ] 

But I shall not be unwilling to put down, 
along with my interpretations, whatsoever in- 
structions I received with care at any time from 
the elders, and stored up with care in my mem- 
ory, assuring you at the same time of their truth. 
For I did not, like the multitude, take pleasure 
in those who spoke much, but in those who 
taught the truth; nor in those who related 
strange commandments,‘ but in those who re- 
hearsed the commandments given by the Lord 
to faith,s and proceeding from truth itself. If, 
then, any one who had attended on the elders 
came, I asked minutely after their sayings, — 
what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by 
Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, 
or by Matthew, or by any other of the Lord’s 
disciples : which things® Aristion and the pres- 
eee 

3 This fragment is found in Eusebius, H7st. Eccd., iii. 39. 

2 Literally, ‘the things of faith.” 

3 Papias states that he will give an exact account of what the 
elders said; and that, in addition to this, he will accompany this ac- 
count with an explanation of the meaning and import of the statements. 

4 Literally, ‘‘ commandments belonging to others,” and therefore 
strange and novel to the followers of Christ. : 

5 Given to faith has been variously undefstood. Either not 
stated in direct language, but like parables given in figures, so that 
only the faithful could understand; or entrusted to faith, that is, to 
those who were possessed of faith, the faithful. at 

6 Which things: this is usually translated, ‘‘ what Aristion and 
John say;” and the translation is admissible. But the words more 


naturally mean, that John and Aristion, even at the time of his 
vdug weir telling nie some of the sayings of the Lord. 


five-and-twenty metretes of wine. 


byter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For 
I imagined that what was to be got from books 
was not so profitable to me as what came from 
the living and abiding voice. 


II? 


{The early Christians] called those who prac- 
tised a godly guilelessness,® children, (as is stated 
by Papias in the first book of the Lord’s Exposi- 
tions, and by Clemens Alexandrinus in his 
Pedagogue. | 

TIL9 


Judas walked about in this world a sad °° ex- 
ample of impiety; for his body having swollen 
to such an extent that he could not pass where 
a chariot could pass easily, he was crushed by 
the chariot, so that his bowels gushed out." 


Iv.3 


[As the elders who saw John the disciple of 
the Lord remembered that they had heard from 
him how the Lord taught in regard to those 
times, and said]: ‘The days will come in which 
vines shall grow, having each ten thousand 
branches, and in each branch ten thousand twigs, 
and in each true twig ten thousand shoots, and 
in every one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, 
and on every one of the clusters ten thousand 
grapes, and every grape when pressed will give 
And when 
any one of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, 
another shall cry out, ‘I am a better cluster, 
take me; bless the Lord through me.’ In like 
manner, [He said] that a grain of wheat would 





7 This fragment is found in the Schola of Maximus on the works 
of Dionysius the Areopagite. 

8 Literally, ‘a guilelessness according to God.” 

9 This fragment is found in CEcumenius, 

10 Literally, “‘ great.” 

11 Literally, ‘ were emptied out.” Theophylact, after quoting 
this passage, adds other particulars, as if they were derived from 
Papias. (Bue see Routh, i. pp. 26, 27.) He says that Judas’s eyes 
were so swollen that they could not see the light; that they were so 
sunk that they could not be seen, even by the optical instruments of 
physicians; and that the rest of his body was covered with run- 
nings and worms. He further states, that he died in a solitary spot, 
which was left desolate until his time; and no one could pass the 
place without stopping up his nose with his hands. 

12 From Irensus, Her., v. 32. [Hearsay at second-hand, and 
handed about among many, amounts to nothing as evidence. Note 
the reports of sermons, also, as they appear in our daily Journals. 
Whose reputation can survive if such be credited ? ] 


153 


154 


FRAGMENTS. OF PAPIAS. 











produce ten thousand ears, and that every ear 
would have ten thousand grains, and every grain 
would yield ten pounds of clear, pure, fine flour ; 
and that apples, and seeds, and grass would 
produce in similar proportions ; and that all ani- 


mals, feeding then only on the productions of 


the earth, would become peaceable and harmo- 
nious, and be in perfect subjection to man.” * 
[Testimony is borne to these things in writing 
by Papias, an ancient man, who was a hearer 


of John and a friend of Polycarp, in the fourth of 


his books; for five books were composed by 
him. And he added, saying, “Now these 
things are credible to believers. And Judas 
the traitor,” says he, “not believing, and ask- 
ing, ‘How shall such growths be accomplished 
by the Lord?’ the Lord said, ‘They shall see 
who shall come to them.’ These, then, are the 
times mentioned by the prophet Isaiah: ‘And 
the wolf shall lie down with the lamb,’ etc. 
(Isa. xi. 6 ff.).”"] 


Vv? 


As the presbyters say, then? those who are 
deemed worthy of an abode in heaven shall go 
there, others shall enjoy the delights of Paradise, 
and others shall possess the splendour of the 
city ;+ for everywhere the Saviour will be seen, 
according as they shall be worthy who see Him. 
But that there ‘is this distinction between the 
habitation of those who produce an hundred- 
fold, and that of those who produce sixty-fold, 
and that of those who produce thirty-fold ; for the 
first will be taken up into the heavens, the sec- 
ond class will dwell in Paradise, and the last will 
inhabit the city; and that on this account the 
Lord said, “In my Father’s house are many 
mansions :’’5 for all things belong to God, who 
supplies all with a suitable dwelling-place, even 
as His word says, that a share is given to all by 
the Father,° according as each one is or shall be 
worthy. And this is the couch? in which they 
shall recline who feast, being invited to the wed- 
ding. The presbyters, the disciples of the 
apostles, say that this is the gradation and ar- 
rangement of those who are saved, and that they 
advance through steps of this nature ; and that, 
moreover, they ascend through the Spirit to the 
Son, and through the Son to the Father; and 
that in due time the Son will yield up His work 
to the Father, even as it is said by the apostle, 
“For He must reign till He hath put all enemies 
under His feet. The last enemy that shall be 





1 Aste Grabe, afud Routh, r. 29.] 
2 This fragment is found in Irenzus, Her., v. 36; but it is a mere 


ess that the saying of the presbyters is taken from the work of 


apias. 
3 In the future state. 
4 The new Jerusalem on earth. 
5 John xiv. 2. 
6 Commentators suppose that the reference here is to Matt. xx. 23. 
7 Matt. xxii. 10. ~ : 


destroyed is death.” ® For in the times of the 
kingdom the just man who is on the earth shall 
forget to die. “But when He saith all things 
are put under Him, it is manifest that He is 
excepted which did put all things under Him. 
And when all things shall be subdued unto 
Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject 
unto Him that put all things under Him, that 
God may be all in all.’’9 


Nake 


[Papias, who is now mentioned by us, affirms 
that he received the sayings of the apostles from 
those who accompanied them, and he moreover 
asserts that he heard in person Aristion and the 
presbyter John." Accordingly he mentions them 
frequently by name, and in his writings gives 
their traditions. Our notice of these circum- 
stances may not be without its use. It may also 
be worth while to add to the statements of 
Papias already given, other passages of his in 
which he relates some miraculous deeds, stating 
that he acquired the knowledge of them from 
tradition. The residence of the Apostle Philip 
with his daughters in Hierapolis has been men- 
tioned above. We must now point out how 


‘Papias, who lived at the same time, relates that 


he had received a wonderful narrative from the 
daughters of Philip. For he relates that a dead 
man was raised to life in his day.'? He also men- 
tions another miracle relating to Justus, surnamed 
Barsabas, how he swallowed a deadly poison, and 
received no harm, on account of the grace of 
the Lord. The same person, moreover, has set 
down other things as coming to him from unwrit- 
ten tradition, amongst these some strange para- 
bles and instructions of the Saviour, and some 
other things of a more fabulous nature.’ Amongst 
these he says that there will be a millennium 
after the resurrection from the dead, when the 
personal reign of Christ will be established on 
this earth. He moreover hands down, in his own 
writing, other narratives given by the previously 
mentioned Aristion of the Lord’s sayings, and 
the traditions of the presbyter John. For infor- 
mation on these points, we can merely refer our 
readers to the books themselves ; but now, to the 
extracts already made, we shall add, as being a 
matter of primary importance, a tradition re- 
garding Mark who wrote the Gospel, which he 
[ Papias] has given in the following words] : And 
the presbyter said this. Mark having become the 


8 x Cor. xv. 25, 26. 

9 x Cor. xv. 27, 28. 

10 From Eusebius, Hzst. Ece?., iii. 39. 

11 [A certain presbyter, of whom see 4 fost. Constitutions, vii. 46, 
where he is said to have been ordained by St. John, the Evangelist. 

12 “Tn his day”’ may mean “‘in the days of Papias,” or “in the 
days of Philip.” As the narrative came from the daughters of 
Philip, it is more likely that Philip’s days are meant. 

13 [Again, note the reduplicated hearsay. Not even Irenzus, 
much less Eusebius, should be accepted, otherwise than as retailing 
vague reports. } hee 


FRAGMENTS 


OF PAPIAS. 


155 





interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately what- 
soever he remembered. It was not, however, in 
exact order that he related the sayings or deeds 
of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor 
accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, 
he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his 
instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], 
but with no intention of giving a regular narrative 
of the Lord’s sayings. Wherefore Mark made no 
mistake in thus writing some things as he remem- 
bered them. For of one thing he took especial 
care, not to omit anything he had heard, and 
not to put anything fictitious into the statements. 
[This is what is related by Papias regarding 
Mark ; but with regard to Matthew he has made 
the following statements | : Matthew put together 
the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew lan- 
guage, and each one interpreted them as best 
he could. [The same person uses proofs from 
the First Epistle of John, and from the Epistle 
of Peter in like manner. And he also gives an- 
other story of a woman’ who was accused of 
many sins before the Lord, which is to be found 
in the Gospel according to the Hebrews. | 


VII? 


Papias thus speaks, word for word: To some 
of them [angels] He gave dominion over the 
arrangement of the world, and He commissioned 
them to exercise their dominion well. And he 
says, immediately after this: but it happened 
that their arrangement came to nothing.3 


VIII.‘ 
With regard to the inspiration of the book 





¥ Rufinus supposes this Sor ie be the same as that now found in 
the fertus receptus of John’s pel, viii, r-11, — the woman taken 
in adultery. Ais 
2 This extract is made from Andreas Cesariensis, 
Czesarea in Cappadocia, circtter, A.D 500]. “ ; 
3 That is, that government of the world’s affairs was a failure. 
An ancient writer takes tégts to mean the arraying of the evil an- 
els in battle against God. ae 
or This also is taken from Andreas Czsariensis. [See Lardner, 
vol. v. 77-] . 


[Bishop of 


(Revelation), we deem it superfluous to add 
another word ; for the blessed Gregory Theolo- 
gus and Cyril, and even men of still older date, 
Papias, Irenzeus, Methodius, and Hippolytus, 
bore entirely satisfactory testimony to it. 


IX 


Taking occasion from Papias of Hierapolis, 
the illustrious, a disciple of the apostle who 
leaned on the bosom of Christ, and Clemens, 
and Pantzenus the priest of [the Church] of the 
Alexandrians, and the wise Ammonius, the an- 
cient and first expositors, who agreed with each 
other, who understood the work of the six days 
as referring to Christ and the whole Church. 


x.§ 


(1.) Mary the mother of the Lord; (2.) 
Mary the wife of Cleophas or Alphzeus, who was 
the mother of James the bishop and apostle, 
and of Simon and Thaddeus, and of one Joseph ; 
(3-) Mary Salome, wife of Zebedee, mother of 
John the evangelist and James ; (4.) Mary Mag- 
dalene. These four are found in the Gospel. 
James and Judas and Joseph were sons of an 
aunt (2) of the Lord’s. James also and John 
were sons of another aunt (3) of the Lord’s, 
Mary (2), mother of James the Less and Joseph, 
wife of Alphzeus was the sister of Mary the mother 
of the Lord, whom John names of Cleophas, 
either from her father or from the family of the 
clan, or for some other reason. Mary Salome 
(3) is called Salome either from her husband 
or her village. Some affirm that she is the same 
as Mary of Cleophas, because she had two 
husbands. 





S This fragment, or rather reference, is taken from Anastasius 
Sinaita, Routh gives, as another fragment, the repetition of the 
same statement by Anastasius. j , 

6 This fragment was found by Grabe in a ms. of the Bodleian 
Library, with the inscription on the margin, “ Papia.” Westcott 
states that it forms part of a dictionary written by “‘a medizval 
Papias. [He seems to have added the words, ‘‘ Maria is called 
Ulumtinatréix, or Star of the Sea,” etc, a middle-age device.] : The 
dictionary exists in Ms. both at Oxford and Cambridge.” 





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JUSTIN MARTYR. 


neh ae 
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robe ee ae ee eis.) 





INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


TO THE 


FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN MARTYR. 





[A.D. 110-165.] JusTIN was a Gentile, but born in Samaria, near Jacob’s well. He must have 
been well educated : he had travelled extensively, and he seems to have been a person enjoying at 
least a competence. After trying all other systems, his elevated tastes and refined perceptions made 
him a disciple of Socrates and Plato. So he climbed towards Christ. As he himself narrates the 
story of his conversion, it need not be anticipated here. What Plato was feeling after, he found in 
Jesus of Nazareth. The conversion of such a man marks a new era in the gospel history. The sub- 
apostolic age begins with the first Christian author, — the founder of theological literature. It 
introduced to mankind, as the mother of true philosophy, the despised teaching of those Galileans 
to whom their Master had said, “ Ye are the light of the world.” 

And this is the epoch which forced this great truth upon the attention of contemplative minds. 
It was more than a hundred years since the angels had sung “ Good-will to men ;” and that song 
had now been heard for successive generations, breaking forth from the lips of sufferers on the 
cross, among lions, and amid blazing faggots. Here was a nobler Stoicism that needed interpreta- 
tion. Not only choice spirits, despising the herd and boasting of a loftier intellectual sphere, 
were its professors; but thousands of men, women, and children, withdrawing themselves not 
at all from the ordinary and humble lot of the people, were inspired by it to live and die heroi- 
cally and sublimely, — exhibiting a superiority to revenge and hate entirely unaccountable, praying 
for their enemies, and seeking to glorify their God by love to their fellow-men. 

And in spite of Gallios and Neros alike, the gospel was dispelling the gross darkness. Of 
this, Pliny’s letter to Trajan is decisive evidence. Even in Seneca we detect reflections of the day- 
break. Plutarch writes as never a Gentile could have written until now. Plato is practically sur- 
passed by him in his thoughts upon the “ delays? of the Divine Justice.” Hadrian’s address to 
his soul, in his dying moments, is a tribute to the new ideas which had been sown in the popular 
mind. And now the Antonines, impelled by something in the age, came forward to reign as 
“philosophers.” At this moment, Justin Martyr confronts them like a Daniel. The “ little stone” 
smites the imperial image in the face, not yet “ in the toes.” He tells the professional philoso- 
phers on a throne how false and hollow is all wisdom that is not meant for all humanity, and that 
is not capable of leavening the masses. He exposes the impotency of even Socratic philosophy : 
he shows, in contrast, the force that works in the words of Jesus ; he points out their regenerating 
power. It is the mission of Justin to be a star in the West, leading its Wise Men to the cradle 


of Bethlehem. 
1 See Amyot’s translation, and a more modern one by De Maistre (Zuvres , vol. ii. Paris, 1833). An edition of The Delays (the 


original, with notes by Professor Hackett) has appeared in America (Andover, cérc., 1842), and is praised by Tayler Lewis. 
159 


160 . INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 





The writings of Justin are deficient in charms of style ; and, for us, there is something the reverse 

of attractive in the forms of thought which he had learned from the philosophers.' If Plato had 
left us nothing but the Timzeus, a Renan would doubtless have reproached him as of feeble in- 
tellectual power. So a dancing-master might criticise the movements of an athlete, or the writhings 
of St. Sebastian shot with arrows. ‘The practical wisdom of Justin using the rhetoric of his times, 
and discomfiting false philosophy with its own weapons, is not appreciated by the fastidious 
Parisian. But the manly and heroic pleadings of the man, for a despised people with whom he 
had boldly identified himself ; the intrepidity with which he defends them before despots, whose mere 
caprice might punish him with death ; above all, the undaunted spirit with which he exposes the 
shame and absurdity of their inveterate superstition and reproaches the memory of Hadrian whom 
Antoninus had deified, as he had deified Antinous of loathsome history, — these are characteristics 
which every instinct of the unvitiated soul delights to honour. Justin cannot be refuted by a 
sneer. 
He wore his philosopher’s gown after his conversion, as a token that he had attained the only 
true philosophy. And seeing, that, after the conflicts and tests of ages, it is the only philosophy . 
that lasts and lives and triumphs, its discoverer deserves the homage of mankind. Of the philo- 
sophic gown we shall hear again when we come to Tertullian.? 

The residue of Justin’s history may be found in “The Martyrdom” and other pages soon to 
follow, as well as in the following Inrropucrory Nore of the able translators, Messrs. Dods and 
Reith : — ; 


Justin Martyr was born in Flavia Neapolis, a city of Samaria, the modern Nablous. The 
date of his birth is uncertain, but may be fixed about a.p. 114. His father and grandfather were 
probably of Roman origin. Before his conversion to Christianity he studied in the schools of 
the philosophers, searching after some knowledge which should satisfy the cravings of his soul. 
At last he became acquainted with Christianity, being at once impressed with the extraordinary 
fearlessness which the Christians displayed in the presence of death, and with the grandeur, 
stability, and truth of the teachings of the Old Testament. From this time he acted as an 
evangelist, taking every opportunity to proclaim the gospel as the only safe and certain philo- 
sophy, the only way to salvation. It is probable that he travelled much. We know that he was 
some time in Ephesus, and he must have lived for a considerable period in Rome. Probably he 
settled in Rome as a Christian teacher. While he was there, the philosophers, especially the 
Cynics, plotted against him, and he sealed his testimony to the truth by martyrdom. 

The principal facts of Justin’s life are gathered from his own writings. There is little clue to 
dates. It is agreed on all hands that he lived in the reign of Antoninus Pius, and the testimony 
of Eusebius and most credible historians renders it nearly certain that he suffered martyrdom in 
the reign of Marcus Aurelius. The Chronicon Paschale gives as the date 16 5 A.D. 

The writings of Justin Martyr are among the most important that have come down to us from 
the second century. He was not the first that wrote an Apology in behalf of the Christians, but 
his Apologies are the earliest extant. They are characterized by intense Christian fervour, and 
they give us an insight into the relations existing between heathens and Christians in those days. 
His other principal writing, the Dialogue with Trypho, is the first elaborate exposition of the 
reasons for regarding Christ as the Messiah of the Old Testament, and the first systematic attempt 
to exhibit the false position of the Jews in regard to Christianity. 

Many of Justin’s writings have perished. Those works which have come to us bearing his 
name have been divided into three classes. 


rr ep an eg a te a eI ee 


1 He quotes Plato’s reference, e.g., to the X.; but the Orientals delighted in such conceits. Compare the Hebrew critics on the T\ (is 
Gen, i. 4), on which see Nordheimer, Gram.., vol. i. p. 7, New York, 1838. 


? It survives in the pulpits of Christendom — Greek, Latin, Anglican, Lutheran, etc. — to this day, in slightly different forms. 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 161 





The first class embraces those which are unquestionably genuine, viz. the two Apologies, and 
the Dialogue with Trypho. Some critics have urged objections against Justin’s authorship of the 
Dialogue ; but the objections are regarded now as possessing no weight. 

The second class consists of those works which are regarded by some critics as Justin’s, and 
by others as not his. They are: 1. An Address to the Greeks; 2. A Hortatory Address to the 
Greeks ; 3. On the Sole Government of God; 4. An Epistle to Diognetus; 5. Fragments from 
a work on the Resurrection; 6. And other Fragments. Whatever difficulty there may be in 
settling the authorship of these treatises, there is but one opinion as to their earliness. The latest 
of them, in all probability, was not written later than the third century. 

The third class consists of those that are unquestionably not the works of Justin. These are : 
1. An Exposition of the True Faith; 2. Replies to the Orthodox; 3. Christian Questions to 
Gentiles; 4. Gentile Questions to Christians; 5. Epistle to Zenas and Serenus; and 6. A Refu- 
tation of certain Doctrines of Aristotle. There is no clue to the date of the two last. There can 
be no doubt that the others were written after the Council of Nicza, though, immediately after 
the Reformation, Calvin and others appealed to the first as a genuine writing of Justin’s. 

There is a curious question connected with the Apologies of Justin which have come down to 
us. Eusebius mentions two Apologies, — one written in the reign of Antoninus Pius, the other 
in the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Critics have disputed much whether we have these two Apolo- 
gies in those now extant. Some have maintained, that what is now called the Second Apology 
was the preface of the first, and that the second is lost. Others have tried to show, that the so- 
called Second Apology is the continuation of the first, and that the second is lost. Others have 
supposed that the two Apologies which we have are Justin’s two Apologies, but that Eusebius was 
wrong in affirming that the second was addressed to Marcus Aurelius ; and others maintain, that 
we have in our two Apologies the two Apologies mentioned by Eusebius, and that our first is his 
first, and our second his second. 


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; Se Prey 






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, Ms ae ir) iene? 
vireo yrotee ease Gabe : 
+ a RT. Puey et: os Heh a 


es 


‘ot rae tame re 





THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 





CHAP. I. — ADDRESS. 


To the Emperor Titus #lius Adrianus Anto- 
ninus Pius Augustus Cesar, and to his son 
Verissimus the Philosopher, and to Lucius the 
Philosopher, the natural son of Czesar, and the 
adopted son of Pius, a lover of learning, and to 
the sacred Senate, with the whole People of the 
Romans, I, Justin, the son of Priscus and grand- 
son of Bacchius, natives of Flavia Neapolis in 
Palestine, present this address and petition in be- 
half of those of all nations who are unjustly hated 
and wantonly abused, myself being one of them. 


CHAP. II.—— JUSTICE DEMANDED. 


Reason directs those who are truly pious and 
philosophical to honour and love only what is 
true, declining to follow traditional opinions,’ if 
these be worthless. For not only does sound 
reason direct us to refuse the guidance of those 
who did or taught anything wrong, but it is in- 
cumbent on the lover of truth, by all means, and 
if death be threatened, even before his own life, 
to choose to do and say what is right. Do you, 
then, since ye are called pious and philosophers, 
guardians of justice and lovers of learning, give 
good heed, and hearken to my address ; and if 
ye are indeed such, it will be manifested. For 
we have come, not to flatter you by this writing, 
nor please you by our address, but to beg that 
you pass judgment, after an accurate and search- 
ing investigation, not flattered by prejudice or 
by a desire of pleasing superstitious men, nor 
induced by irrational impulse or evil rumours 
which have long been prevalent, to give a decis- 
ion which will prove to be against yourselves. 
For as for us, we reckon that no evil can be 
done us, unless we be convicted as evil-doers, 
or be proved to be wicked men; and you, 
you can kill, but not hurt us. 


CHAP. III, — CLAIM OF JUDICIAL INVESTIGATION. 


But lest any one think that this is an unrea- 
sonable and reckless utterance, we demand that 
the charges against the Christians be investi- 





1 Literally, ‘‘ the opinions ef the ancients.” 





gated, and that, if these be.substantiated, they 


be punished as they deserve ; [or rather, indeed, 
we ourselves will punish them.]? But if no one 
can convict us of anything, true reason forbids 
you, for the sake of a wicked rumour, to wrong 
blameless men, and indeed rather yourselves, 
who think fit'to direct affairs, not by judgment, 
but by passion. And every sober-minded per- 
son will declare this to be the only fair and 
equitable’ adjustment, namely, that the subjects 
render an unexceptional account of their own 
life and doctrine ; and that, on the other hand © 
the rulers should give their decision in obe- 
dience, not to violence and tyranny, but to piety 
and philosophy. For thus would both rulers 
and ruled reap benefit. For even one of the 
ancients somewhere said, “Unless both rulers, 
and ruled philosophize, it is impossible to make 
states blessed.”3 It is our task, therefore, to 
afford to all an opportunity of inspecting our life 
and teachings, lest, on account of those who are 
accustomed to be ignorant of our affairs, we 
should incur the penalty due to them for mental 
blindness ;+ and it is your business, when you 
hear us, to be found, as reason demands, good 
judges. For if, when ye have learned the truth, 
you do not what is just, you will be before God 
without excuse. 


CHAP. IV. CHRISTIANS UNJUSTLY CONDEMNED 


FOR THEIR MERE NAME, 


By the mere application of a name, nothing is 
decided, either good or evil, apart from the ac- 
tions implied in the name; and indeed, so far 
at least as one may judge from the name we are 
accused of, we are most excellent people.’ But 





2 Thirlby regarded the clause in brackets as an interpolation. 
There is considerable variety of opinion as to the exact meaning of 
the words amongst those who regard them as genuine. 

3 Plat. Ref., v. 18. 

4 That is to say, if the Christians refused or neglected to make 
their real opinions and practices known, they would share the guilt of 
those whom they thus kept indarkness, 

5 Justin avails himself here of the similarity in sound of the words 
Xptards (Christ) and xpyores (good, worthy, excellent). The play 
upon these words is kept up throughout this paragraph. and cannot 
be always represented to the English reader. [But Justin was merely 
quoting and using, ad hominem, the popular blunder of which Sueto- 
nius (Life of Claudius, cap. 25) gives us an example, “ impulsore 
Chresto.” It will be observed again in others of these Fathers. ] 


163 


164 


THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 





as we do not think it just to beg to be acquitted on 
account of the name, if we be convicted as evil- 
doers, so, on the other hand, if we be found to 
have committed no offence, either in the matter 
of thus naming ourselves, or of our conduct as 
citizens, it is your part very earnestly to guard 
against incurring just punishment, by unjustly 
punishing those who are not convicted. For 
from a name neither praise nor punishment 
could reasonably spring, unless something excel- 
lent or base in action be proved. And those 
among yourselves who are accused you do not 
punish before they are convicted; but in our 
case you receive the name as proof against us, 
and this although, so far as the name goes, you 
ought rather to punish our accusers. For we are 
accused of being Christians, and to hate what 
is excellent (Chrestian) is unjust. Again, if any 
of the accused deny the name, and say that he 
is not a Christian, you acquit him, as having no 
evidence against him.as a wrong-doer; but if 
any one acknowledge that he is a Christian, you 
punish him on account of this acknowledgment. 
Justice requires that you inquire into the life 
both of him who confesses and of him who de- 
nies, that by his deeds it may be apparent what 
kind of man each is. For as some who have 
been taught by the Master, Christ, not to deny 
Him, give encouragement to others when they 
are put to the question, so in all probability do 
those who lead wicked lives give occasion to 
‘those who, without consideration, take upon 
them to accuse all the Christians of impiety and 
wickedness. And this also is not right. For of 
philosophy, too, some assume the name and the 
garb who do nothing worthy of their profession ; 
and you are well aware, that those of the an- 
cients whose opinions and teachings were quite 
diverse, are yet all called by the one name of 
philosophers. And of these some taught athe- 
ism ; and the poets who have flourished among 
you raise a laugh out of the uncleanness of Jupi- 
ter with his own children. And those who now 
adopt such instruction are not restrained by you ; 
but, on the contrary, you bestow prizes and hon- 
ours upon those who euphoniously insult the gods. 


CHAP. V.— CHRISTIANS CHARGED WITH ATHEISM. 


Why, then, should this be? In our case, who 
pledge ourselves to do no wickedness, nor to 
hold these atheistic opinions, you do not ex- 
amine the charges made against us ; but, yielding 
to unreasoning passion, and to the instigation 
of evil demons, you punish us without con- 
sideration or judgment. For the truth shall be 
spoken ; since of old these evil demons, effecting 
apparitions of themselves, both defiled women 
and corrupted boys, and showed such fearful 
sights to men, that those who did not use their 
reason in judging of the actions that were done, 








were struck with terror; and being carried away 
by fear, and not knowing that these were de- 
mons, they called them gods, and gave to each 
the name which each of the demons chose for 
himself.. And when Socrates endeavoured, by 
true reason and examination, to bring these 
things to light, and deliver men from the de- 
mons, then the demons themselves, by means of 
men who rejoiced in iniquity, compassed his 
death, as an atheist and a profane person, on the 
charge that “ he was introducing new divinities ;”’ 
and in our case they display a similar activity. 
For not only among~thé Greeks did reason 
(Logos) prevail to condemn thesehings through 
Socrates, but also /among the Barbarians were 
they condemned by Reason (or the Word, the 
Logos) Himself, Bh took shape, and became 
man, and was called Jesus Christ ; and in obe- 
dience to Him, we not only deny that they who 
did such things as Nicolae gods,? but assert 
that they are wicked and impious demons,” whose 
actions will not bear comparison with those even 
of men desirous of virtue. 





CHAP. VI.— CHARGE OF ATHEISM REFUTED. 


Hence are we called atheists. And we con- 
fess that we aré atheists, so far as gods of this 


Fsort are concerned, but not with respect to the 


most true God, the Father of righteousness_and 
temperance and the other virtues, who is free 
from all impurity. But both Him, and the Son 
(who came forth from Him and taught us these 
things, and the host of the other good angels 
who follow and are made like to Him),3 and the 
prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, knowing 
them in reason and truth, and declaring without 
grudging to every one who wishes to learn, as we 
have been taught. 4 


CHAP. VII.— EACH CHRISTIAN MUST BE TRIED BY 
HIS OWN LIFE. 


But some one will say, Some have ere now 
been arrested and convicted as evil-doers. For 





1 [1. Cor. x. 20, Milton’s admirable economy in working this 
truth into his great poem (i. 378) affords a sublime exposition of the 
mind of the Fathers on the origin of mythologies. ] 

2 The word Satuwy means in Greek a god, but the Christians 
used the word to signify an evil spirit. Justin uses the same word 
here for god. and demon. The connection which Justin and other 
Christian writers supposed to exist between evil spirits and the 
gods of the heathens will be apparent from Justin’s own statements, 
The word StdéBodos, devil, is not applied to these demons. There ig 
but one devil, but many demons. 

3 This is the literal and obvious translation of Justin’s words. 
But from c. 13, 16, and 61, it is evident that he did not desire to incule 
cate the worship of angels. We are therefore driven to adopt another 
translation of this passage, even though it be somewhat harsh. Two 
such translations have been proposed: the first connecting “ us” and 
“the host of the other good angels” as the common object of the verb 
“taught; ” the second connecting “ these things" with “ the host of,” 
etc., and making these two together the subject taught. In the first 
case the translation would stand, “‘ taught these things to us and to 
the host,” etc.; in the second case the translation would be, “ taught 
us about these things, and about the host of the:others who follow 
Him, viz. the good angels.” [I have ventured to insert parenthetic 
marks in the text, an obvious and simple resource to suggest the 
manifest intent of the author. Grabe’s note 2% doc. gives another and 
very ingenious exegesis, but the simplest is best.] 


Mt 


THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 


165 


a 


you condemn many, many a time, after inquiring 
into the life of each of the accused severally, 
but not on account of those of whom we have 
been speaking.'’ And this we acknowledge, that 
as among the Greeks those who teach such theo- 
ries as please themselves are all called by the 
One name “ Philosopher,” though their doctrines: 
be diverse, so also among the Barbarians this 
name on which accusations are accumulated is 
the common property of those who are and 
those who seem wise. For all are called Chris- 
tians. Wherefore we demand that the deeds of 
all those who are accused to you be judged, in 
order that each one who is convicted may be 
punished as an evil-doer, and not as a Christian ; 
and if it is clear that any one is blameless, that 
he may be acquitted, since by the mere fact of 
his being a Christian he does no wrong? For we 
will not require that you punish our accusers ;3 
they being sufficiently punished by their present 
wickedness and ignorance of what is right. 


CHAP. VIII. — CHRISTIANS CONFESS THEIR FAITH IN 
GOD. 


And reckon ye that it is for your sakes we 
have been saying these things; for it is in our 
power, when we are examined, to deny that we 
are Christians ; but we would not live by telling 
a lie. For, impelled by the desire of the eternal 
and pure life, we seek the abode that is with 
God, the Father and Creator of all, and hasten 
to confess our faith, persuaded and convinced 
as we are that they who have proved to God 4 
by their works that they followed Him, and 
loved to abide with Him where there is no sin 
to cause disturbance, can obtain these_ things. 
This, then, to speak shortly, is what we expect 
and have learned from Christ, and teach, And 
Plato, in like manner, used to say that Rhada- 
manthus and Minos would punish the wicked 
who came before them; and we say that the 
same thing will be done, but at the hand of 
Christ, and upon the wicked in the same _ bodies 
united again to their spirits which are now to 
undergo everlasting punishment; and not only, 
as Plato said, for a period of a thousand years. 
And if any one say that this is incredible or 
impossible, this error of ours is one which con- 
cerns ourselves only, and no other person, so 
long as you cannot convict us of doing any 
harm. 


CHAP. IX.— FOLLY OF IDOL WORSHIP. 


And neither do we honour with..many..sacri- 
fices and garlands of flowers such deities as men 

el me a“ : 

I i.e., according to’ Otto, ‘‘not on account of the sincere Chris- 
tians of whom we have been speaking.” According to Trollope, 
“ not on account of (or at the instigation of) the demons before men- 
tioned.” 

2 Or, “as a Christian who has done no wrong.” | 

3 Compare the Rescript of Adrian appended to this Apology. 

4 Literally, “ persuaded God.” 














have formed and set in shrines and called gods ; 
since we see that these are soulless and dead, 
and have not the form of God (for we donot 
consider that God has such a form as some say 
that they imitate to His honour), but have the 
names and forms-of those wicked demons which 
have appeared. For why need we tell you who 
already know, into what forms the craftsmen,’ 
carving and cutting, casting and hammering, 
fashion the materials? And often out of vessels 
of dishonour, by merely changing the form, and 
making an image of the requisite shape, they 
make what they call a god; which we consider 
not only senseless, but to be even insulting to 


| God, who, having.ineffable. glory and form, thus 


gets His name attached to things that are cor- 
ruptible, and require constant service. And that 
the artificers of these are both intemperate, and, 
not to enter into particulars, are practised in 
every vice, you very well know; even their own 
gitls who work along with them they corrupt. 
What infatuation ! that dissolute men should be 
said to fashion and make gods for your worship, 
and that you should appoint such men the guard- 
ians of the temples where they are enshrined ; 
not recognising that it is unlawful even to think 
or say that men are the guardians of gods. 


CHAP. X.—- HOW GOD IS TO BE SERVED. 


But we have received by tradition that God 
does not need the material offerings which men 
can give, seeing, indeed, that He Himself is the 
provider of all things. And we have been 
taught, and are convinced, and do believe, that 
He accepts those uuly who imitate the excel- 
lences which reside in Him, temperance, and 
justice, and philanthropy, and as many virtues 
as are peculiar to a God who is called by no 
proper name. And we have been taught that 
He in the beginning did of His goodness, for 
man’s sake, create all things out of unformed 
matter; and if men by their works show them- 
selves worthy of this His design, they are deemed 
worthy, and so we have received — of reigning 
in company with Him, being delivered from 
corruption and suffering. For as in the begin- 
ning He created us when we were not, so do we 
consider that, in like manner, those who choose 
what is pleasing to Him are, on account of their 
choice, deemed worthy of incorruption and of 
fellowship with Him. For the coming into be- 
ing at first was not in our own power; and in 
order that we may follow those things which 
please Him, choosing them by means of the 
rational faculties He has Himself endowed us 
with,’He both persuades us and leads us to faith. 
And we think it for the advantage of all men 
that they are not restrained from learning these 





5 [Isa. xliv. 9-20; Jer. x. 3] 


\C= 


166 


THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 


ee ees 


things, but are even urged thereto. For the 
restraint which human laws could not effect, 
the Word, inasmuch as He is divine, would have 
effected, had not the wicked demons, taking as 
their ally the lust of wickedness which is in 
every man, and which draws. variously to all 
manner of vice, scattered many false and pro- 
fane accusations, none of which attach to us. 


CHAP. XI. —- WHAT KINGDOM CHRISTIANS LOOK FOR. 


And when you hear that we look fora king- 
dom, you suppose, without making any inquiry, 
that we speak of a human kingdom; whereas 
we speak of that which is with God, as appears 
also from the confession of their faith made by 
those who are charged with being Christians, 
though they know that death is the punishment 
awarded to him who so confesses. For if we 
looked for a human kingdom, we should also 
deny our Christ, that we might not be slain ; and 
we should strive to escape detection, that we 
might obtain what we expect. But since our 
thoughts are not fixed on the present, we are 
not concerned when men cut us off; since also 
death is a debt which must at all events be paid. 


CHAP. XII. — CHRISTIANS LIVE AS UNDER GOD’S EYE. 


And more than all other men are we your 
helpers and allies in promoting peace, seeing 
that we hold this view, that it is alike impossible 
for the wicked, the covetous, the conspirator, 
and for the virtuous, to escape the notice of God, 
and ‘that each man goes to everlasting punish- 
ment or salvation according to the value of his 
actions. For if all men knew this, no one 
would choose wickedness even for a little, know- 
ing that he goes to the everlasting punishment 
of fire ; but would by all means restrain himself, 
and adorn himself with virtue, that he might ob- 
tain the good gifts of God, and escape the pun- 
ishments. For those who, on account of the 
laws and punishments you impose, endeavour to 
escape detection when they offend (and they 
offend, too, under the impression that it is quite 
possible to escape your detection, since you are 
but men), those persons, if they learned and 
were convinced that nothing, whether actually 
done or only intended, can escape the knowledge 
of God, would by all means live decently on ac- 
count of the penalties threatened, as even you 
yourselves will admit. But you seem to fear lest 
all men become righteous, and you no longer 
have any to punish. Such would be the concern 
of public executioners, but not of good princes. 
But, as we before said, we are persuaded that 
these things are prompted by evil spirits, who 
demand sacrifices and service even from those 
who live unreasonably ; but as for you, we pre- 
sume that you who aim at [a reputation for] 
piety and philosophy will do nothing unreason- 





able. But if you also, like the foolish, prefer 
custom to truth, do what you have power to do. 
But just so much power have rulers who esteem 
opinion more than truth, as robbers have in a 
desert. And that you will not succeed is de- 
clared by the Word, than whom, after God who 
begat Him, we know there is no ruler more 
kingly and just. For as all shrink from succeed- 
ing to the poverty or sufferings or obscurity of 
their fathers, so whatever the Word forbids us to 
choose, the sensible man will not choose. That 
all these things should come to pass, I say, our 
Teacher foretold, He who is both Son and Apos- 
tle of God the Father of all and the Ruler, Jesus 
Christ ; from whom also we have the name of 
Christians. Whence we become more assured 
of, all the things He taught us, since whatever 
He beforehand foretold should come to pass, is 
seen in fact coming to pass; and this is the 
work of God, to tell of a thing before it hap- 
pens, and as it was foretold so to show it happen- 
ing. It were possible to pause here and add no 
more, reckoning that we demand what is just 
and true; but because we are well aware that it 
is not easy suddenly to change a mind possessed 
by ignorance, we intend to add a few things, for 


| the sake of persuading those who love the truth, 


knowing that it is not impossible to put ignorance 
to flight by presenting the truth. 


CHAP. XIII. —- CHRISTIANS SERVE GOD RATIONALLY. 


What sober-minded man, then, will not ac- 
knowledge that we are not atheists, worshipping 
as we do the Maker of this universe, and declar- 
ing, as we have been taught, that He has no need 
of streams of blood and libations and incense ; 
whom we praise to the utmost of our power by 
the exercise of prayer and thanksgiving for all 
things wherewith we are supplied, as we have 
been taught that the only honour that is worthy 
of Him is not to consume by fire what He has 
brought into being for our sustenance, but to use 
it for ourselves and those who need, and with 
gratitude to Him to offer thanks by invocations 
and hymns for our creation, and for all the means 
of health, and for the various qualities of the 
different kinds of things, and for the changes of 
the seasons ; and to present before Him peti- 
tions for our existing again in incorruption 
through faith in Him. _Our teacher of these 
things is Jesus Christ, who also was born for this 
purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, 
procurator of Judea, in the times of Tiberius 
Cesar; and that we reasonably worship Him, 
having learned that He is the Son of the true 


1 roumas Kat tuvous. ‘ Grabe, and it should seem correctly, un- 
derstands moumas to be solemn prayers. ... He also remarks, 
that the Juvou were either psalms of David, or some of those psalms 
and songs. made by the primitive Christians, which are mentioned in 
Eusebius, H. Z., v. 28.” —TROLLOPE. -- ; ; : 


THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 


567 


Re 


God Himself, and holding Him in the second 
place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third, we 
will prove. For they proclaim our madness to 
consist in this, that we give to a crucified man a 
place second to the unchangeable and eternal 
God, the Creator of all; for they do not discern 
the mystery that is herein, to which, as we make 
it plain to you, we pray you to give heed. 


CHAP. XIV.— THE DEMONS MISREPRESENT CHRIS- 
TIAN DOCTRINE, 


For we forewarn you to be on your guard, lest 
those demons whom we have been accusing 
should deceive you, and quite divert you from 
reading and understanding what we say. For 
they strive to hold you their slaves and servants ; 
and sometimes by appearances in dreams, and 
sometimes by magical impositions, they subdue 
all who make no strong opposing effort for their 
own salvation. And thus do we also, since our 
persuasion by the Word, stand aloof from them 
(i.e., the demons), and follow the only unbegot- 
ten God through His Son —we who formerly de- 
lighted in fornication, but now embrace chastity 
alone ; we who formerly used magical arts, dedi- 
cate ourselves to the good and unbegotten God ; 
we who valued above all things the acquisition of 
wealth and possessions, now bring what we have 
into a common stock, and communicate to every 
one in need ; we who hated and destroyed one 
another, and on account of their different:man- 
ners would not live’ with..men_of..a_ different 
tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live famil- 
jarly with them, and pray for our enemies, and 
endeavour to persuade those who hate us unjustly 
to live comformably to the good precepts of 
Christ, to the end that they may become par- 
takers with us of the same joyful hope of a re- 
ward from God the ruler of all. But lest we 
should seem to be reasoning sophistically, we 
consider it right, before giving you the prom- 
ised? explanation, to cite a few precepts given 
by Christ Himself. And be it yours, as powerful 
rulers, to inquire whether we have been taught 
and do teach these things truly. Brief and con- 
cise utterances fell from Him, for He was no 
sophist, but His word was the power of God. 


SX Concerning chastity, He uttered such senti- 
ments as these:3 “Whosoever looketh upon a 
woman to lust after her, hath committed adul- 
tery with her already in his heart before God.” 
And, “If thy right eye offend thee, cut it out; 
for it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom 
of heaven with one eye, than, having two eyes, 


CHAP. XV.— WHAT CHRIST HIMSELF TAUGHT. 





I Literally, “would not use the same hearth or fire.” 
2 See the end of chap. xii. i . 
3 The reader will notice that Justin quotes from memory, so that 
there are some slight discrepancies between the words of Jesus as 


here cited, and the same sayings as recorded in our Gospels. ~ 








to be cast into everlasting fire.” And, “Who- 
soever shall marry her that is divorced from 
another husband, committeth adultery.”4 And, 
“There are some who have been made eunuchs 
of men, and some who were born eunuchs, and 
some who have made themselves eunuchs for the 
kingdom of heaven’s sake; but all cannot re- 
ceive this saying.” 5 So that all who, by human 
law, are twice married,® are in the eye of our 
Master sinners, and those who look upon a 
woman to lust after her. For not only he who 
in act commits adultery is rejected by Him, but 
also he who desires to commit adultery: since 
not only our works, but also our thoughts, are 
open before God. And many, both men and 
women, who have been Christ’s disciples from 
childhood, remain pure at the age of sixty or 
seventy years ; and I boast that I could produce 
such from every race of men. For what shall I 
say, too, of the countless multitude of those who 
have reformed intemperate habits, and learned 
these things? For Christ called not the just nor 
the chaste to repentance, but the ungodly, and 
the licentious, and the unjust ; His words being, 
“T came not to call the righteous, but sinners to 
repentance.”7 For the heavenly Father desires 
rather the repentance than the punishment of 
the sinner. And of our love to all, He taught 
thus: “If ye love them that love you, what new 
thing do ye? for even fornicators do this. But 
I say unto you, Pray for your enemies, and love 
them that hate you, and bless them that curse 
you, and pray for them that despitefully use 
you.”® And that we should communicate to the 
needy, and do nothing for glory, He said, “Give 
to him that asketh, and from him that would 
borrow turn not away ; for if ye lend to them of 
whom ye hope to receive, what new thing do ye? 
even the publicans do this. Lay not up for 
yourselves treasure upon earth, where moth and 
rust doth corrupt, and where robbers break 
through ; but lay up for yourselves treasure in 
heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth cor- 
rupt. For what is a man profited, if he shall 
gain the whole world, and Jose his own soul? 
or what shall a man give in exchange for it? 
Lay up treasure, therefore, in heaven, where 
neither moth nor rust doth corrupt.”9 And, 
“ Be ye kind and merciful, as your Father also is 
kind and merciful, and maketh His sun to rise 
on sinners, and the righteous, and the wicked. 





4 Matt. v. 28, 29, 32. 

5 Matt. xix. 12. 

6 Svyapias movovmeror, lit. contracting a double marriage, Of 
double marriages there are three kinds: the first, marriage with a 
second wife while the first is still alive and recognised as a lawful 
wife, or bigamy; the Second, marriage with a second wife after di- 
vorce from the first, and third, marriage with a second wife after the 
death of the first, It is thought that Justin here refers to the second 
case. 

7 Matt. ix. 13. 

8 Matt. v. 46,44; Luke vi 28. | - 

9 Luke vi. 30, 34; Matt. vi. 19, xvi. 6, vi. 90. 


168 





Take no thought what ye shall eat, or what ye 
shall put on: are ye not better than the birds and 
the beasts? And God feedeth them. Take no 
thought, therefore, what ye shall eat, or what ye 
shall put on; for your heavenly Father knoweth 
that ye have need of these things. But seek ye 
the kingdom of heaven, and all these things 
shall be added unto you. For where his treasure 
is, there also is the mind of a man.’”’* And, 
“Do not these things to be seen of men ; other- 
wise ye have no reward from your Father which 
is in heaven.” ? 


CHAP. XVI.— CONCERNING PATIENCE AND SWEAR- 
ING, 


And concerning our being patient of injuries, 
and ready to serve all, and free from anger, this 
is what He said: ‘To him that smiteth thee on 
the one cheek, offer also the other ; and him that 
taketh away thy cloak or coat, forbid not. And 
whosoever shall be angry, is in danger of the 
fire. And every one that compelleth thee to go 
with him a mile, follow him two. And let your 
good works shine before men, that they, seeing 
them, may glorify your Father which is in 
heaven.” 3 For we ought not to strive ; neither 
has He desired us to be imitators of wicked 
men, but He has exhorted us to lead all men, 
by patience and gentleness, from shame and the 
love of evil. And this indeed is proved in the 
case of many who once were of your way of 
thinking, but have changed their violent and 
tyrannical disposition, being overcome either by 
the constancy which they have witnessed in their 
neighbours’ lives,‘ or by the extraordinary forbear- 
ance they have observed in their fellow-travellers 
when defrauded, or by the honesty of those with 
whom they have transacted business. 

And with regard to our not swearing at all, and 
always speaking the truth, He enjoined as fol- 
lows: “Swear not at all; but let your yea.be 
yea, and your nay, nay ; for whatsoever is more 
than these cometh of evil.”"®> And that we ought 
to worship God alone, He thus persuaded us: 
“ The greatest commandment is, Thou shalt wor- 
ship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou 
serve, with all thy heart, and with all thy strength, 
the Lord God that made thee.”® And when a 
certain man came to Him and said, “Good 
Master,” He answered and said; “There is none 
good but God only, who made all things.” 7 
And let those’ who are not found living as He 
taught, be understood to be no Christians, even 
though they profess with the lip the precepts of 





1 Luke vi, 36; Matt. v. 45, vi, 25, 26, 33, 3. 
2 Matt. vi. 1. 

3 Luke vi, 29; Matt. vi. 22, 41, 16, 

4 i.e., Christian neighbours. 

5 Matt. v. 34, 27. 

© Mark xii. 30. 

7 Matt, xix. 6, 17, 














THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 


Christ ; for not those who make profession, but 
those who do the works, shall be saved, accord- 
ing to His word: ‘“ Not every one who saith to 
Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of 
heaven, but he that doeth the will of My Father 
which is in heaveh. For whosoever heareth Me, 
and doeth My sayings, heareth Him that sent 
Me. And many will say unto Me, Lord, Lord, 
have we not eaten and drunk in Thy name, and 
done wonders? And then will I say unto them, 
Depart from Me, ye workers of iniquity. Then 
shall there be wailing and gnashing of teeth, 
when the righteous shall shine as the sun, and 
the wicked are sent into everlasting fire. For 
many shall come in My name, clothed outwardly 
in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly being ravening 
wolves. By their works ye shall know them. 
And every tree that bringeth not forth good 
fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire.’’® 
And as to those who are not living pursuant to 
these His teachings, and are Christians only in 
name, we demand that all such be punished by 
you. 


CHAP. XVII.— CHRIST TAUGHT CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 


And everywhere we, more readily than all 
men, endeavour to pay to those appointed by 
you the taxes both ordinary and extraordinary,? 
as we have been taught by Him; for at that 
time some came to Him and asked Him, if one 
ought to pay tribute to Cesar; and He an- 
swered, “Tell Me, whose image does the coin 
bear?” And they said, “ Ceesar’s.” And again 
He answered them, “ Render therefore to Czesar 
the things that are Czesar’s,.and.to God the 
things that are God’s.” *° Whence to God alone 
we render worship, but in other things we gladly 
serve you, acknowledging you as kings and 
rulers of men, and praying that with your kingly 
power you be found to possess also sound judg- 
ment... But if you pay no regard to our prayers 
and frank explanations, we shall suffer no loss, 
since we believe (or rather, indeed, are per- 
suaded) that every man will suffer punishment in 
eternal fire according to the merit of his deed, 
and will render account according to the power 
he has received from God, as Christ intimated 
when He said, “To whom God has given more, 
of him shall more be required.” * 


CHAP. XVIII. — PROOF OF IMMORTALITY AND THE 
RESURRECTION. 


For reflect upon the end of each of the pre- 
ceding kings, how they died the death common 
to all, which, if it issued in insensibility, would 





8 Matt. vii. 2x, etc.; Luke xiii. 26; Matt. xiii. 42, vii. 15, 16, 19. 
9 pdpous kai eioopds. The former is the annual tribute; the 
latter, any occasional assessment. See Otto’s Note, and Thucyd. iii. 
Ig. ‘ 
10 Matt. xxii. 17, 19, 20, 2%. 
it Luke xii. 48. 


¥ 


THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 


=~ = 


169 





be a godsend ' to all the wicked. But since 
sensation remains to all who have ever lived, 
and eternal punishment is laid up (i.e., for the 
wicked), see that ye neglect not to be convinced, 
and to hold as your belief, that these things are 
true. For let even necromancy, and the divina- 
tions you practise by immaculate children,” and 
the evoking of departed human souls,3 and those 
who are called among the magi, Dream-senders 
and Assistant-spirits (Familiars),4 and all that 
is done by those who are skilled in such matters 
—let these persuade you that even after death 
souls are in a state of sensation ; and those who 
are seized and cast about by the spirits of the 
dead, whom all call demoniacs or madmen ;5 
and what you repute as oracles, both of Amphil- 
ochus, Dodana, Pytho, and as many other such 
as exist; and the opinions of your authors, 
Empedocles and Pythagoras, Plato and Socrates, 
and the pit of Homer,® and the descent of 
Ulysses to inspect these things, and all that has 
been uttered of a like kind. Such favour as 
you grant to these, grant also to us, who not less 
but more firmly than they believe in God ; since 
we expect to receive again our own bodies, 
though they be dead and cast into the earth, for 
we maintain that with God nothing is impossible. 





will dare to deny [that such a statement would 
surpass belief]. In the same way, then, you are 
now incredulous because you have never seen a 
dead man rise again. But as at first you would 
not have believed it possible that such persons 
could be produced from the small drop, and yet 
now you see them thus produced, so also judge 
ye that it is not impossible that the bodies of 
men, after they have been dissolved, and like 
seeds resolved into earth, should in God’s ap- 
pointed time rise again and put on incorruption. 
For what power worthy of God those imagine 
who say, that each thing returns to that from 
which it was produced, and that beyond this not 
even God Himself can do anything, we are un- 
able to conceive; but this we see clearly, that 
they would not have believed it possible that 
they could have become such and produced from 
such materials, as they now see both themselves 
and the whole world to be. And that it is better 
to believe even what is impossible to our owr 
nature and to men, than to be unbelieving like 
the rest of the world, we have learned ; for we 
know that our Master Jesus Christ said, that 
“what is impossible with men is possible with 
God,”’7 and, “ Fear not them that kill you, and 
after that can do no more; but fear Him who 
after death is able to cast both soul and body 


into hell.” And hell is a place where those 
are to be punished who have lived wickedly, and 
who do not believe that those things which God 
has taught us by Christ will come to pass. 


a CHAP. XIX.— THE RESURRECTION POSSIBLE. 


. And to any thoughtful person would anything 
a appear more incredible, than, if we were not in 
/©the body, and some one were to say that it was 
7 | possible that from a small drop of human seed 
y bones and sinews and flesh be formed into a 
\ shape such as we see? For let this now be said 


CHAP. XX.— HEATHEN ANALOGIES TO CHRISTIAN 
DOCTRINE. 


And the Sibyl? and Hystaspes said that there 





7 ee if you yourselves were not such 

fas you now are, and born of such parents [and 
causes], and one were to show you human seed 
and a picture of a man, and were to say with 
confidence that from such a substance such a 
being could be produced, would you believe be- 
fore you saw the actual production? No one 


f 





1 gpyacov, a piece of unlooked-for luck, Hermes being the re- 

uted giver of such gifts: vzd. Liddell and Scott’s Lex., see also the 

Ecnoliast, quoted by Stallbaum in Plato’s Phaed., p. 107, on a passage 
singularly analogous to this. , 

2 Boys and girls, or even children prematurely taken from the 
womb, were slaughtered, and their entrails inspected, in, the belief 
that the souls of the victims (being still conscious, as Justin is argu- 
ing) would reveal things hidden and future. Instances are abun- 
dantly cited by Otto and Trollope. - F 

3 This form of spirit-rapping was familiar to the ancients, and 
guste again (Dzal. c. Tryph., c. 105) uses the invocation of Samuel 

y the witch of Endor as a proof of the immortality of the soul. 

4 Valesius (on Euseb. H, £., iv. 7) states that the magi had two 
kinds of familiars: the first, who were sent to inspire men with 
dreams which might give them intimations of things future; and the 
second, who were sent to watch over men, and protect them from 
diseases and misfortunes. ‘The first, he says, they called (as here) 
dvetpomoutovs, and the second mapédpous. , 

§ Justin is not the only author in ancient or recent times who has 
classed dzemoniacs and maniacs together; neither does he stand alone 
among the ancients in the opinion that dzemoniacs were possessed by 
the spirits of departed men. References will be found in Trollope’s 
note. [See this matter more fully illustrated in Kaye’s Fastin Mar- 
tyr, pp. TO5-I1t. 3 : 

4 é ee che Odyssey, book xi. line 25, where Ulysses is described 
as digging a pit or trench with his sword, and pouring libations, in 
erder to collect around him the souls of the d 





should be a dissolution by God of things corrupt- 
ible. And the philosophers called Stoics teach 
that even God Himself shall be resolved into 
fire, and they say that the world is to be formed 
anew by this revolution ; but we understand that 
God, the Creator of all things, is superior to the 
things that are to be changed. If, therefore, on 
some points we teach the same things as the 
poets and philosophers whom you honour, and 
on other points are fuller and more divine in our 
teaching, and if we alone afford proof of what we 
assert, why are we unjustly hated more than all 
others? For while we say that all things have 
been produced and arranged into a world by 
God, we shall seem to utter the doctrine of 





7 Matt. xix. 26. 

8 Matt. x. 28. 

9 The Sibylline Oracles are now generally regarded as heathen 
fragments largely interpolated by unscrupulous men during the early 
ages of the Church. For an interesting account of these somewhat 
perplexing documents, see Burton’s Lectures on the Ecciestastical 
History of the First Three Centuries, Lect. xvil. The prophecies 
of Hystaspes were also commonly appealed to as genuine by the early 
Christians. [See (on the Sibyls and Justin M.) Casaubon, 4xercz- 
tattones, pp. 65 and 80. This work is a most learned and diversified 
ae in the form of strictures on Card. Baronius. Geneva 
1663. 


= 


170 


THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 





i RU eran re a vn i DLS Es eS Tare em 


Plato; and while we say that there will be a 
burning up of all, we shall seem to utter the 
doctrine of the Stoics: and while we affirm that 
the souls of the wicked, being endowed with 
sensation even after death, are punished, and 
that those of the good being delivered from 
punishment spend a blessed existence, we shall 
seem to say the same things as the poets and 
philosophers ; and while we maintain that men 
ought not to worship the works of their hands, 
we say the very things which have been said by 
the comic poet Menander, and other similar 
writers, for they have declared that the workman 
is greater than the work. 





and those. many women whom he had violated, 
and that his sons did like actions. But, as we 
said above, wicked devils perpetrated these 
things. And we have learned that those only 
are deified who have lived near to God in holi- 
ness and virtue ; and we believe that those who 
live wickedly and do not repent are punished in 
everlasting fire. 


CHAP, XXII. —ANALOGIES TO THE SONSHIP OF 
CHRIST. 


Moreover, the Son of God called Jesus, even 
if only 4-ma ordinary generation, yet, on 
account of His wisdom, is worthy to be called 





the Son of God; fok all writers call God the 


CHAP, XXI. —ANALOGIES "TO. THE HISTORY a4 
CHRIST. { 














Ave say also that the Word, who i 
* of God, was produced without 
n, and that He, Jesus Christ, our 
Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, 
and ascerided into heaven, we propound nothing 
different fram what you believe/regarding those 
whom you ‘esteem sons of Jupiter. For you 
know how many sons your esteemed writers 
ascribed to Jupiter.:.Mercury, the interpreting 
word and teacher of all ; A¢sculapius, who, though, 
he was a great physician, was struck by a thunder- 
bolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus 
too, after he had been torn limb from limb ; and 
Hercules, when he had committed himself to the 
flames to escape his toils ; and the sons of Leda, 
and Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae ; and 
Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, 
rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus. For what 
shall I say of Ariadne, and those who, like her, 
have been declared to be set among the stars? 
And what of the emperors who die among your- 
selves, whom you deem worthy of deification, 
and in whose behalf you produce some one who 
swears he has seen the burning Cesar rise to 
heaven from the funeral pyre? And what kind 
of deeds are recorded of each of these reputed 
sons of Jupiter, it is needless to tell to those who 
already know. This only shall be said, that they 
are written for the advantage and encouragement? 
of youthful scholars ; for ail reckon it an honour- 
able thing to imitate the gods. But far be such 
a thought concerning the gods from every well- 
conditioned soul, as to believe that Jupiter him- 
self, the governor and creator of all things, was 
both a parricide and the son of a parricide, and 
that being overcome by the love of base and 
shameful pleasures, he came in to Ganymede 





I i.e., first-born. 

2 dvahopay nai mpotporyv. The irony here is so obvious as to 
make the proposed reading (StapOopav kai maparporyy, corruption 
and depravation) unnecessary. Otto prefers the reading adopted 








Father of men and gqds. And if we assert that 
the! Word of God wag born of God in a peculiar 
manner, different ffom ordinary generation, let 
his, as said above, be no extraordinary thing to 
you,_w at Mercury is the angelic word 
of God. But if any one objects that He was 
crucified, in this also He is on a par with those 
reputed sons of Jupiter of yours, who suffered as 
we have now enumerated. For their sufferings 
at death are recorded to have been not all alike, 
but diverse ; so that not even by the peculiarity 
of His sufferings does He seem to be inferior to 
them ; but, on the contrary, as we promised in 
the preceding part of this discourse, we will now 
prove Him superior —or rather have already 
proved Him to be so—for the superior is re- 
vealed by His actions. And if we even affirm 
that He was born of a virgin, accept this in com- 
mon with what you accept of Perseus. And in 
that we say that He made whole the lame, the 
paralytic, and those born blind, we seem to say 
what is very similar to the deeds said to have 
been done by A#sculapius. 


CHAP. XXIII.— THE ARGUMENT. 


And that this may now become evident to 
you — (firstly?) that whatever we assert in con- 
formity with what has been taught us by Christ, 
and by the prophets who preceded Him, are 
alone true, and are older than all the writers 
who have existed ; that we claim to be acknowl- 
edged, not because we say the same things as 
these writers said, but because we say true 
things: and (secondly) that Jesus Christ is the 
only proper Son who has been begotten by God, 
being His Word and first-begotten, and power ; 
and, becoming man according to His will, He 





3 The Benedictine editor, Maranus, Otto, and Trollope, here note 
that Justin in this chapter promises to make good three distinct posi- 
tions: rst, That Christian doctrines alone are true, and are to be re- 
ceived, not on account of their resemblance to the sentiments of poets 
or philosophers, but on their own account; 2d, that Jesus Christ is 
the incarnate Son of God, and our teacher; 3d, that before His incar- 
nation, the demons, having some knowledge of what He would ac- 
complish, enabled the heathen poets and priests in some points ta 


above. ‘Trollope, on the other hand, inclines to the latter reading, | anticipate, though in a distorted form, the facts of the incarnation 


mainly on the score of the former expressions being unusual. See hi 
wery sensible note 2% Joc. 


is | The first he establishes in chap. xxiv.-xxix.; the second in chap 


xxx.-liii.; and the third in chap. liv. et sq. 


THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 





taught us these things for the conversion and 
restoration of the human race: and (thirdly) 
that before He became a man among men, 
some, influenced by the demons before men- 
tioned, related beforehand, through the instru- 
mentality of the poets, those circumstances as 
having really happened, which, having fictitiously 
devised, they narrated, in the same manner as 
they have caused to be fabricated the scandal- 
ous reports against us of infamous and impious 
actions,' of which there is neither witness nor 
proof—we shall bring forward the following 
proof. 


CHAP. XXIV.— VARIETIES OF HEATHEN WORSHIP. 


In the first place [we furnish proof], because, 
though we say things similar to what the Greeks 
say, we only are hated on account of the name 
of Christ, and though we do no wrong, are put 
to death as sinners; other men in other places 
worshipping trees and rivers, and mice and cats 
and crocodiles, and many irrational animals. 
Nor are the same animals esteemed by all; but 
in one place one is worshipped, and another in 
another, so that all are profane in the judgment 
of one another, on account of their not worship- 
ping the same objects. And this is the sole ac- 
cusation you bring against us, that we do not 
reverence the same gods as you do, nor offer to 
the dead libations and the savour of fat, and 
crowns for their statues? and sacrifices. For 
you very well know that the same animals are 
with some esteemed gods, with others wild 
beasts, and with others sacrificial victims. 


CHAP. XXV.— FALSE GODS ABANDONED BY CHRIS- 
TIANS. 


And, secondly, because we—who, out of 
every race of men, used to worship Bacchus the 
son of Semele, and Apollo the son of Latona 
(who in their loves with men did such things as 
it is shameful even to mention), and Proserpine 
and Venus (who were maddened with love of 
Adonis, and whose mysteries also you cele- 
brate), or A®sculapius, or some one or other of 
those who are called gods— have now, through 
Jesus Christ, learned to despise these, though 
we be threatened with death for it, and have 
dedicated ourselves to the unbegotten and im- 
passible God ; of whom we are persuaded that 
never was he goaded by lust of Antiope, or such 
other women, or of Ganymede, nor was rescued 
by that hundred-handed giant whose © aid was 
obtained through Thetis, nor was anxious on 


ee SSS SS eae 


and rendering of Trollope. 


I We have here followed the reading Hea lo 
in the edition al 


[But see reading of Langus, and Grabe's note, 
cited, 1. 46.] 
2 ey eae oTtepavous. 


The only conjecture which seems at 
all probable is that of the Benedictine editor followed here. 


[Grabe 


after Salmasius reads ev papats and quotes Martial, Su¢zdis aptetur | 


rosa crinibus. Translate, “ patch-work garlands.” 








171 


this account; that her son Achilles should de- 
stroy many of the Greeks because of his concu- 
bine Briseis. Those who believe these things 
we pity, and those who invented them we know 
to be devils. 





CHAP. XXVI.— MAGICIANS NOT TRUSTED BY CHRIS- 
TIANS, 


And, thirdly, because after Christ’s ascension 
into heaven the devils put forward certain men 
who said that they themselves were gods; and 
they were not only not persecuted by you, but 
even deemed worthy of honours. There was a 
Samaritan, Simon, a native of the village called 
Gitto, who in the reign of Claudius Cesar, and 
in your royal city of Rome, did mighty acts of 
magic, by virtue of the art of the devils operat- 
ing in him. He was considered a god, and as 
a god was honoured by you with a statue, whica 
statue was erected on the river Tiber, between 
the two bridges, and bore this inscription, in the 
language of Rome : — 

“ Simoni Deo Sancto,” 4 
“To Simon the holy God.” 
And almost all the Samaritans, and a few even 
of other nations, worship him, and acknowledge 
him as the first god ; and a woman, Helena, who 
went about with him at that time, and had for- 
merly been a prostitute, they say is the first idea 
generated by him. And a man, Meander, also 
a Samaritan, of the town Cappareteea, a disciple 
of Simon, and inspired by devils, we know to 
have deceived many while he was in Antioch by 
his magical art. He persuaded those who ad- 
hered to him that they should never die, and 
even now there are some living who hold this 
opinion of his. And there is Marcion, a man of 
Pontus, who is even at this day alive, and teach- 
ing his disciples to believe in some other god 
greater than the Creator. And he, by the aid 
of the devils, has caused many of every nation 
to speak blasphemies, and to deny that God is 
the maker of this universe, and to assert that 
some other being, greater than He, has done 
greater works. All who take their opinions from 
these men, are, as we before said,’ called Chris- 
tians ; just as also those who do not agree with 





3 i.e., on account of the assistance gained for him by Thetis, and 
in return for it. ; / , 

4 It is very generally supposed that Justin was mistaken in under- 
standing this to have been a statue erected to Simon Magus. This 
supposition rests on the fact that in the year 1574 there was dug up 
in the island of the Tiber a fragment of marble, with the inscription 
“Semoni Sanco Deo,” etc., being probably the base of a statue 
erected to the Sabine deity Semo Sancus. This inscription Justin is 
supposed to have mistaken for the one he gives above. This has 
always seemed to us very slight evidence on which to reject so pre- 
cise a statement as Justin here makes; a statement which he would 
scarcely have hazarded in an apology addressed to Rome, where 
every person had the means of ascertaining its accuracy. If, as is 
supposed, he made a mistake, it must have been at once exposed, and 
other writers would not have so frequently repeated the story as they 
have done. See Burton's Bampton Lectures, p. 374. [See Note 
in Grabe (x. 51), and also mine, at end, 

5 See chap. vii. 


172 


the philosophers in their doctrines, have yet in 
common with them the name of philosophers 
given to them. And whether they perpetrate 
those fabulous and shameful deeds'—the up- 
setting of the lamp, and promiscuous intercourse, 
and eating human flesh — we know not; but we 
do know that they are neither persecuted nor 
put to death by you, at least on account of their 
opinions. But I have a treatise against all the 
heresies that have existed already composed, 
which, if you wish to read it, I will give you. 


CHAP. XXVII.— GUILT OF EXPOSING CHILDREN. 


.. But as for us, we have been taught that to ex- 
26 pose newly-born children is the part of wicked 

men; and this we have been taught lest we 
should do any one an injury, and lest we should 
sin against God, first, because we see that almost 
all so exposed (not only the girls, but also the 
males) are brought up to prostitution. And as 
the ancients are said to have reared herds of 
oxen, or goats, or sheep, or grazing horses, so now 
we see you rear children only for this shameful 
use ; and for this pollution a multitude of females 
and hermaphrodites, and those who commit un- 
mentionable iniquities, are found in every nation. 
And you receive the hire of these, and duty and 
taxes from them, whom you ought to extermi- 
nate from your realm. And any one who uses 
such persons, besides the godless and infamous 
and impure intercourse, may possibly be having 
intercourse with his own child, or relative, or 
brother. And there are some who prostitute 
even their own children and wives, and some are 
openly mutilated for the purpose of sodomy ; 
and they refer these mysteries to the mother of 
the gods, and along with each of those whom 
you esteem gods there is painted a serpent,” a 
great symbol and mystery. Indeed, the things 3 
which you do openly and with applause, as if 
the divine light were overturned and extin- 
guished, these you lay to our charge ; which, in 
truth, does no harm to us who shrink from doing 
any such things, but only to those who do them 
and bear false witness against us. 


CHAP. XXVIII.—GOD’S CARE FOR MEN. 


For among us the prince of the wicked spirits 
is called the serpent, and Satan, and the devil, as 
you can learn by looking into our writings. And 
that he would be sent into the fire with his host, 
and the men who follow him, and would be pun- 
ished for an endless duration, Christ foretold. 
For the reason why God has delayed to do this, 





1 Which were commonly charged against the Christians. 

? Thirlby remarks that the serpent was the symbol specially of 
eternity, of power, and of wisdom, and that there was scarcely any 
divine attribute to which the heathen did not find some likeness in 
this animal. See also Hardwick’s Christ and other Masters, vol. 
ii, 146 (2d ed.), 

3 [Note how he retaliates upon the calumny (cap. xxvi.) of the 
“ upsetting of the lamp.”] 





THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 


is His regard for the human race. For He fore- 
knows that some are to be saved by repentance, 
some even that are perhaps not yet born.t In 
the beginning He made the human race with the 
power of thought and of choosing the truth and 
doing right, so that all men are without excuse 
before God; for they have been born rational 
and contemplative. And if any one disbelieves 
that God cares for these things, he will thereby 
either insinuate that God does not exist, or he 
will assert that though He exists He delights in 
vice, or exists like a stone, and that neither 
virtue nor vice are anything, but only in the 
opinion of men these things are reckoned good 
or evil. And this is the greatest profanity and 
wickedness. 


‘CHAP. XXIX.— CONTINENCE OF CHRISTIANS. 


And again [we fear to expose children], lest 
some of them be not picked up, but die, and we 
become murderers. But whether we marry, it is 
only that we may bring up children ; or whether 
we decline marriage, we live continently. And 
that you may understand that promiscuous inter- 
course is not one of our mysteries, one of our 
number a short time ago presented to Felix the 
governor in Alexandria a petition, craving that 
permission might be given to a surgeon to make 
him an eunuch. For the surgeons there said that 
they were forbidden to do this without the permis- 
sion of the governor. And when Felix absolutely 
refused to sign such a permission, the youth re- 
mained single, and was satisfied with his own 
approving conscience, and the approval of those 
who thought as he did. And it is not out of 
place, we think, to mention here Antinous, who 
was alive but lately, and whom all were prompt, 
through fear, to worship as a god, though they 
knew both who he was and what was his origin.° 


CHAP. XXX.— WAS CHRIST NOT A MAGICIAN? 


But lest any one should meet us with the ques- 
tion, What should prevent that He whom we call 
Christ, being a man born of men, performed 
what we call His mighty works by magical art, 
and by this appeared to be the Son of God? we 
will now offer proof, not trusting mere assertions, 
but being of necessity persuaded by those who 
prophesied [of Him] before these things came 
to pass, for with our own eyes we behold things 
that have happened and are happening just as 





4 Literally, “‘ For He foreknows some about to be saved by repent- 
ance, and some not yet perhaps born.” 

5 Those things which concern the salvation of man; so Trollope 
and the other interpreters, except Otto, who reads rovtwy mascu- 
line, and understands it of the men first spoken of. [See Plato (De 
Legtbus, opp. ix. p. 98, Bipont., 1786), and the valuable edition of 
Book X. by Professor Tayler Lewis (p. 52. etc.) , New York, 1845. ] 

6 For a sufficient account of the infamous history here alluded to 
and the extravagant grief of Hadrian, and the servility of the people, 
see Smith’s Dictionary of Biography: “ Antinous.” [Note, “ all 
were prompt, through fear,” etc. Thus we may measure the defiant 
intrepidity of this stinging sarcasm addressed to the “ philosophers,” 
with whose sounding titles this Apology begins. ] 


THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 





173 





they were predicted; and this will, we think, 
appear even to you the strongest and truest evi- 
dence. 


CHAP. XXXI.— OF THE HEBREW PROPHETS. 


There were, then, among the Jews certain men 
who were prophets of God, through whom the 
prophetic Spirit published beforehand things that 
were to come to pass, ere ever they happened. 
And their prophecies, as they were spoken and 
when they were uttered, the kings who happened 
to be reigning among the Jews at the several 
times carefully preserved in their possession, 
when they had been arranged in books by 
the prophets themselves in their own Hebrew 
language. And when Ptolemy king of Egypt 
formed a library, and endeavoured to collect the 
writings of all men, he heard also of these proph- 
ets, and sent to Herod, who was at that time 
king of the Jews,’ requesting that the books 
of the prophets be sent to him. And Herod the 
king did indeed send them, written, as they were, 
in the foresaid Hebrew language. And when 
their contents were found to be unintelligible to 
the Egyptians, he agaifi sent and requested that 
men be commissioned to translate them into the 
Greek language. And when this was done, the 
books remained with the Egyptians, where they 
are until now. They are also in the possession 
of all Jews throughout the world; but they, 
though they read, do not understand what is said, 
but count us foes and enemies ; and, like your- 
selves, they kill and punish us whenever they 
have the power, as you can well believe. For 
in the Jewish war which lately raged, Barcho- 
chebas, the leader of the revolt of the Jews, 
gave orders that Christians alone should be led 
to cruel punishments, unless they would deny 
Jesus Christ and utter blasphemy. In these 
books, then, of the prophets we found Jesus our 
Christ foretold as coming, born of a virgin, grow- 
ing up to man’s estate, and healing every disease 
and every sickness, and raising the dead, and 
being hated, and unrecognised, and crucified, 
and dying, and rising again, and ascending into 
heaven, and being, and being called, the Son of 
God. We find it also predicted that certain per- 
sons should be sent by Him into every nation 
to publish these things, and that rather among 
the Gentiles [than among the Jews] men should 
believe on Him. And He was predicted before 
He appeared, first 5000 years before, and again 
3000, then 2000, then 1000, and yet again 800 ; 
for in the succession of generations prophets 
after prophets arose. 


D) 


CHAP, XXXII. — CHRIST PREDICTED BY MOSES. 
Moses then, who was the first of the prophets, 








1 Some attribute this blunder in chronology to Justin, others to his 
transcribers: it was Eleazar the high priest to whom Ptolemy applied. 














spoke in these very words: “The sceptre shall 
not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from be- 
tween his feet, until He come for whom it is 
reserved ; and He shall be the desire of the na- 
tions, binding His foal to the vine, washing His 
robe in the blood of the grape.”? It is yours to 
make accurate inquiry, and ascertain up to whose 
time the Jews had a lawgiver and king of their 
own. Up tothe time of Jesus Christ, who taught 
us, and interpreted the prophecies which were 
not yet understood, [they had a lawgiver] as was 
foretold by the holy and divine Spirit of prophecy 
through Moses, “that a ruler would not fail the 
Jews until He should come for whom the king- 
dom was reserved ”’ (for Judah was the forefather - 
of the Jews, from whom also they have their 
name of Jews) ; and after He (i.e., Christ) ap- 
peared, you began to rule the Jews, and gained 
possession of all their terrjtory. And the proph- 
ecy, “ He shall be the expectation of the nations,” 
signified that there would be some of all nations 
who should look for Him to come again. And 
this indeed you can see for yourselves, and be 
convinced of by fact. For of all races of men 
there are some who look for Him who was cruci- 
fied in Judzea, and after whose crucifixion the 
land was straightway surrendered to you as spoil 
of war. And the prophecy, “binding His foal 
to the vine, and washing His robe in the blood of 
the grape,” was a significant symbol of the things 
that were to happen to Christ, and of what 
He was to do. For the foal of an ass stood 
bound to a vine at the entrance of a village, and 
He ordered His acquaintances to bring it to Him 
then ; and when it was brought, He mounted and 
sat upon it, and entered Jerusalem, where was 
the vast temple of the Jews which was afterwards 
destroyed by you. And after this He was cruci- 
fied, that the rest of the prophecy might be ful- 
filled. For this “ washing His robe in the blood 
of the grape’’ was predictive of the passion He 
was to endure, cleansing by His blood those 
who believe on Him. For what is called by the 
Divine Spirit through the prophet “ His robe,” 
are those men who believe in Him in whom 
abideth the seed 3 of-God, the Word. And what 
is spoken of as “the blood of the grape,” signi- 
fies that He who should appear would have blood, 
though not of the seed of man, but of the power 
of God. And the first power after God the 
Father and Lord of all is the Word, who is also 
the Son; and of Him we will, in what follows, 
relate how He,tookflesh_andhecame man. For 
as man did not make the blood of the vine, but 
God, so it was hereby intimated that the blood 
should not be of human seed, but of divine 





2 Gen, xlix. 10. z 

3 Grabe would here read, not omépua, but mvevma, the spirit; but 
the Benedictine, Otto, and Trollope all think that no change should be 
made. 


ve) 


174 








power, as we have said above. And Isaiah, 
another prophet, foretelling the same things in 
other words, spoke thus: “A star shall rise out 
of Jacob, and a flower shall spring from the root 
of fesse ; and His arm shall the nations trust.” ' 
And a star of light has arisen, and a flower has 
sprung from the root of Jesse —this Christ. 
For by the power of God He was conceived by 
a virgin of the seed of Jacob, who was the father 
of Judah, who, as we have shown, was the father 
of the Jews; and Jesse was His forefather ac- 
cording to the oracle, and He was the son of 
Jacob and Judah according to lineal descent. 


CHAP, XXXIII.— MANNER OF CHRIST’S BIRTH 
PREDICTED. 


And hear again how Isaiah in express words 
foretold that He should be born of a virgin ; for 
he spoke thus : “ Behold, a virgin shall conceive, 
and bring forth a son, and they shall say for His 
name, ‘God with us.’”?__ For things which were 
incredible and seemed impossible with men, 
these God predicted by the Spirit of prophecy 
as about to come to pass, in order that, when 
they came to pass, there might be no unbelief, 
but faith, because of their prediction. But lest 


some, not understanding the prophecy now. 


cited, should charge us with the very things we 
have been laying to the charge of the poets who 
say that Jupiter went in to women through lust, 
let us try to explain the words. This, then, ‘‘ Be- 
hold, a virgin shall conceive,” signifies that a 
virgin should conceive without intercourse. For 
if she had had intercourse with any one what- 
ever, she was no longer a virgin; but the power 
of God having come upon the virgin, over- 
shadowed her, and caused her while yet a virgin 
to conceive. And the angel of God who was 
sent to the same virgin at that time brought her 
good news, saying, “ Behold, thou shalt conceive 
of the Holy Ghost, and shalt bear a Son, and 
He shall be called the Son of the Highest, and 
thou shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall 
save His people from their sins,” 3— as they 
who have recorded all that concerns our Saviour 
Jesus Christ have taught, whom we believed, 
since by Isaiah also, whom we have now ad- 
duced, the Spirit of prophecy declared that He 
should be born as we intimated before. It is 
wrong, therefore, to understand the Spirit and 
the power of God as anything else than the 
Word, who is also the first-born of God, as the 
foresaid prophet Moses declared; and it was 
this which, when it came upon the virgin 
and overshadowed her, caused her to conceive, 
not by intercourse, but by power. And the name 
Jesus in the Hebrew language means Swrnp 





(olsas xin x; 
2 Isa. vii. 14. 
3 Luke i. 32; Matt. i. oz. 








THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 


(Saviour) in the Greek tongue. Wherefore, too, 
the angel said to the virgin, “Thou shalt call His 
name Jesus, for He shall save His people from 
their sins.” And that the prophets are inspired 4 
by no other than the Divine Word, even you, as 
I fancy, will grant: 


CHAP. XXXIV.— PLACE OF CHRIST’S BIRTH FORE- 
TOLD. 


And hear what part of earth He was to be 
born in, as another prophet, Micah, foretold. He 
spoke thus: “And thou, Bethlehem, the land 
of Judah, art not the least among the princes of 
Judah ; for out of thee shall come forth a Goy- 
ernor, who shall feed My people.” 5 Now there 
is a village in the land of the Jews, thirty-five 
stadia from Jerusalem, in which Jesus Christ 
was born, as you can ascertain also from the 
registers of the taxing made under Cyrenius, 
your first procurator in Judea. 


CHAP. XXXV.— OTHER FULFILLED PROPHECIES. 


And how Christ after He was born was to es- 
cape the notice of other men until He grew to 
man’s estate, which als# came to pass, hear 
what was foretold regarding this. ‘There are the 
following predictions :° — “ Unto us a child is 
born, and unto us a young man is given, and 
the government shall be upon His shoulders ;” 7 
which is significant of the power of the cross, 
for to it, when He was crucified, He applied 
His shoulders, as shall be more clearly made 
out in the ensuing discourse. And again the 
same prophet Isaiah, being inspired by the pro- 
phetic Spirit, said, “I have spread out my hands 
to a disobedient and gainsaying people, to those 
who walk in a way that is not good. They now 
ask of me judgment, and dare to draw near 
to God.”® And again in other words, through 
another prophet, He says, “They pierced My 
hands and My feet, and for My vesture they 
cast lots.”’9 And indeed David, the king and 
prophet, who uttered these things, suffered none 
of them; but Jesus Christ stretched forth His 
hands, being crucified by the Jews speaking 
against Him, and denying that He was the Christ. 
And as the prophet spoke, they tormented Him, 
and set Him on the judgment-seat, and said, 
Judge us. And the expression, “They pierced 
my hands and my feet,” was used in reference 
to the nails of the cross which were fixed in 
His hands and feet. And after He was cruci- 
fied they cast lots upon His vesture, and they 








4 Ocohopodvrat, lit. are borne by a god—a word used of those 
who were supposed to be wholly under the influence of a deity. 

5 Micah vy. 2. 

© These predictions have so little reference to the point Justin in- 
tends to make out, that some editors have supposed that a passage 
has here been lost. Others think the irrelevancy an insufficient 
ground for such a supposition, [See below, cap. xl, 

7 Isa. ix. 6. ; 

8 Isa. Ixy. 2, lvili. 2. 

9 Ps, xxii. 16, 


PHE FIRST APOLOGY OF /JUSTIN. 


175 





that crucified Him parted it among them. And 
that these things did happen, you can ascertain 
from the Acts of Pontius Pilate. And we will 
cite the prophetic utterances of another prophet, 
Zephaniah, ? to the effect that He was foretold 
expressly as to sit upon the foal of an ass and to 
enter Jerusalem. The words are these : “Rejoice 
greatly, O daughter of Zion ; shout, O daughter of 
Jerusalem ; behold, thy King cometh unto thee ; 
lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt 
the foal of an ass,’’3 


CHAP. XXXVI. — DIFFERENT MODES OF PROPHECY. 


But when you hear the utterances of the 
prophets spoken as it were personally, you must 
not suppose that they are spoken by the inspired 
themselves, but by the Divine Word who moves 
them. For sometimes He declares things that 
are to come to pass, in the manner of one who 
foretells the future; sometimes He speaks as 
from the person of God the Lord and Father of 
all; sometimes as from the person of Christ ; 
sometimes as from the person of the people an- 
swering the Lord or His Father, just as you can 
see even in your own writers, one man being the 


writer of the whole, but introducing the persons. 


who converse. And this the Jews who possessed 
the books of the prophets did not understand, 
and therefore did not recognise Christ even when 
He came, but even hate us who say that He has 
come, and who prove that, as was predicted, He 
was crucified by them. 


CHAP. XXXVII. — UTTERANCES OF THE FATHER. 


And that this too may be clear to you, there 
were spoken from the person of the Father, 
through Isaiah the prophet, the following words : 
“The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his 
master’s crib; but Israel doth not know, and 
My people hath not understood. Woe, sinful 
nation, a people full of sins, a wicked seed, chil- 
dren that are transgressors, ye have forsaken the 
Lord.” 4 And again elsewhere, when the same 
prophet speaks in like manner from the person 
of the Father, “What is the house that ye will 
build for Me? saith the Lord. The heaven is My 
throne, and the earth is My footstool.”5 And 
again, in another place, “ Your new moons and 
your sabbaths My soul hateth ; and the great day 
of the fast and of ceasing from labour I cannot 





i derwv. These Acts of Pontius Pilate, or regular accounts of 
his procedure sent by Pilate to the Emperor Tiberius, are supposed 
to have been destroyed at an early period, possibly in consequence 
of the unanswerable appeals which the Christians constantly made to 
them, There exists a forgery in imitation of these Acts. See Trol- 
lope. J 
PO The reader will notice that these are not the words of Zephaniah, 
but of Zechariah (ix. 9), to whom also Justin himself refers them in the 
Dial. Tryph., c. 53. {Might be corrected in the text, therefore, as 
a clerical slip of the pen.] 

3 Zech. 1x.9. é 4 . 

4 Isa. i: 3. This quotation varies only in one word from that of 
the LXX. | 

5 Isa, lxvi. 3. 








away with ; nor, if ye come to be seen of Me, 
will I hear you: your hands are full of blood ; 
and if ye bring fine flour, incense, it is abomina- 
tion unto Me: the fat of lambs and the blood of 
bulls I do not desire. For who hath required 
this at your hands? But loose every bond of 
wickedness, tear asunder the tight knots of vio- 
lent contracts, cover the houseless and naked, 
deal thy bread to the hungry.”"® What kind of 
things are taught through the prophets from [the 
person of ] God, you can now perceive. 


CHAP. XXXVIII.—- UTTERANCES OF THE SON, 


And when the Spirit of prophecy speaks from 
the person of Christ, the utterances are of this 
sort: “Ihave spread out My hands to a disobe- 
dient and gainsaying people, to those who walk 
in a way that is not good.”7 And again: “I 
gave My back to the scourges, and My cheeks 
to the buffetings; I turned not away My face 
from the shame of spittings; and the Lord was 
My helper: therefore was I not confounded : 
but I set My face as a firm rock; and I knew 
that I should not be ashamed, for He is near 
that justifieth Me.” ® And again, when He says, 
“They cast lots upon My vesture, and pierced 
My hands and My feet. And I lay down and 
slept, and rose again, because the Lord sustained 
Me.” 9 And again, when He says, ‘They spake 
with their lips, they wagged the head, saying, 
Let Him deliver Himself.” *° And that all these 
things happened to Christ at the hands of the 
Jews, you can ascertain. For when He was cru- 
cified, they did shoot out the lip, and wagged 
their heads, saying, ‘“‘ Let Him who raised the 
dead save Himself.” * 


CHAP, XXXIX.— DIRECT PREDICTIONS BY THE 
SPIRIT. 


And when the Spirit of prophecy speaks as 
predicting things that are to come to pass, He 
speaks in this way: “ For out of Zion shall go , 
forth the law, and the word of the Lord from 
Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the na- 
tions, and shall rebuke many people ; and they 
shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and 
their spears into pruning-hooks : nation shall not 
lift wp sword against nation, neither shall they 
learn war any more.” "2 And that it did so come 
to pass, we can convince you. For from Jeru- 
salem there went out into the world, men, twelve 
in number, and these illiterate, of no ability in 
speaking: but by the power of God they pro- 
claimed to every race of men that they were sent 
Rie ee ee ee 


6 Isa, i 14, xviii. 6. 

7 Isa, Ixv. 2. 

SalcavlnOs ae 

9 Ps. xxii. 18, iii, 5. 

10 Ps, xxii. 7+ 

11 Comp. Matt. xxvii. 39. 
12 Iga, li. 3. 


176 





by Christ to teach to all the word 


THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 


ee 


of God; and| which the wind driveth away from the face of 


we who formerly used to murder one another do| the earth. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand 


not only now refrain from making war upon our 
,enemies, but also, that we may not lie nor de- 
ceive our examiners, willingly die confessing 
Christ. For that saying, “‘ The tongue has sworn, 
but the mind is unsworn,”! might be imitated 
by us in this matter. But if the soldiers enrolled 
by you, and who have taken the military oath, 
prefer their allegiance to their own life, and par- 
ents, and country, and all kindred, though you 
can offer them nothing incorruptible, it were 
verily ridiculous if we, who earnestly long for 
incorruption, should not endure all things, in 
order to obtain what we desire from Him who is 
able to grant it. 


CHAP. XL. —CHRIST’S ADVENT FORETOLD. 


And hear how it was foretold concerning those 
who published His doctrine and proclaimed 
His appearance, the above-mentioned prophet 
and king speaking thus by the Spirit of prophecy : 
“Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto 
night showeth knowledge. ‘There is no speech 
nor language where their voice is not heard. 
Their voice has gone out into all the earth, and 
their words to the ends of the world. In the 
sun hath He set His tabernacle, and he as a 
bridegroom going out of his chamber shall re- 
joice as a giant to run his course.”? And we 
have thought it right and relevant to mention 
some other prophetic utterances of David be- 
sides these ; from which you may learn how the 
Spirit of prophecy exhorts men to live, and how 
He foretold the conspiracy which was formed 
against Christ by Herod the king of the Jews, and 
the Jews themselves, and Pilate, who was your 
governor among them, with his soldiers; and 
how He should be believed on by men of every 
race ; and how God calls Him His Son, and has 
declared that He will subdue all His enemies 
under Him; and how the devils, as much as 
they can, strive to escape the power of God the 
Father and Lord of all, and the power of Christ 
Himself; and how God calls all to repentance 
before the day of judgment comes. These things 
were uttered thus: “Blessed is the man who 
hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, 
nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the 
seat of the scornful: but his delight is in the law 
of the Lord; and in His law will he meditate 
day and night. And he shall be like a tree 
planted by the rivers of waters, which shall give 
his fruit in his season; and his leaf shall not 
wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. 
The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff 


1 Eurip., 22$7., 608. 
_ 2 Ps, xix. 2, etc. es J. excuses himself for the apparent 
irrelevancy of some of his citations (cap. xxxv., note), though quite 
in the manner of Plato himself, These Scriptures were of novel in- 
terest, and he was stimulating his readers to study the Septuagint. ] 








in the judgment, nor sinners in the council of 
the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way 
of the righteous; but the way of the ungodly 
shall perish. Why'do the heathen rage, and the 
people imagine new things? The kings of the 
earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel 
together, against the Lord, and against His 
Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asun- 
der, and cast their yoke from us. He that dwell- 
eth in the heavens shall laugh at them, and the 
Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall He 
speak to them in His wrath, and vex them in 
His sore displeasure. Yet have I been set by 
Him a King on Zion His holy hill, declaring the 
decree of the Lord. The Lord said to Me, 
Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten 
Thee. Ask of Me, and I shall give Thee the 
heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost 
parts of the earth as Thy possession. ‘Thou 
shalt herd them with a rod of iron; as the ves- 
sels of a potter shalt Thou dash them in pieces. 
Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings; be in- 
structed, all ye judges of the earth. Serve the 
Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 
Embrace instruction, lest at any time the Lord 
be angry, and ye perish from the right way, when 
His wrath has been suddenly kindled. Blessed 
are all they that put their trust in Him.” 3 


CHAP. XLI.— THE CRUCIFIXION PREDICTED. 


And again, in another prophecy, the Spirit of 
prophecy, through the same David, intimated 
that Christ, after He had been crucified, should 
reign, and spoke as follows: “Sing to the Lord, 
all the earth, and day by day declare His salva- 
tion. For great is the Lord, and greatly to be 
praised, to be feared above all the gods. For 
all the gods of the nations are idols of devils ; 
but God made the heavens. Glory and praise 
are before His face, strength and glorying are in 
the habitation of His holiness. Give Glory to 
the Lord, the Father everlasting. Receive grace, 
and enter His presence, and worship in His holy 


courts. Let all the earth fear before His face ; 
let it be established, and not shaken. Let them 
rejoice among the nations. The Lord hath 


reigned from the tree.’ 4 


CHAP. XLII.— PROPHECY USING THE PAST TENSE. 


But when the Spirit of prophecy speaks of 
things that are about to come to pass as if they 
had already taken place, —as may be observed 
even in the passages already cited by me, — that 





3 Ps. i. ii, 

4 Ps. xcvi. 1, etc. This last clause, which is not extant in our 
copies, either of the LXX. or of the Hebrew, Justin charged the Jews 
with erasing. See Dial. Tryph., c. 73. (Concerning the eighteen 

ewish alterations, see Pearson on the Creed, att. iv. P. 335- 

. London, 1824.] 


THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 





this circumstance may afford no excuse to read- 
ers [for misinterpreting them], we will make 
even this also quite plain. The things which He 
absolutely knows will take place; He predicts as 
if already they had taken place. And that the 
utterances must be thus received, you will per- 
ceive, if you give your attention to them. The 
words cited above, David uttered 1500" years 
before Christ became a man and was crucified ; 
and no one of those who lived before Him, nor 
yet of His contemporaries, afforded joy to the 
Gentiles by being crucified. But our Jesus 
Christ, being crucified and dead, rose again, and 
having ascended to heaven, reigned; and by 
those things which were published in His name 
among all nations by the apostles, there is joy 
afforded to those who expect the immortality 
promised by Him. 


CHAP. XLIII. — RESPONSIBILITY ASSERTED. 


But lest some suppose, from what has been 
said by us, that we say that whatever happens, 
happens by a fatal necessity, because it is fore- 
told as known beforehand, this too we explain. 
_ We have learned from the prophets, and we hold 
it to be true, that punishments, and chastisements, 
and good rewards, are rendered according to the 
merit of each man’s actions. Since if it be not 
so, but all things happen by fate, neither is any- 
thing at allin our own power. For if it be fated 
that this man, e.g., be good, and this other evil, 
neither is the former meritorious nor the latter 
to be blamed. And again, unless the human 
race have the power of avoiding evil and choosing 
good by free choice, they are not accountable 
for their actions, of whatever kind they be. 
But that it is by free choice they both walk 
uprightly and stumble, we thus demonstrate. 
We see the same man making a transition to op- 
posite things. Now, if it had been fated that he 
were to be either good or bad, he could never 
have been capable of both the opposites, nor of 
sO many transitions. But not even would some 
be good and others bad, since we thus make fate 
the cause of evil, and .xhibit her as acting in 
opposition to herself; or that which has been 
already stated would seem to be true, that neither 
virtue nor vice is anything, but that things are 
only reckoned good or evil by opinion ; which, 
as the true word shows, is the greatest impiety 
and wickedness. But this we assert is inevitable 
fate, that they who choose the good have worthy 
rewards, and they who choose the opposite have 
their merited awards. For not like other things, 
as trees and quadrupeds, which cannot act by 
choice, did God make man: for neither would he 
be worthy of reward or praise did he not of him- 
self choose the good, but were created for this 





1 A chronological error, whether of the copyist or of Justin him- 
self cannot be known, 








177 


end ;? nor, if he were evil, would he be worthy 
of punishment, not being evil of himself, but 
pains able to be nothing else than what he was 
made. 





CHAP. XLIV.—NOT NULLIFIED BY PROPHECY. 


And the holy Spirit of prophecy taught us this, 
telling us by Moses that God spoke thus to the 
man first created: “ Behold, before thy face are 
good and evil: choose the good.” 3 And again, 
by the other prophet Isaiah, that the following 
utterance was made as if from God the Father 
and Lord of all: “ Wash you, make you clean; 
put away evils from your souls ; learn to do well ; 
judge the orphan, and plead for the widow: and 
come and let us reason together, saith the Lord : 
And if your sins be as scarlet, I will make them 
white as wool ; and if they be red like as crimson, 
I will make them white as snow. And if ye be 
willing and obey Me, ye shall eat the good of the 
land ; but if ye do not obey Me, the sword shall 
devour you: for the mouth of the Lord hath 
spoken it.”4 And that expression, “The sword 
shall devour you,” does not mean that the dis- 
obedient shall be slain by the sword, but the 
sword of God is fire, of which they who choose 
to do wickedly become the fuel. Wherefore He 
says, “The sword shall devour you: for the 
mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” And if He 
had spoken concerning a sword that cuts and at 
once despatches, He would not have said, shall 
devour. And so, too, Plato, when he says, ‘“‘ The 
blame is his who chooses, and God is blameless,”’5 
took this from the prophet Moses and uttered it. 
For Moses is more ancient than all the Greek 
writers. And whatever both philosophers and 
poets have said concerning the immortality of the 
soul, or punishments after death, or contemplation 
of things heavenly, or doctrines of the like kind, 
they have received such suggestions from the 
prophets as have enabled them to understand 
and interpret these things. And hence there 
seem to be seeds of truth among all men; but 
they are charged with not accurately understand- 
ing [the truth] when they assert contradictories. 
So that what we say about future events being 
foretold, we do not say it as if they came about 
by a fatal necessity; but God foreknowing all 
that shall be done by all men, and it being His 
decree that the future actions of men shall all be 
recompensed according to their several value, 
He foretells by the Spirit of prophecy that He 
will bestow meet rewards according to the merit 
of the actions done, always urging the human 





2 Or,‘ butwere made so.” The words are, dAAa TovTO yevouevos 
and the meaning of Justin is sufficiently clear. 

3 Deut. xxx. 15, 19. 

4 Isa. i. 16, etc. F : 

5 Plato, Rep. x. [On this remarkable passage reter to Biog. Note 
above. See, also, brilliant note of the sophist De Maistre, Zuvres, 
ii, p. 105. Ed. Paris, 1853.] 


178 


race to effort and recollection, showing that He 
cares and provides for men. But by the agency 
of the devils death has been decreed against 
those who read the books of Hystaspes, or of 
the Sibyl,! or of the prophets, that through fear 
they may prevent men who read them from re- 
ceiving the knowledge of the good, and may 
retain them in slavery to themselves ; which, how- 
ever, they could not always effect. For not only 
do we fearlessly read them, but, as you see, bring 
them for your inspection, knowing that their con- 
tents will be pleasing to all. And if we persuade 
even a few, our gain will be very great ; for, as 
good husbandmen, we shall receive the reward 
from the Master. 


CHAP. XLV. —CHRIST’S SESSION IN HEAVEN 
FORETOLD. 


And that God the Father of all would bring 
Christ to heaven after He had raised Him from 
the dead, and would keep Him there ? until He 
has subdued His enemies the devils, and until 
the number of those who are foreknown by Him 
as good and virtuous is complete, on whose ac- 
count He has still delayed the consummation — 
hear what was said by the prophet David. These 
are his words: “The Lord said unto My Lord, 


Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine | 


enemies Thy footstool. ‘The Lord shall send to 


Thee the rod of power out of Jerusalem ; and rule. 


Thou in the midst of Thine enemies. With Thee 
is the government in the day of Thy power, in the 
beauties of Thy saints: from the womb of morn- 
ing3 have I begotten Thee.”* That which he 
says, “‘ He shall send to Thee the rod of power 
out of Jerusalem,” is predictive of the mighty 
word, which His apostles, going forth from Jeru- 
salem, preached everywhere ; and though death 
is decreed against those who teach or at all con- 
fess the name of Christ, we everywhere both em- 
brace and teach it. And if you also read these 
words in a hostile spirit, ye can do no more, as 
I said before, than kill us; which indeed does 
no harm to us, but to you and all who unjustly 
hate us, and do not repent, brings eternal punish- 
ment by fire. 


CHAP. XLVI.— THE WORD IN THE WORLD BEFORE 
CHRIST. 


But lest some should, without reason, and for 
‘the perversion of what we teach, maintain, that 
we say that Christ was born one hundred and 
fifty years ago under Cyrenius, and subsequently, 
in the time of Pontius Pilate, taught what we say 





I [Oa the Orphica and Sibyllina, see Bull, Works, vol. vi: pp. 
291-298. 
2 So Thirlby, Otto, and Trollope seem all to understand the word 
karéxewv; yet it seems worth considering whether Justin has not 
borrowed both the sense and the word from 2 Thess. ii. 6, 7. 

3 Or, ‘‘ before the morning star. ” 

4 Ps. €x. ¥, etc. 





THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 


He taught; and should cry out against us as 
though all men who were born before Him were 
irresponsible —let us anticipate and solve the 
difficulty. We have been taught that Christ is 
the first-born of God, and we have declared 
above that He is the Word of whom every race 
of men were partakers; and those who lived 
reasonably5 are Christians, even though they 
have been thought atheists; as, among the 
Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like 
them; and among the barbarians, Abraham, 
and Ananias, and Azarias, and Misael, and Elias, 
and many others whose actions and names we now 
decline to recount, because we know it would be 
tedious. So that even they who lived before 
Christ, and lived without reason, were wicked 
and hostile to Christ, and slew those who lived 
redsonably. But who, through the power of the 
Word, according to the will of God the Father 
and Lord of all, He was born of a virgin asa 
man, and was named Jesus, and was crucified, 
and died, and rose again, and ascended into 
heaven, an intelligent man will be able to com- 
prehend from what has been already so largely 
said. And we, since the proof of this subject is 
less needful now, will pass for the present to the 
proof of those things which are urgent. 


CHAP. XLVII.— DESOLATION OF JUD4A FORETOLD. 


That the land of the Jews, then, was to be laid 
waste, hear what was said by the Spirit of proph- 
ecy. And the words were spoken as if from the 
person of the people wondering at what had hap- 
pened. They are these: “Sion is a wilderness, 
Jerusalem a desolation. The house of our sanc- 
tuary has become a curse, and the glory which 
our fathers blessed is burned up with fire, and 
all its glorious things are laid waste: and Thou 
refrainest Thyself at these things, and hast held 
Thy peace, and hast humbled us very sore.’’® 
And ye are convinced that Jerusalem has been 
laid waste, as was predicted. And concerning 
its desolation, and that no one should be per- 
mitted to inhabit it, there was the following 
prophecy by Isaiah: ‘Their land is desolate, 
their enemies consume it before them, and none 
of them shall dwell therein.”7 And that it is 
guarded by you lest any one dwell in it, and 
that death is decreed against a Jew apprehended 
entering it, you know very well.® 


CHAP.. XLVIII.— CHRIST’S WORK AND DEATH FORE- 
TOLD. 


And that it was predicted that our Christ 





5 peta Adyou, “ with reason,” or ‘ the Word.” [This remarkable 
passage on the salvability and accountability of the heathen is note- 
worthy, See, on St. Matt. xxv. 32, Morsels of. Criticism by the 
eccentric but thoughtful Ed. King, p. 341. London, 1788], 

© Isa, Ixiv, 10-12. 

: (aes 1B 

Ad hominem, referring to the cruel decree of Hadri i 
the philosophic Antonines did abt annul. } ; ae mae 


THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 


should heal all diseases and raise the dead, hear | “ Because they delivered His soul unto death, 
what was said. There are these words: “At 





His coming the lame shall leap as an hart, and 
the tongue of the stammerer shall be clear speak- 
ing: the blind shall see, and the lepers shall be 
cleansed; and the dead shall rise, and walk 
about.”* And that He did those things, you 
can learn from the Acts of Pontius Pilate. And 
how it was predicted by the Spirit of prophecy 
that He and those who hoped in Him should be 
slain, hear what was said by Isaiah. These are 
the words: “ Behold now the righteous perish- 
eth, and no man layeth it to heart; and just 
men are taken away, and no man considereth. 
From the presence of wickedness is the righteous 
man taken, and his burial shall be in peace: he 
is taken from our midst.” ? 


CHAP. XLIX.—HIS REJECTION BY THE JEWS FORE- 
TOLD. 


And again, how it was said by the same Isaiah, 
that the Gentile nations who were not looking 
for Him should worship Him, but the Jews who 
always expected Him should not recognize Him 
when He came. And the words are spoken as 
from the person of Christ ; and they are these : 
“TI was manifest to them that asked not for Me ; 
I was found of them that sought Me not: I said, 
Behold Me, to a nation that called not on My 
name. I spread out My hands to a disobedient 
and gainsaying people, to those who walked in 
a way that is not good, but follow after their own 
sins ; a people that provoketh Me to anger to 
My face.” 3 For the Jews having the prophecies, 
and being always in expectation of the Christ to 
come, did not recognise Him ; and not only so, 
but even treated Him shamefully. But the Gen- 
tiles, who had never heard anything about Christ, 
until the apostles set out from Jerusalem and 
preached concerning Him, and gave them the 
prophecies, were filled with joy and faith, and cast 
away their idols, and dedicated themselves to the 
Unbegotten God through Christ. And that it 
was foreknown that these infamous things should 
be uttered against those who confessed Christ, 
and that those who slandered Him, and said 
that it was well to preserve the ancient customs, 
should be miserable, hear what was briefly said 
by Isaiah ; it is this: “ Woe unto them that call 
sweet bitter, and bitter sweet.” + 


CHAP. L.— HIS HUMILIATION PREDICTED. 


But that, having become man for our sakes, 
He endured to suffer and to be dishonoured, and 
that He shall come again with glory, hear the 
prophecies which relate to this ; they are these: 


re 


2 Tsa. xxxv. 6. 
2 Isa. lvii. 1. 
t Isa, Ixv. 1-3. 
4 fsa. vy, 20. 








179 


and He was numbered with the transgressors, 
He has borne the sin of many, and shall make 
intercession for the transgressors. For, behold, 
My Servant shall deal prudently, and shall be 
exalted, and shall be greatly extolled. As many 
were astonished at Thee, so marred shall Thy 
form be before men, and so hidden from them 
Thy glory; so shall many nations wonder, and 
the kings shall shut their mouths at Him. For 
they to whom it was not told concerning Him, 
and they who have not heard, shall understand. 
O Lord, who hath believed our report? and to 
whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We 
have declared before Him as a child, as a root 
in a dry ground. He had no form, nor glory ; 
and we saw Him, and there was no form nor 
comeliness: but His form was dishonoured and 
marred more than the sons of men. A man 
under the stroke, and knowing how to bear 
infirmity, because His face was turned away: 
He was despised, and of no reputation. It is 
He who bears our sins, and is afflicted for us; 
yet we did esteem Him smitten, stricken, and 
afflicted. But He was wounded for our trans- 
gressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the 
chastisement of peace was upon Him, by His 
stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have 
gone astray ; every man has wandered in his own 
way. And He delivered Him for our sins ; and 
He opened not His mouth for all His affliction. 
He was brought as a sheep to the slaughter, and 
as a lamb before his shearer is dumb, so He 
openeth not His mouth. In His humiliation, 
His judgment was taken away.”5 Accordingly, 
after He was crucified, even all His acquaint- 
ances forsook Him, having denied Him; and 
afterwards, when He had risen from the dead 
and appeared to them, and had taught them to 
read the prophecies in which all these things were 
foretold as coming to pass, and when they had 
seen Him ascending into heaven, and had be- 
lieved, and had received power sent thence by 
Him upon them, and went to every race of men, 
they taught these things, and were called apostles. 


CHAP. LI.— THE MAJESTY OF CHRIST. 


And that the Spirit of prophecy might signify 
to us that He who suffers these things has an 
ineffable origin, and rules His enemies, He spake 
thus: “His generation who shall declare? be- 
cause His life is cut off from the earth: for their 
transgressions He comes to death. And I will 
give the wicked for His burial, and the rich for 
His death ; because He did no violence, neither 
was any deceit in His mouth. And the Lord is 
pleased to cleanse Him from the stripe. If He 
be given for.sin, your soul shall see His seed 








5 Isa, lii, 13-15, liti. 1-8. 


180 


prolonged in days. And the Lord is pleased to 
deliver His soul from grief, to show Him light, 
and to form Him with knowledge, to justify the 
righteous who richly serveth many. And He 
shall bear our iniquities. Therefore He shall 
inherit many, and He shall divide the spoil of 
the strong; because His soul was delivered to 
death: and He was numbered with the trans- 
gressors; and He bare the sins of many, and 
He was delivered up for their transgressions.” ! 
Hear, too, how He was to ascend into heaven 
according to prophecy. It was thus spoken: 
“Lift up the gates of heaven; be ye opened, 
that the King of glory may come in. Who is this 
King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty.” ? 
And how also He should come again out of 
heaven with glory, hear what was spoken in refer- 
ence to this by the prophet Jeremiah.3 His 
words are: “Behold, as the Son of man He 
cometh in the clouds of heaven, and His angels 
with Him.” 4 


CHAP. LIIL—CERTAIN FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY. 


Since, then, we prove that all things which 
have already happened had been predicted by 
the prophets before they came to pass, we must 
necessarily believe also that those things which 
are in like manner predicted, but are yet to come 
to pass, shall certainly happen. For as the things 
which have already taken place came to pass 
when foretold, and even though unknown, so 
shall the things that remain, even though they 
be unknown and disbelieved, yet come to pass. 
For the prophets have proclaimed two advents 
of His: the one, that which is already past, 
when He came as a dishonoured and suffering 
Man ; but the second, when, according to proph- 
ecy, He shall come from heaven with glory, ac- 
companied by His angelic host, when also He 
shall raise the bodies of all men who have lived, 
and shall clothe those of the worthy with immor- 
tality, and shall send those of the wicked, endued 
with eternal sensibility, into everlasting fire with 
the wicked devils. And that these things also 
have been foretold as yet to be, we will prove. 
By Ezekiel the prophet it was said : “Joint shall 
be joined to joint, and bone to bone, and flesh 
shall grow again; and every knee shall bow to 
the Lord, and every tongue shall confess Him.” 5 
And in what kind of sensation and punishment 
the wicked are to be, hear from what was said 
in like manner with reference to this; it is as 
follows: “Their worm shall not rest, and their 
fire shall not be quenched ;”® and then shall 
they repent, when it profits them not. And what 





T Isa, liii. 8-12. 

2 Ps. xxiv. 7. 

3 This prophecy occurs not in Jeremiah, but in Dan. vii. 13. 
4 Dan. vii. 13. 

5 Ezek. xxxvii. 7, 8; Isa. xlv. 24. 

6 Isa. Ixvi. 24. 











THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 


the people of the Jews shall say and do, when 
they see Him coming in glory, has been thus 
predicted by Zechariah the prophet: “I will 
command the four winds to gather the scattered 
children ; I will command the north wind to 
bring them, and the south wind, that it keep not 
back. And then in Jerusalem there shall be 
great lamentation, not the lamentation of mouths 
or of lips, but the lamentation of the heart ; and 
they shall rend not their garments, but their 
hearts. Tribe by tribe they shall mourn, and 
then they shall look on Him whom they have 
pierced ; and they shall say, Why, O Lord, hast 
Thou made us to err from Thy way? ‘The glory 
which our fathers blessed, has for us been turned 
into shame.” 7 


‘CHAP. LIII.— SUMMARY OF THE PROPHECIES. 


Though we could bring forward many other 
prophecies, we forbear, judging these sufficient 
for the persuasion of those who have ears to hear 
and understand ; and considering also that those 
persons are able to see that we do not make 
mere assertions without being able to produce 
proof, like those fables that are told of the so- 
called sons of Jupiter. For with what reason 
should we believe of a crucified man that He is 
the first-born of the unbegotten God, and Him- 
self will pass judgment on the whole human race, 
unless we had found testimonies concerning Him 
published before He came and was born as man, 
and unless we saw that things had happened ac- 
cordingly —the devastation of the land of the 
Jews, and men of every race persuaded by His 
teaching through the apostles, and rejecting 
their old habits, in which, being deceived, they 
had had their conversation ; yea, seeing ourselves 
too, and knowing that the Christians from among 
the Gentiles are both more numerous and more 
true than those from among the Jews and Samar- 
itans? For all the other human races are called 
Gentiles by the Spirit of prophecy ; but the Jew- _ 
ish and Samaritan races are called the tribe of 
Israel, and the house of Jacob. And the prophecy 
in which it was predicted that there should be 
more believers from the Gentiles than from the 
Jews and Samaritans, we will produce: it ran 
thus: “Rejoice, O barren, thou that dast not 
bear ; break forth and shout, thou that dast not 
travail, because many more are the children of 
the desolate than of her that hath an husband.” § 
For all the Gentiles were “desolate” of the true 
God, serving the works of their hands; but the 
Jews and Samaritans, having the word of God 
delivered to them by the prophets, and always 
expecting the Christ, did not recognise Him 
when He came, except some few,of whom the 
Spirit of prophecy by Isaiah had predicted that 





7 Zech, xii. 3-14; Isa. Lxiii. 17, lxiv. 11. 
8 Isa. liv. 1. 


THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 





————$ $$ 


hey should be saved. He spoke as from their 
person : “Except the Lord had left us a seed, we 
should have been as Sodom and Gomorrah.” * 
For Sodom and Gomorrah are related by Moses 
to have been cities of ungodly men, which God 
burned with fire and brimstone, and overthrew, 
no one of their inhabitants being saved except 
a certain stranger, a Chaldean by birth, whose 
name was Lot; with whom also his daughters 
were rescued. And those who care may yet see 
their whole country desolate and burned, and 
remaining barren. And to show how those from 
among the Gentiles were foretold as more true 
and more believing, we will cite what was said 
by Isaiah? the prophet ; for he spoke as follows: 
‘‘ Israel is uncircumcised in heart, but the Gen- 
tiles are uncircumcised in the flesh.” So many 
things therefore, as these, when they are seen 
with the eye, are enough to produce conviction 
and belief in those who embrace the truth, and 
are not bigoted in their opinions, nor are gov- 
erned by their passions. 


CHAP. LIV. — ORIGIN OF HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY. 


But those who hand down the myths which the 
poets have made, adduce no proof to the youths 
who learn them; and we proceed to demon- 
strate that they have been uttered by the influ- 
ence of the wicked demons, to deceive and lead 
astray the human race. For having heard it 
proclaimed through the prophets that the Christ 
was to come, and that the ungodly among men 
were to be punished by fire, they put forward 
many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the 
impression that they would be able to produce in 
men the idea that the things which were said 
with regard to Christ were mere marvellous tales, 
like the things which were said by the poets. And 
these things were said both among the Greeks 
and among all nations where they [the de- 
mons] heard the prophets foretelling that Christ 
would specially be believed in; but that in 
hearing what was said by the prophets they 
did not accurately understand it, but imitated 
what was said of our Christ, like men who are in 
error, we will make plain. The prophet Moses, 
then, was, as we have already said, older than 
all writers ; and by him, as we have also said be- 
fore, it was thus predicted: “There shall not 
fail a prince from Judah, nor a lawgiver from 
between his feet, until He come for whom it is 
reserved ; and He shall be the desire of the Gen- 
tiles, binding His foal to the vine, washing His 
robe in the blood of the grape.’’3 The devils, 
accordingly, when they heard these prophetic 
words, said that Bacchus was the son of Jupiter, 
and gave out that he was the discoverer of the 





1 Isa. i. 9. ‘ ‘ q ;, 
2 The Onowing words are found, not in Isaiah, but in Jer. ix. 26. 
3 Gen, xlix. ro. 








18] 


vine, and they number wine ¢ [or, the ass] among 
his mysteries ; and they taught that, having been 
torn in pieces, he ascended into heaven. And 
because in the prophecy of Moses it had not 
been expressly intimated whether He who was 
to come was the Son of God, and whether 
He would, riding on the foal, remain on earth 
or ascend into heaven, and because the name of 
“ foal” could mean either the foal of an ass or 
the foal of a horse, they, not knowing whether 
He who was foretold would bring the foal of an 
ass or of a horse as the sign of His coming, nor 
whether He was the Son of God, as we said 
above, or of man, gave out that Bellerophon, a 
man born of man, himself ascended to heaven 
on his horse Pegasus. And when they heard it 
said by the other prophet Isaiah, that He should 
be born of a virgin, and by His own means as- 
cend into heaven, they pretended that Perseus 
was spoken of. And when they knew what was 
said, as has been cited above, in the prophecies 
written aforetime, “ Strong as a giant to run his 
course,” 5 they said that Hercules was strong, 
and had journeyed over the whole earth. And 
when, again, they learned that it had been fore- 
told that He should heal every sickness, and 
raise the dead, they produced Atsculapius. 


CHAP. LV.— SYMBOLS OF THE CROSS. 


But in no instance, not even in any of those 
called sons of Jupiter, did they imitate the be- 
ing crucified ; for it was not understood by them, 
all the things said of it having been put symboli- 
cally. And this, as the prophet foretold, is the 
greatest symbol of His power and rule ; as is also 
proved by the things which fall under our obser- 
vation. For consider all the things in the world, 
whether without this form they could be admin- 
istered or have any community. For the sea is 
not traversed except that trophy which is called 
a sail abide safe in the ship; and the earth is 
not ploughed without it: diggers and mechanics 
do not their work, except with tools which have 
this shape. And the human form differs from 
that of the irrational animals in nothing else than 
in its being erect and having the hands extended, 
and having on the face extending from the fore- 
head what is called the nose, through which 
there is respiration for the living creature ; and 
this shows no other form than that of the cross. 
And so it was said by the prophet, ‘‘ The breath 
before our face is the Lord Christ.”® And the 
power of this form is shown by your own sym- 
bols on what are called “ vexilla”” [banners] and 





4 In the ms. the reading is olvoy (wine); but as Justin’s fe cnt 
equire dvov (an ass), Sylburg inserted this latter word in 
ie eaiban ad iis hort. fe cpanel by Grabe and Thirlby, and 
adopted by Otto and Trollope. It may be added, that advaypapovat 
is much more suitable to 6voy than to olvov. 
5: Ps! xix. 5. 
6 From Lam, iv. 20 (Sept,). 


182 








trophies, with which all your state possessions are 
made, using these as the insignia of your power 
and government, even though you do so unwit- 
tingly.t And with this form you consecrate the 
images of your emperors when they die, and you 
name them gods by inscriptions. Since, there- 
fore, we have urged you both by reason and by 
an evident form, and to the utmost of our ability, 
we know that now we are blameless even though 
you disbelieve ; for our part is done and fin- 
ished. 


CHAP. LVI. — THE DEMONS STILL MISLEAD MEN. 


But the evil spirits were not satisfied with say- 
ing, before Christ’s appearance, that those who 
were said to be sons of Jupiter were born of 
him ; but after He had appeared and been born 
among men, and when they learned how He had 
been foretold by the prophets, and knew that 
He should be believed on and looked for by 
every nation, they again, as was said above, put 
forward other men, the Samaritans Simon and 
Menander, who did many mighty works by magic, 
and deceived many, and still keep them de- 
ceived. For even among yourselves, as we said 
before,? Simon was in the royal city Rome in 
the reign of Claudius Czesar, and so greatly 
astonished the sacred senate and people of the 
Romans, that he was considered a god, and 
honoured, like the others whom you honour as 
gods, with a statue. Wherefore we pray that the 
sacred senate and your people may, along with 
yourselves, be arbiters of this our memorial, in 
order that if any one be entangled by that man’s 
doctrines, he may learn the truth, and so be able 
to escape error; and as for the Statue, if you 
please, destroy it. 


CHAP. LVII.— AND CAUSE PERSECUTION. 


Nor can the devils persuade men that there 
will be no conflagration for the punishment of 
the wicked ; as they were unable to effect that 
Christ should be hidden after He came. But 
this only can they effect, that they who live irra- 
tionally, and were brought up licentiously in 
wicked customs, and are prejudiced in their 
own opinions, should kill and hate us; whom 
we not only do not hate, but, as is proved, pity 
and endeavour to lead to repentance. For we 
do not fear death, since it is acknowledged we 
must surely die ; and there is nothing new, but 
all things continue the same in this administra- 
tion of things ; and if satiety overtakes those who 
enjoy even one year of these things, they ought 
to give heed to our doctrines, that they may 
live eternally free both from suffering and from 





1 [The Orientals delight in such refinements, but the “‘ scandal of 
the cross” led the early Christians thus to retort upon the heathen; 
and the Labarum may have been the fruit of this very suggestion. ] 

2 [See cap. xxvi. above, and note p. 187, below. ] 





THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 


want. But if they believe that there is nothing 
after death, but declare that those who die pass 
into insensibility, then they become our benefac- 
tors when they set us free from sufferings and 
necessities of this life, and prove themselves to 
be wicked, and inhuman, and bigoted. For they 
kill us with no intention of delivering us, but 
cut us off that we may be deprived of life and 
pleasure. 


CHAP. LVIII.— AND RAISE UP HERETICS. 


And, as we said before, the devils put forward 
Marcion of Pontus, who is even now teaching 
men to deny that God is the maker of all things 
in heaven and on earth, and that the Christ pre- 
dicted by the prophets is His Son, and preaches 
another god besides the Creator of ali, and like- 
wise another son. And this man many have 
believed, as if he alone knew the truth, and 
laugh at us, though they have no proof of what 
they say, but are carried away irrationally as 
lambs by a wolf, and become the prey of atheis- 
tical doctrines, and of devils. For they who are 
called devils attempt nothing else than to seduce 
men from God who made them, and from Christ 
His first-begotten ; and those who are unable to 
raise themselves above the earth they have riveted, 
and do now rivet, to things earthly, and to the 
works of their own hands; but those who de- 
vote themselves to the contemplation of things 
divine, they secretly beat back ; and if they have 
not a wise sober-mindedness, and a pure and 
passionless life, they drive them into godless- 
ness. 


CHAP. LIX.—PLATO’S OBLIGATION TO MOSES. 


And that you may learn that it was from our 
teachers — we mean the account given through 
the prophets—that Plato borrowed his state- 
ment that God, having altered matter which was 
shapeless, made the world, hear the very words 
spoken through. Moses, who, as above shown. 
was the first prophet, and of greater antiquity 
than the Greek writers ; and through whom the 
Spirit of prophecy, signifying how and from what 
materials God at first formed the world, spake 
thus: “In the beginning God created the heaven 
and the earth. And the earth was invisible and 
unfurnished, and darkness was upon the face or 
the deep; and the Spirit of God moved over 
the waters. And God said, Let there be light ; 
and it was so.” So that both Plato and they 
who agree with him, and we ourselves, have 
learned, and you also can be convinced, that by 
the word of God the whole world was made out 
of the substance spoken of before by Moses. 
And that which the poets call Erebus, we know 
was spoken of formerly by Moses.3 





en 


3 Comp. Deut, xxxii. 22. 


THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 





CHAP, LX. —PLATO’S DOCTRINE OF THE CROSS. 


And the physiological discussion ' concerning 
the Son of God in the Zimeus of Plato, where 
he says, “ He placed him crosswise? in the uni- 
verse,” he borrowed in like manner from Moses ; 
for in the writings of Moses it is related how at 
that time, when the Israelites went out of Egypt 
and were in the wilderness, they fell in with 
poisonous beasts, both vipers and asps, and every 
kind of serpent, which slew the people; and 
that Moses, by the inspiration and influence of 
God, took brass, and made it into the figure of 
a cross, and set it in the holy tabernacle, and 
said to the people, “If ye look to this figure, 
and believe, ye shall be saved thereby.”3 And 
when this was done, it is recorded that the ser- 
pents died, and it is handed down that the 
people thus escaped death. Which things Plato 
reading, and not accurately understanding, and 
not apprehending that it was the figure of the 
cross, but taking it to be a placing crosswise, 
he said that the power next to the first God was 
placed crosswise in the universe. And as to 
his speaking of a third, he did this because he 
read, as we said above, that which was spoken 
by Moses, “ that the Spirit of God moved over 
the waters.” For he gives the second place to 
the Logos which is with God, who he said was 
placed crosswise in the universe ; and the third 
place to the Spirit who was said to be borne 
upon the water, saying, “And the third around 
the third.”4 And hear how the Spirit of proph- 
ecy signified through Moses that there should be 
a conflagration. He spoke thus: “ Everlasting 
fire shall descend, and shall devour to the pit 
beneath.” 5 Itis not, then, that we hold the same 
opinions as others, but that all speak in imitation 
of ours. Among us these things can be heard 
and learned from persons who do not even know 
the forms of the letters, who are uneducated and 
barbarous in speech, though wise and believing 
in mind ; some, indeed, even maimed and de- 
prived of eyesight ; so that you may understand 
that these things are not: the effect of human 
wisdom, but are uttered by the power of God. 


CHAP. LXI. — CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 


I will also relate the manner in which we 
dedicated ourselves to God when we had been 
made new through Christ ; lest, if we omit this, 
we seem to be unfair in the explanation we are 





I Literally, ‘‘ that which is treated physiologically.” 

2 He impressed him as a x‘aopa, i.e., in the form of the letter x 
upon the universe.” Plato is speaking of the soul of the universe. 
(Timzus, Opp., vol. ix. p. 314. And see note of Langus (p. 37) on 
p. 113 of Grabe. Here crops out the Platonie philosopher speaking 
after the fashion of his contemporaries, perhaps to conciliate his 
sovereign, See Professor Jowett’s Introduction to the Tz7exs, which 
will aid the students. ] 

3 Num. xxi. 8. 

4 Ta. 88 tpita mept Tov TpLTOV. 

5 Deut, xxxii, 22: 








183 





making. As many as are persuaded and believe 
that what we teach and say is true, and under. 
take to be able to live accordingly, are instructed 
to pray and to entreat God with fasting, for the 
remission of their sins that are past, we praying 
and fasting with them. Then they are brought 
by us where there is water, and are regenerated 
in the same manner in which we were ourselves 
regenerated. For, in the name of God, the 
Father and Lord of the universe, and of our 
Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, 
they then receive the washing with water. For 
Christ also said, “ Except ye be born again, ye 
shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” ® 
Now, that it is impossible for those who have 
once been born to enter into their mothers’ 
wombs, is manifest to all. And how those who 
have sinned and repent shall escape their sins, 
is declared by Esaias the prophet, as I wrote 
above ;7 he thus speaks: ‘ Wash you, make you 
clean; put away the evil of your doings from 
your souls ; learn to do well ; judge the father- 
less, and plead for the widow: and come and 
let us reason together, saith the Lord. And 
though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them 
white like wool ; and though they be as crimson, 
I will make them white as snow. But if ye re- 
fuse and rebel, the sword shall devour you: for 
the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” 8 

And for this [rite] we have learned from the 
apostles this reason. Since at our birth we were 
born without our own knowledge or choice, by 
our parents coming together, and were brought 
up in bad habits and wicked training; in order 
that we may not remain the children of necessity 
and of ignorance, but may become the children 
of choice and knowledge, and may obtain in the 
water the remission of sins formerly committed, 
there is pronounced over him who chooses to be 
born again, and has repented of his sins, the 
name of God the Father and Lord of the uni 
verse ; he who leads to the laver the person tha’ 
is to be washed calling him by this name alone 
For no one can utter the name of the ineffable 
God ; and if any one dare to say that there is é 
name, he raves with a hopeless madness. Anc 
this washing is called illumination, because they 
who learn these things are illuminated in then 
understandings. And in the name of Jesu: 
Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate 
and in the name of the Holy Ghost, who throug: 
the prophets foretold all things about Jesus, h: 
who is illuminated is washed. 


CHAP. LXII.—ITS IMITATION BY DEMONS. 


And the devils, indeed, having heard thi: 
washing published by the prophet, instigate 
Cues 


6 John iii. 5. 
7 Chap. xliv. 
8 Tsa, 1. 16-29. 





those who enter their temples, and are about to 
approach them with libations and burnt-offerings, 
also to sprinkle themselves ; and they cause them 
also to wash themselves entirely, as they depart 
[from the sacrifice], before they enter into the 


shrines in which their images are set. And the 
command, too, given by the priests to those who 
enter and worship in the temples, that they take 
off their shoes, the devils, learning what hap- 
pened to the above-mentioned prophet Moses, 
have given in imitation of these things. For at 
that juncture, when Moses was ordered to go 
down into Egypt and lead out the people of the 
Israelites who were there, and while he was tend- 
ing the flocks of his maternal uncle‘ in the land 
of Arabia, our Christ conversed with him under 
the appearance of fire from a bush, and said, 
“Put off thy shoes, and draw near and hear.” 
And he, when he had put off his shoes and drawn 
near, heard that he was to go down into Egypt 
and lead out the people of the Israelites there ; 
and he received mighty power from Christ, who 
spoke to him in the appearance of fire, and 
went down and led out the people, having done 
great and marvellous things ; which, if you desire 
to know, you will learn them accurately from his 
writings. 


CHAP. LXIII.— HOW GOD APPEARED TO MOSES. 


And all the Jews even now teach that the 
nameless God spake to Moses; whence the 
Spirit of prophecy, accusing them by Isaiah 
the prophet mentioned above, said “The ox 
knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib ; 
but Israel doth not know Me, and My people do 
not understand.”2 And Jesus the Christ, be- 
cause the Jews knew not what the Father was, 
and what the Son, in like manner accused them ; 
and Himself said, “ No one knoweth the Father, 
but the Son; nor the Son, but the Father, and 
they to whom the Son revealeth Him.”3 Now 
the Word of God is His Son, as we have before 
said. And He is called Angel and Apostle ; for 
He declares whatever we ought to know, and is 
sent forth to declare whatever is revealed; as 
our Lord Himself says, “He that heareth Me, 
heareth Him that sent Me.’+ From the writ- 
ings of Moses also this will be manifest; for 
thus it is written in them, “And the Angel of 
God spake to Moses, in a flame of fire out of 
the bush, and said, I am that I am, the God 
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of 
Jacob, the God of thy fathers; go down into 
Egypt, and bring forth My people.”5 And if 
you wish to learn what follows, you can do so 





_ * Thirlby conjectures that Justin here confused in his mind the 
histories of Moses and Jacob. 
Isa. i. 3. 
3 Matt. xi. 27. 
4 Luke x. 16, 
5 Ex, iii. 6, 








from the same writings ; for it is impossible to 
relate the whole here. But so much is written 
for the sake of proving that Jesus the Christ is 
the Son of God and His Apostle, being of old 
the Word, and appearing sometimes in the form 
of fire, and sometimes in the likeness of angels ; 
but now, by the will of God, having become 
man for the human race, He endured all the 
sufferings which the devils instigated the sense- 
less Jews to inflict upon Him ; who, though they 
have it expressly affirmed in the writings of 
Moses, “ And the angel of God spake to Moses 
in a flame of fire in a bush, and said, I am that 
I am, the God of Abraham, and the God of 
Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” yet maintain that 
He who said this was the Father and Creator of 
the universe. Whence also the Spirit of proph- 
ecy rebukes them, and says, “Israel doth not 
know Me, my people have not understood Me.” © 
And again, Jesus, as we have already shown, while 
He was with them, said, “ No one knoweth the 
Father, but the Son ; nor the Son but the Father, 
and those to whom the Son will reveal Him.” 7 
The Jews, accordingly, being throughout of 

opinion that it was the Father of the universe 

who spake to Moses, though He who spake to 


-him was indeed the Son of God, who is called 


both Angel and Apostle, are justly charged, both 
by the Spirit of prophecy and by Christ Himself, 
with knowing neither the Father nor the Son. 
For they who affirm that the Son is the Father, 
are proved neither to have become acquainted 
with the Father, nor to know that the Father of 
the universe has a Son; who also, being the ; 
first-begotten Word of God, is even God. And 
of old He appeared in the shape of fire and in 
the likeness of an angel to Moses and to the 
other prophets ; but now in the times of your 
reign,® having, as we before said, become Man 
by a virgin, according to the counsel of the 
Father, for the salvation of those who believe on 
Him, He endured both to be set at nought and 
to suffer, that by dying and rising again He 
might conquer death. And that which was said 
out of the bush to Moses, “I am that I am, the 
God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and 
the God of Jacob, and the God of your fathers,” 9 
this signified that they, even though dead, are 
yet in existence, and are men belonging to Christ 
Himself. For they were the first of all men to 
busy themselves in the search after God; Abra- 
ham being the father of Isaac, and Isaac of 
Jacob, as Moses wrote. 


CHAP. LXIV.— FURTHER MISREPRESENTATIONS OF 
THE TRUTH. 





From what has been already said, you can 


6 Isa, i, 3. 

7 Matt. xi. 27. 

8 prather, “of your empire.” ] 
9 Kx, iii, 6, ; 


THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 








185 





understand how the devils, in imitation of what 
was said by Moses, asserted that Proserpine was 
the daughter of Jupiter, and instigated the peo- 
ple to set up an image of her under the name 
of Kore [Cora, i.e., the maiden or daughter] at 
the spring-heads. For, as we wrote above,' 
Moses said, “In the beginning God made the 
heaven and the earth. And the earth was with- 
out form and unfurnished: and the Spirit of 
God moved upon the face of the waters.” In 
imitation, therefore, of what is here said of the 
Spirit of God moving on the waters, they said 
that Proserpine [or Cora] was the daughter of 
Jupiter? And in like manner also they craftily 
feigned that Minerva was the daughter of Jupiter, 
not by sexual union, but, knowing that God con- 
ceived and made the world by the Word, they 
say that Minerva is the first conception [évoa] ; 
which we consider to be very absurd, bringing 
forward the form of the conception in a female 
shape. And in like manner the actions of those 
others who are called sons of Jupiter sufficiently 
condemn them. 


CHAP. LXV. — ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS. 


But we, after we have thus washed him who 
has been convinced and has assented to our 
teaching, bring him to the place where those 
who are called brethren are assembled, in order 
that we may offer hearty prayers in common for 
ourselves and for the baptized [illuminated | per- 
son, and for all others in every place, that we 
may be counted worthy, now that we have learned 
the truth, by our works also to be found good 
citizens and keepers of the commandments, so 
that we may be saved with an everlasting salva- 
tion. Having ended the prayers, we salute one 
another with a kiss.3 There is then brought to 
the president of the brethren+ bread and a cup 
of wine mixed with water ; and he taking them, 
gives praise and glory to the Father of the uni- 
verse, through the name of the Son and of the 
Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable 
length for our being counted worthy to receive 
these things at His hands. And when he has 
concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the 
people present express their assent by saying 
Amen. This word Amen answers in the Hebrew 
language to yévorro [so be it]. And when the 
president has given thanks, and all the people 
have expressed their assent, those who are called 








1 Chap. lix. 

2 And therefore caused her to preside over the waters, as above. 

3 The kiss of charity, the kiss of peace, or ‘‘the peace” (7 
eipyivn), was enjoined by the Apostle Paul in his Epistles to the Cor- 
inthians, Thessalonians, and Romans, and thence passed into a com- 
mon Christian usage. It was continued in the Western Church, under 
regulations to prevent its abuse, until the thirteenth century. Stanley 
remarks (Corinthians, i. 414), “It is still continued in the worship 
of the Coptic Church,” u : “ 

4 7G mpoestart Tov adeApive This expression may quite legiti- 
mately be translated, “‘to that one of the brethren who was presid- 
ing.” 











by us deacons give to each of those present to 
partake of the bread and wine mixed with water 
over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, 
and to those who are absent they carry away a 
portion. 


CHAP. LXVI.— OF THE EUCHARIST. 


And this food is called among us Eixapuoria 5 
[the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to 
partake but the man who believes that the things 
which we teach are true, and who has been 
washed with the washing that is for the remis- 
sion of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so 
living as Christ has enjoined. For not as com- 
mon bread and common drink do we receive 
these ; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our 
Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word 
of God, had both flesh and blood for our salva- 
tion, so likewise have we been taught that the 
food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, 
and from which our blood and flesh by transmu- 
tation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of 
that Jesus who was made flesh.° For the apos- 
tles, in the memoirs composed by them, which 
are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us 
what was enjoined upon them ; that Jesus took 
bread, and when He had given thanks, said, 
“This do ye in remembrance of Me,’ this is My 
body ;” and that, after the same manner, hav- 
ing taken the cup and given thanks, He said, 
“This is My blood ;”’ and gave it to them alone. 
Which the wicked devils have imitated in the 
mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same 
thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of 
water are placed with certain incantations in the 
mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you 
either know or can learn. : 


CHAP. LXVII.— WEEKLY WORSHIP OF THE CHRIS- 
TIANS. 


And we afterwards continually remind each 
other of these things. And the wealthy among 
us help the needy; and we always keep to- 
gether ; and for all things wherewith we are sup- 
plied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son 





5 Literally, thanksgiving. See Matt. xxvi. 27. 

6 This passage is claimed alike by Calvinists, Lutherans, and 
Romanists; and, indeed, the language is so inexact, that each party 
may plausibly maintain that their own opinion is adyocated by it, 
[But the same might he said of the words of our Lord himself; and, if 
such widely separated Christians can all adopt this passage, who can 
be sorry?] The expression, ‘the prayer of His word,” or of the 
word we have from Him, seems to signify the prayer pronounced 
over the elements, in imitation of our Lord’s thanksgiving before 
breaking the bread. [I must dissent from the opinion that the lan- 
guage is “inexact: ” he expresses himself naturally as one who be- 
lieves it is bread, but yet not ‘common bread.” So Gelasius, Bishop 
of Rome (aD. 490.), ‘“‘ By the sacraments we are made partakers 
of the divine nature, and yet the substance and nature of bread and 
wine do not cease to be in them,” etc. (See the original in A.ng- 
ham’s Antiqutties, book xv. cap. 5. See Chrysost., Efist. ad. 
Cesarium, tom. iti. p. 753. Ed. Migne.) Those desirous to pursue 
this inquiry will find the Patristic authorities in storia Transuo- 
stantionis Papalis,.etc., Edidit ¥. Meyrick, Oxford, 1858. The 
famous tractate of Ratranin (A.D. 840) was published at Oxford, 1838, 
with the homily of /Elfric (A.D, 960) in a cheap edition. 

7 Luke xxil. 19. 


186 


THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 


a a Se 


Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And 
on the day called Sunday,’ all who live in cities 
or in the country gather together to one place, 
and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings 
of the prophets are read, as long as time per- 
mits; then, when the reader has ceased, the 
president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the 
imitation of these good things. Then we all 
rise together and pray, and, as we before said, 
when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and 
water are brought, and the president in like man- 
ner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according 
to his ability? and the people assent, saying 
Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and 
a participation of that over which thanks have 
been given,3 and to those who are absent a por- 
tion is sent by the deacons. And they who are 
well to do, and willing, give what each thinks 
fit; and what is collected is deposited with the 
president, who succours the orphans and widows, 
and those who, through sickness or any other 
cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds, 
and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a 
word takes care of all who are in need. But 
Sunday is the day on which we all hold our 
common assembly, because it is the first day on 
which God, having wrought a change in the 
darkness and matter, made the world; and 
Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose 
from the déad. For He was crucified on the 
day before that of Saturn (Saturday) ; and on 
the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of 
the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and dis- 
ciples, He taught them these things, which we have 
submitted to you also for your consideration. 


CHAP. LXVIII. — CONCLUSION. 


And if these things seem to you to be reason- 
able and true, honour them; but if they seem 
nonsensical, despise them as nonsense, and do 
not decree death against those who have done 
no wrong, as you would against enemies. For 
we forewarn you, that. you. shall not escape the 
coming judgment of God, if you continue in 
your injustice ; and we ourselves will invite you 
to do that which is pleasing to God. And 
though from the letter of the greatest and most 
illustrious Emperor Adrian, your father, we could 
demand that you order judgment to be given as 
we have desired, yet we have made this appeal 
and explanation, not on the ground of Adrian’s 
decision, but because we know that what we ask 
is just. And we have subjoined the copy of 


1 rp Tov “HAlov Acyonevyn Nucpa. 

2 don S¥vapts a’te,—a phrase over which there has been much 
contention, but which seems to admit of no other meaning than that 
given above. [No need of any “contention.” Langus renders, Pro 
vtrilz sud, and Grabe illustrates by reference to Afost. Const., lib. 
viii. cap. 12, Our own learned translators render the same phrase 
(cap. xili., above) ‘‘to the utmost of our power.” Some say this fa- 
fours extemporary prayers, and others object, Oh! what matter 
either way? We all sing hymns, “ according to our ability.’’] 

3 Or, of the eucharistic elements. 





Adrian’s epistle, that you may know that we are 
speaking truly about this. And the following is 
the copy : — 


EPISTLE OF ADRIAN‘ IN BEHALF OF THE 
CHRISTIANS. 

I have received the letter addressed to me by 
your predecessor Serenius Granianus, a most 
illustrious man; and this communication I am 
unwilling to pass over in silence, lest innocent 
persons be disturbed, and occasion be given to 
the informers for practising villany. Accord- 
ingly, if the inhabitants of your province will so 
far sustain this petition of theirs as to accuse the 
Christians in some court of law, I do not pro- 
hibit them from doing so. But I will not suffer 
them to make use of mere entreaties and out- 
cries. For it is far more just, if any one desires 
to make an accusation, that you give judgment 
upon it. If, therefore, any one makes the accu- 
sation, and furnishes proof that the said men do 
anything contrary to the laws, you shall adjudge 
punishments in proportion to the offences. And 
this, by Hercules, you shall give special heed to, 
that if any man shall, through mere calumny, 
bring an accusation against any of these persons, 


| you shall award to him more severe punishments 


in proportion to his wickedness. 


EPISTLE OF ANTONINUS TO THE COMMON 
ASSEMBLY OF ASIA<$ 

The Emperor Cesar Titus Zlius Adrianus 
Antoninus Augustus Pius, Supreme Pontiff, in the 
fifteenth year of his tribuneship, Consul for the 
third time, Father of the fatherland, to the Com- 
mon Assembly of Asia, greeting: I should have 
thought that the gods themselves would see to it 
that such offenders should not escape. For if 
they had the power, they themselves would much 
rather punish those who refuse to worship them ; 
but it is you who bring trouble on these persons, 
and accuse as the opinion of atheists that which 
they hold, and lay to their charge certain other 
things which we are unable to prove. But it 
would be advantageous to them that they should 
be thought to die for that of which they are ac- 
cused, and they conquer you by being lavish of 
their lives rather than yield that obedience which 
you require of them. And regarding the earth- 
quakes which have already happened and are 
now occurring, it is not seemly that you remind 


us of them, losing heart whenever they occur, 


and thus set your conduct in contrast with that 
of these men ; for they have much greater confi- 
dence towards God than you yourselves have. 
And you, indeed, seem at such times to ignore 
the gods, and you neglect the temples, and make 





4 Addressed to Minucius Fundanus. 
genuine. 
5 | Regarded as spurious. ] 


[Generally credited as 


THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 


187 





no recognition of the worship of God. And 
hence you are jealous of those who do serve Him, 
and persecute them to the death. Concerning 
such persons, some others also of the governors 
of provinces wrote to my most divine father ; to 
whom he replied that they should not at all dis- 
turb such persons, unless they were found to be 
attempting anything against the Roman govern- 
ment. And to myself many have sent intima- 
. tions regarding such persons, to whom I also 
replied in pursuance of my father’s judgment. 
But if any one has a matter to bring against any 
person of this class, merely as such a person," let 
the accused be acquitted of the charge, even 
though he should be found to be such an one ; 
but let the accuser he amenable to justice. 


EPISTLE OF MARCUS AURELIUS TO THE 
SENATE, IN WHICH HE TESTIFIES THAT 
THE CHRISTIANS WERE THE CAUSE OF 
HIS VICTORY. 

The Emperor Cesar Marcus Aurelius Antoni- 
nus, Germanicus, Parthicus, Sarmaticus, to the 
People of Rome, and to the sacred Senate, 
greeting: I explained to you my grand design, 
and what advantages I gained on the confines of 
Germany, with much labour and suffering, in 
consequence of the circumstance that I was sur- 
rounded by the enemy; I myself being shut up 
in Carnuntum by seventy-four cohorts, nine miles 
off. And the enemy being at hand, the scouts 
pointed out to us, and our general Pompeianus 
showed us that there was close on us a mass of a 
mixed multitude of 977,000 men, which indeed 
we saw; and I was shut up by this vast host, 
having with me only a battalion composed of the 
first, tenth, double and marine legions. Having 
thenexamined my own position, and my host, with 
respect to the vast mass of barbarians and of 
the enemy, I quickly betook myself to prayer to 
the gods of my country. But being disregarded 
by them, I summoned those who among us go 
by the name of Christians. And having made 
inquiry, I discovered a great number and vast 
host of them, and raged against them, which was 
by no means becoming ; for afterwards I learned 
their power. Wherefore they began the battle, 
not by preparing weapons, nor arms, nor bugles ; 
for such preparation is hateful to them, on ac- 
count of the God they bear about in their con- 
science. Therefore it is probable that those 
whom we suppose to be atheists, have God as 
their ruling power entrenched in their con- 
le Ee ee 


1 That is, if any one accuses a Christian merely on the ground of 
his being a Christian. 2 vat or ' 

2 [Spurious, no doubt; but the literature of the subject is very rich. 
See text and notes, Milman’s Gidéon, vol. ii. 46. 








science. For having cast themselves on the 
ground, they prayed not only for me, but also 
for the whole army as it stood, that they might 
be delivered from the present thirst and famine. 
For during five days we had got no water, be- 
cause there was none; for we were in the heart 
of Germany, and in the enemy’s territory. And 
simultaneously with their casting themselves on 
the ground, and praying to God (a God of whom 
I am ignorant), water poured from heaven, upon 
us most refreshingly cool, but upon the enemies 
of Rome a withering hail. And immediately we 
recognised the presence of God following on the 
prayer—a God unconquerable and indestruc- 
tible. Founding upon this, then, let us pardon 
such as are Christians, lest they pray for and 
obtain such a weapon against ourselves. And I 
counsel that no such person be accused on the 
ground of his being a Christian. But if any one 
be found laying to the charge of a Christian that 
he is a Christian, I desire that it be made mani- 
fest that he who is accused as a Christian, and 
acknowledges that he is one, is accused of nothing 
else than only this, that he is a Christian ; but 
that he who arraigns him be burned alive. And 
I further desire, that he who is entrusted with the 
government of the province shall not compel 
the Christian, who confesses and certifies such a 
matter, to retract ; neither shall he commit him. 
And I desire that these things be confirmed by 
a decree of the Senate. And I command this 
my edict to be published in the Forum of Trajan, 
in order that it may be read. The prefect Vi- 
trasius Pollio will see that it be transmitted to all 
the provinces round about, and that no one who 
wishes to make use of or to possess it be hin- 
dered from obtaining a copy from the document 
I now publish. 

PERO RIL en Levees ee et te ee 


3 Literally, “ fiery.” 
[Note x. 

In 1851 I recognised this stone in the Vatican, 

emotion. I copied it, as follows: 
‘* SEMONI 
SANCO 
Deo Fipio 
SACRVM 
Sex. Pompgtus. S. P. F. Cot, Musstanvs. 
QuinquEnnaLis Decur BIDENTALIS DonuM DEDIT.” 

The explanation is possibly this: Simon Meee was actually recog- 
nised as the God Seo, just as Barnabas and Paul were supposed to 
be Zeus and Hermes (Acts xiv. 12.), and were offered divine honours 
accordingly. Or the Samaritans may so have informed Justin on 
their understanding of this inscription, and with pride in the success 
of their countryman (Acts vili. 10), whom they had recognised “‘ as the 
great power of God.” See Orellz (No, 1860), /#sc., vol. i. 337. 


Note nu. (The Thundering Legion.) : 

The bas-relief on the column of Antonine, in Rome, is a very 
striking complement of the story, but an answer to prayer Is not a 
miracle. I simply transcribe from the American Translation of . 
Alzog’s Universal Church Hestory the references there given to 
the Legio Fulminatrix : “ Tertull., Apol., cap. 5+ Ad Scap., cap. 4; 
Euseb., v. 5; Greg. Nyss. Or., 1x in Martyr.; Oros., vii. 15; Dio. 
Cass. Epit.: Xiphilin., lib. lxxi, cap. 8; Jul, Capitol. in Mare. 
Antonin., cap. 24.”] 


(See capp. xxvi. and lvi.) 
and read it with 


THE SECOND APOLOGY OF JUSTIN 


FOR THE CHRISTIANS. 


ADDRESSED TO THE ROMAN SENATE, 


CHAP. I. — INTRODUCTION. 


Romans, the things which have recently‘ 
happened in your city under Urbicus,? and the 
things which are likewise being everywhere 
unreasonably done by the governors, have 
compelled me to frame this composition for 
your sakes, who are men of like passions, and 
_ brethren, though ye know it not, and though ye 


be unwilling to acknowledge it on account of |; 


your glorying in what you esteem dignities.3 
For everywhere, whoever is corrected by father, 
or neighbour, or child, or friend, or brother, or 
husband, or wife, for a fault, for being hard 
to move, for loving pleasure and being hard to 
urge to what is right (except those who have 
been persuaded that the unjust and intemperate 
shall be punished in eternal fire, but that the 
virtuous and those who lived like Christ shall 
dwell with God in a state that is free from suf- 
fering, — we mean, those who have become 
Christians), and the evil demons, who hate us, 
and who keep such men as these subject to 
themselves, and serving them in the capacity of 
judges, incite them, as rulers actuated by evil 
spirits, to put us to death. But that the cause 
of all that has taken place under Urbicus may 
become quite plain to you, I will relate what has 
been done. 


CHAP. II.— URBICUS CONDEMNS THE CHRISTIANS 


TO DEATH. 


A certain woman lived with an intemperate 4 
husband ; she herself, too, having formerly been 
intemperate. But when she came to the knowl- 
edge of the teachings of Christ she became 
sober-minded, and endeavoured to persuade her 





t Literally, ‘‘ both yesterday and the day before.” 

2 [See Grabe’s note on the conjecture of Valesius that this pre- 
fect was Lollius Urbicus, the historian (vol. i. p. 1, and notes, p. 1).] 

3 [He has addressed them as ‘‘ Romans,” because in this they 
gloried together, — emperor, senate, soldiers, and citizens. ] 

4 axodagraivoytt, which word includes unchasti ,» as well as the 
other forms of intemperance. [As we say, dissolute, 


188 





husband likewise to be temperate, citing the 
teaching of Christ, and assuring him that there 
shall be punishment in eternal fire inflicted 
upon those who do not live temperately and 
conformably to right reason. But he, continu- 
ing in the same excesses, alienated his wife from 
him by his actions. For she, considering it 
wicked to live any longer as a wife with a hus- 
band who sought in every way means of indul- 
ging in pleasure contrary to the law of nature, 
and in violation of what is right, wished to be 
divorced from him. And when she was over- 
persuaded by her friends, who advised her still 
to continue with him, in the idea that some 
time or other her husband might give hope of 
amendment, she did violence to her own feeling 
and remained with him. But when her hus- 
band had gone into Alexandria, and was reported 
to be conducting himself worse than ever, she 
—that she might not, by continuing in matri- 
monial connection with him, and by sharing his 
table and his bed, become a partaker also in his 
wickednesses and impieties — gave him what you 
call a bill of divorce,5 and was separated from 
him. But this noble husband of hers, — while 
he ought to have been rejoicing that those actions 
which formerly she unhesitatingly committed 
with the servants and hirelings, when she de- 
hghted in drunkenness and every vice, she had 
now given up, and desired that he too should 
give up the same,—when she had gone from 
him without his desire, brought an accusation 
against her, affirming that she was a. Christian. 
And she presented a paper to thee, the Em- 
peror,° requesting that first she be permitted to 
arrange her affairs, and afterwards to make her 
defence against the accusation, when her affairs 
were set in order. And this you granted. And 





5S perovéd.or, i.e., “ repudium,” a bill of repudiation. 
6 [Rather, “to thee, autocrat:” a very bold apostrophe, like that 
of Huss to the Em 


ror Sigismund, which crimsoned his forehead with 
a blush of shame. 


7 


THE SECOND APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 





189 





her guondam husband, since he was now no 
longer able to prosecute her, directed his as- 
saults against a man, Ptolemzus, whom Urbicus 
punished, and who had been her teacher in the 
Christian doctrines. And this he did in the 
following way. He persuaded a centurion — 
who had cast Ptolemzus into prison, and who 
was friendly to himself —to take Ptolemzeus 
and interrogate him on this sole point: whether 
he were a Christian? And Ptolemzus, being a 
lover of truth, and not of a deceitful or false 
disposition, when he confessed himself to be a 
Christian, was bound by the centurion, and for 
a long time punished in the prison. And, at 
last, when the man' came to Urbicus, he was 
asked this one question only: whether he was a 
Christian? And again, being conscious of his 
duty, and the nobility of it through the teaching 
of Christ, he confessed his discipleship in the 
divine. virtue. For he who denies anything, 
either denies it because he condemns the thing 
itself, or he shrinks from confession because he 
is conscious of his own unworthiness or aliena- 
tion from it; neither_of which cases is that_of 
the true Christian. And when Urbicus ordered 
him to be led away to punishment, one Lucius, 
who was also himself a Christian, seeing the 
unreasonable judgment that had thus been given, 
said to Urbicus: “ What is the ground of this 
judgment? Why have you punished this man, 
not as an adulterer, nor fornicator, nor murderer, 
nor thief, nor robber, nor convicted of any crime 
at all, but who has only confessed that he is 
called by the name of Christian? This judg- 
ment of yours, O Urbicus, does not become the 
Emperor Pius, nor the philosopher, the son of 
Czesar, nor the sacred senate.”? And he said 
nothing else in answer to Lucius than this : “ You 
also seem to me to be such an one.” And when 
Lucius answered, “Most certainly I am,” he 
again ordered him also to be led away. And 
he professed his thanks, knowing that he was 
delivered from such wicked rulers, and was go- 
ing to the Father and King of the heavens. 
And still a third having come forward, was con- 
demned to be punished. 


CHAP. III. — JUSTIN ACCUSES CRESCENS OF IGNO- 
RANT PREJUDICE AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS. 


I too, therefore, expect to be plotted against 
and fixed to the stake, by some of those I have 
named, or perhaps by Crescens, that lover of 
bravado and boasting;3 for the man is not 
worthy of the name of philosopher who publicly 
bears witness against us in matters which he 





T i.e., Ptolemzus. ‘ j : 

2 On this passage, see Donaldson’s Critical History, etc., vol. 
ii. p. 79- i ; ; 
3 Words resembling “ philosopher” in sound, viz. drAopdpou Kat 
gidoképmov. [This passage isfoundelsewhere. See note, cap. vili., 
in the text preferred by Grabe.] 





does not understand, saying that the Christians 
are atheists and impious, and doing so to win 
favour with the deluded mob, and to please 
them. For if he assails us without having read 
the teachings of Christ, he is thoroughly de- 
praved, and far worse than the illiterate, who 
often refrain from discussing or bearing false 
witness about matters they do not understand. 
Or, if he has read them and does not understand 
the majesty that is in them, or, understanding it, 
acts thus that he may not be suspected of being 
such [a Christian], he is far more base and 
thoroughly depraved, being conquered by illib- 
eral and unreasonable opinion and fear. For I 
would have you to know that I proposed to him 
certain questions on this subject, and interro- 
gated him, and found most convincingly that 
he, in truth, knows nothing. And to prove that 
I speak the truth, I am ready, if these disputa- 
tions have not been reported to you, to conduct 
them again in your presence. And this would 
be an act worthy of a prince. But if my ques- 
tions and his answers have been made known to 
you, you are already aware that he is acquainted 
with none of our matters ; or, if he is acquainted 
with them, but, through fear of those who might 
hear him, does not dare to speak out, like Soc- 
rates, he proves himself, as I said before, no 
philosopher, but an opionative man ;¢ at least he 
does not regard that Socratic and most admi- 
rable saying: “But a man must in no wise be 
honoured before the truth.”5 But it is impos- 
sible for a Cynic, who makes indifference his 
end, to know any good but indifference. 


CHAP. IV.— WHY THE CHRISTIANS DO NOT KILL 
THEMSELVES. 


But lest some one say to us, “Go then all of 
you and kill yourselves, and pass even now to 
God, and do not trouble us,” I will tell you why 
we do not so, but why, when examined, we fear- 
lessly confess. We have been taught that God 
did not make the world aimlessly, but for the 
sake of the human race; and we have before 
stated that He takes pleasure in those who imi- 
tate His properties, and is displeased with those 
that embrace what is worthless either in word or 
deed. If, then, we all kill ourselves, we shall 
become the cause, as far as in us lies, why no 
one should be born, or instructed in the divine 
doctrines, or even why the human race should 
not exist ; and we shall, if we so act, be ourselves 
acting in opposition to the will of God. But 
when we are examined, we make no denial, be- 
cause we are not conscious of any evil, but count 
it impious not to speak the truth in all things, 
which also we know is pleasing to God, and be- 





4 @cAdSof0s, which may mean a lover of vainglory. 
5 See Plato, Xef., p. 595. 


s 


i190 


cause we are also now very desirous to deliver 
you from an unjust prejudice. 


CHAP. V.— HOW THE ANGELS TRANSGRESSED. 


But if this idea take possession of some one, 
that if we acknowledge God as our helper, we 
should not, as we say, be oppressed and perse- 
cuted by the wicked; this, too, I will solve. 
God, when He had made the whole world, and 
subjected things earthly to man, and arranged 
the heavenly elements for the increase of fruits 
and rotation of the seasons, and appointed this 
divine law — for these things also He evidently 
made for man—committed the care of men 
and of all things under heaven to angels whom 
He appointed over them. But the angels trans- 
gressed this appointment, and were captivated 
by love of women, and begat children who are 
those that are called demons ; and besides, they 
afterwards subdued the human race to them- 
selves, partly by magical writings, and partly by 
fears and the punishments they occasioned, and 
partly by teaching them to offer sacrifices, and 
incense, and libations, of which things they 
stood in need after they were enslaved by lust- 
ful passions ; and among men they sowed mur- 
ders, wars, adulteries, intemperate deeds, and 
all wickedness. Whence also the poets and 
mythologists, not knowing that it was the angels 
and those demons who had been begotten by 
them that did these things to men, and women, 
and cities, and nations, which they related, as- 
cribed them to god himself, and to those who 
were accounted to be his very offspring, and 
to the offspring of those who were called his 
brothers, Neptune and Pluto, and to the chil- 
dren again of these their offspring. For what- 
ever name each of the angels had given to 
himself and his children, by that name they 
called them. 


CHAP. VI.— NAMES OF GOD AND OF CHRIST, THEIR 
MEANING AND POWER. 


But to the Father of all, who is unbegotten, 
there is no name given. For by whatever name 
He be called, He has as His elder the person 
who gives Him the name. But these words, 
Father, and God, and Creator, and Lord, and 
Master, are not names, but appellations derived 
from His good deeds and functions. And His 
Son, who alone is properly called Son, the Word, 
who also was with Him and was begotten béfore 
the works, when at first He created and arranged 
all things by Him, is called Christ, in reference to 
His being anointed and God’s ordering all things 
through Him; this name itself also containing 
an unknown significance ; as also the appella- 
tion “God” is not a name, but an opinion im- 
planted in the nature of men of a thing that can 
hardly be explained. But “Jesus,” His name 





THE SECOND APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 


as man and Saviour, has also significance. For 
He was made man also, as we before said, hav- 
ing been conceived according to the will of God 
the Father, for the sake of believing men, and 
for the destruction of the demons. And now 
you can learn this from what is under your 
own observation. For numberless demoniacs 
throughout the whole world, and in your city, 
many of our Christian men exorcising them in 
the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified 
under Pontius Pilate, have healed and do heal, 
rendering helpless and driving the possessing 
devils out of the men, though they could not 
be cured by all the other exorcists, and those 
who used incantations and drugs. 


CHAP, VII.—THE WORLD PRESERVED FOR THE 
SAKE OF CHRISTIANS. MAN’S RESPONSIBILITY. 


Wherefore God delays causing the confusion 
and destruction of the whole world, by which 
the wicked angels and demons and men shall 
cease to exist, because of the seed of the Chris- 
tians, who know that they are the cause of pres- 
ervation in nature.’ Since, if it were not so, 
it would not have been possible for you to do 
these things, and to be impelled by evil spirits ; 
but the fire of judgment would descend and 


‘utterly dissolve all things, even as formerly the 


flood left no one but him only with his family 
who is by us called Noah, and by you Deucalion, 
from whom again such vast numbers have sprung, 
some of them evil and others good. For so we 
say that there will be the conflagration, but not 
as the Stoics, according to their doctrine of all 
things being changed into one another, which 
seems most degrading. But neither do we affirm 
that it is by fate that men do what they do, or 
suffer what they suffer, but that each man by 
free choice acts rightly or sins ; and that it is by 
the influence of the wicked demons that earnest 
men, such as Socrates and the like, suffer perse- 
cution and are in bonds, while Sardanapalus, 
Epicurus, and the like, seem to be blessed in 
abundance and glory. The Stoics, not observ- 
ing this, maintained that all things take place 
according to the necessity of fate. But since 
God in the beginning made the race of angels 
and men with free-will, they will justly suffer in 
eternal fire the punishment of whatever sins they 
have committed. And this is the nature of all 
that is made, to be capable of vice and virtue. 
For neither would any of them be praiseworthy 
unless there were power to turn to both [virtue 
and vice]. And this also is shown by those 
men everywhere who have made laws and phi- 
losophized according to right reason, by their 
prescribing to do some things and refrain from 
others. Even the Stoic philosophers, in their 





1 This is Dr. Donaldson’s rendering of a clause on which tl 
editors differ both as to reading and rendering. aes 


THE SECOND APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 


doctrine of morals, steadily honour the same 
things, so that it is evident that they are not 
very felicitous in what they say about principles 
and incorporeal things. For if they say that 
human actions come to pass by fate, they will 
maintain either that God is nothing else than 
the things which are ever turning, and altering, 
and dissolving into the same things, and will 
appear to have had a comprehension only of 
things that are destructible, and to have looked 
on God Himself as emerging both in part and 
in whole in every wickedness ;‘ or that neither 
vice nor virtue is anything ; which is contrary to 
every sound idea, reason, and sense. 


CHAP. VIII.—ALL HAVE BEEN HATED IN WHOM 
THE WORD HAS DWELT. 


And those of the Stoic school — since, so far 
as their moral teaching went, they were admira- 
ble, as were also the poets in some particulars, 
on account of the seed of reason [the Logos] 
implanted in every race of men—vwere, we 
know, hated and put to death, — Heraclitus for 
instance, and, among those of our own time, 
Musonius and others. For, as we intimated, 
the devils have always effected, that all those 
who anyhow live a reasonable and earnest life, 
and shun vice, be hated. And it is nothing won- 
derful ; if the devils are proved to cause those 
to be much worse hated who live not according 
to a part only of the word diffused [among men], 
but by the knowledge and contemplation of the 
whole Word, which is Christ. And they, having 
been shut up in eternal fire, shall suffer their 
just punishment and penalty. For if they are 
even now overthrown by men through the name 
of Jesus Christ, this is an intimation of. the pun- 
ishment in eternal fire which is to be inflicted 
on themselves and those who serve them. For 
thus did both all the prophets foretell, and our 
own teacher Jesus teach.’ 


CHAP. IX. — ETERNAL PUNISHMENT NOT A MERE 
THREAT. 


And that no one may say what is said by those 
who are deemed philosophers, that our assertions 
that the wicked are punished in eternal fire are 
big words and bugbears, and that we wish men 
to live virtuously through fear, and not because 
such a life is good and pleasant; I will briefly 
reply to this, that if this be not so, God does 
not exist ; or, if He exists, He cares not for men, 
and neither virtue nor vice is anything, and, as 
we said before, lawgivers unjustly punish those 
who transgress good commandments. But since 
these are not unjust, and their Father teaches 
them by the word to do the same things as Him- 
See ed od See Re 

I Literally, “becoming (y:vdmevov) both through the parts and 
through the whole in every wickedness. 


2 (Here, in Grabe’s text, comes in the passage about Crescens. } 








19} 


self, they who agree with them are not unjust. 
And if one object that the laws of men are di- 
verse, and say that with some, one thing is con- 
sidered good, another evil, while with others 
what seemed bad to the former is esteemed good, 
and what seemed good is esteemed bad, let him 
listen to what we say to this. We know that the 
wicked angels appointed laws conformable to 
their own wickedness, in which the men who are 
like them delight ; and the right Reason, when 
He came, proved that not all opinions nor all 
doctrines are good, but that some are évil, while 
others are good. Wherefore, I will declare the 
same and similar things to such men as these, 
and, if need be, they shall be spoken of more 
at large. But at present I return to the subject. 


CHAP. X.— CHRIST COMPARED WITH SOCRATES. 


Our doctrines, then, appear to be greater than 
all human teaching; because Christ, who ap- 
peared for our sakes, became the whole rational 
being, both body, and reason, and soul. For 
whatever either lawgivers or philosophers uttered 
well, they elaborated by finding and contem- 
plating some part of the Word. But since they 
did not know the whole of the Word, which is 
Christ, they often contradicted themselves. And 
those who by human birth were more ancient 
than Christ, when they attempted to consider 
and prove things by reason, were brought before 
the tribunals as impious persons and busybodies. 
And Socrates, who was more zealous in this direc- 
tion than all of them, was accused of the very same 
crimes as ourselves. For they said that he was 
introducing new divinities, and did not consider 
those to be gods whom the state recognised. 
But he cast out from the state both Homer‘ and 
the rest of the poets, and taught men to reject 
the wicked demons and those who did the things 
which the poets related ; and he exhorted them 
to become acquainted with the God who was to 
them unknown, by means of the investigation of 
reason, saying, “ That it is neither easy to find the 
Father and Maker of all, nor, having found Him, 
is it safe to declare Him to all.”5 But these 
things our Christ did through His own power. 
For no one trusted in Socrates so as to die for 
this doctrine, but in Christ, who was’ partially 
known even by Socrates (for He was and is the 
Word who is in every man, and who foretold the 
things that were to come to pass both through 
the prophets and in His own person when He 
was made of like passions, and taught these 
things), not only philosophers and scholars be- 
lieved, but also artisans and people entirely un- 
educated, despising both glory, and fear, and 





3 These words can be taken of the Logos as well as of the right 
reason diffused among men by Him, 

4 Plato, Rep., x. c. i. p. 595. ; . 

5 Plat., Timeus, p. 28, c (but “possible,” and not “safe,” is 
the word used by Plato). 


192 


THE SECOND APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 





death ; since He is a power of the ineffable 
Father, and not the mere instrument of human 
reason.’ 


CHAP, XI.— HOW CHRISTIANS VIEW DEATH. 


But neither should we be put to death, nor 
would wicked men and devils be more powerful 
than we, were not death a debt due by every 
man that is born. Wherefore we give thanks 
when we pay this debt. And we judge it right 
and opportune to tell here, for the sake of Cres- 
cens and those who rave as he’does, what is re- 
lated by Xenophon. Hercules, says Xenophon, 
coming to a place where three ways met, found 
Virtue and Vice, who appeared to him in the 
form of women: Vice, in a luxurious dress, and 
with a seductive expression rendered blooming 
by such ornaments, and her eyes of a quickly 
melting tenderness,” said to Hercules that if he 
would follow her, she would always enable him 
to pass his life in pleasure and adorned with the 
most graceful ornaments, such as were then upon 
her own person ; and Virtue, who was of squalid 
look and dress, said, But if you obey me, you 
shall adorn yourself not with ornament nor 
beauty that passes away and perishes, but with 
everlasting and precious graces. And we are 
persuaded that every one who flees those things 
that seem to be good, and follows hard after 
what are reckoned difficult and strange, enters 
into blessedness. For Vice, when by imitation 
of what is incorruptible (for what is really in- 
corruptible she neither has nor can produce) 
she has thrown around her own actions, as a dis- 
guise, the properties of Virtue, and qualities 
which are really excellent, leads captive earthly- 
minded men, attaching to Virtue her own evil 
properties. But those who understood the ex- 
cellences which belong to that which is real, are 
also uncorrupt in virtue. And this every sensible 
person ought to think both of Christians and of 
the athletes, and of those who did what the poets 
relate of the so-called gods, concluding as much 
from our contempt of death, even when it could 
be escaped.3 


CHAP, XII. — CHRISTIANS PROVED INNOCENT BY 
THEIR CONTEMPT OF DEATH. 


For I myself, too, when I was delighting in 
the doctrines of Plato, and heard the Christians 
slandered, and saw them fearless of death, and 
of all other things which are counted fearful, 
perceived that it was impossible that they could 
be living in wickedness and pleasure. For what 





t [Certainly the author of this chapter, and others like it, cannot 
be accused of a feeble rhetoric. | 

2 Another reading is mpos Tas ders, 
beholder; 
the sight.” 

3 Kai devxtod @avdtov may also be rendered, “even of death 
which men flee from.” 


1 referring to the eyes of the 
and which may be rendered, “speedily fascinating to 








sensual or intemperate man, or who that counts 
it good to feast on human flesh,* could welcome 
death that he might be deprived of his enjoy- 
ments, and would not rather continue always the 
present life, and attempt to escape the observa- 
tion of the rulers; and much less would he 
denounce himself when the consequence would 
be death? This also the wicked demons have 
now caused to be done by evil men. For having 
put some to death on account of the accusations 
falsely brought against us, they also dragged to 
the torture our domestics, either children or weak 
women, and by dreadful torments forced them 
to admit those fabulous actions which they them- 
selves openly perpetrate ; about which we are 
the less concerned, because none of these actions 
are really ours, and we have the unbegotten and 
ineffable God as witness both of our thoughts 
and deeds. For why did we not even publicly 
profess that these were the things which we es- 
teemed good, and prove that these are the 
divine philosophy, saying that the mysteries of 
Saturn are performed when we slay a man, and 
that when we drink our fill of blood, as it is said 
we do, we are doing what you do before that 
idol you honour, and on which you sprinkle the 
blood not only of irrational animals, but also of 
men, making a libation of the blood of the slain 
by the hand of the most illustrious and noble 
man among you? And imitating Jupiter and 
the other gods in sodomy and shameless inter- 
course with woman, might we not bring as our 
apology the writings of Epicurus and the poets? 
But because we persuade men to avoid such in- 
struction, and all who practise them and: imitate 
such examples, as now in this discourse we have 
striven to persuade you, we are assailed in every 
kind of way. But we are not concerned, since 
we know that God is a just observer of all. But 
would that even now some one would mount a 
lofty rostrum, and shout with a loud.voice,5 “ Be 
ashamed, be ashamed, ye who charge the guilt- 
less with those deeds which yourselves openly 
commit, and ascribe things which apply to your- 
selves and to your gods to those who have not 
even the slightest sympathy with them. Be ye 
converted ; become wise.” 


CHAP. XIII. — HOW THE WORD HAS BEEN IN ALI, 
MEN. 


For I myself, when I discovered the wicked 
disguise which the evil spirits had thrown around 
the divine doctrines of the Christians, to turn 
aside others from joining them, laughed both at 
those who framed these falsehoods, and at the 
disguise itself, and at popular opinion; and I 
confess that I both boast and with all. my strength 





4 Alluding to the common accusation against the Christians, 
5 Literally, “‘ with a tragic voice,” — the loud voice in which the 
Greek tragedies were recited through the mask [persona]. 


THE SECOND APOLOGY OF JUSTIN. 





strive to be found a Christian ; not because the 
teachings of Plato are different from those of 
Christ, but because they are not in all respects 
similar, as neither are those of the others, Stoics, 
and poets, and historians. For each man spoke 
well in proportion to the share he had of the 
spermatic word,’ seeing what was related to it. 
But they who contradict themselves on the more 
important points appear not to have possessed 
the heavenly? wisdom, and the knowledge which 
cannot be spoken against. Whatever things were 
rightly said among all men, are the property of us 
Christians. For next to God, we worship and 
love the Word who is from the unbegotten and 
ineffable God, since also He became man for 
our sakes, that, becoming a partaker of our suf- 
ferings, He might also bring us healing. For 
all the writers were able to see realities darkly 
through the sowing of the implanted word that 
was in them. For the seed and imitation im- 
parted according to capacity is one thing, and 
quite another is the thing itself, of which there 
is the participation and imitation according to 
the grace which is from Him. 


CHAP. XIV.—JUSTIN PRAYS THAT THIS APPEAL BE 
PUBLISHED. 


And we therefore pray you to publish this little 
book, appending what you think right, that our 
opinions may be known to others, and that these 
persons may have a fair chance of being freed 
from erroneous notions and ignorance of good, 
who by their own fault are become subject to 


! The word disseminated among men. (St. James i. a1.] 
® Literally, dimly seen at a distance. 





193 








punishment ; that so these things may be pub- 
lished to men, because it is in the nature of man 
to know good and evil; and by their condemning 
us, whom they do not understand, for actions 
which they say are wicked, and by delighting in 
the gods who did such things, and even now re- 
quire similar actions from men, and by inflicting 
on us death or bonds or some other such pun- 
ishment, as if we were guilty of these things, they 
condemn themselves, so that there is no need of 
other judges. 


CHAP. XV.— CONCLUSION. 


And I despised the wicked and deceitful doc- 
trine of Simon’ of my own nation. And if you 
give this book your authority, we will expose him 
before all, that, if possible, they may be converted. 
For this end alone did we compose this treatise. 
And our doctrines are not shameful, according 
to a sober judgment, but are indeed more lofty 
than all human philosophy ; and if not so, they 
are at least unlike the doctrines of the Sotadists, 
and Philzenidians, and Dancers, and Epicureans, 
and such other teachings of the poets, which all 
are allowed to acquaint themselves with, both as 
acted and as written. And henceforth we shall 
be silent, having done as much as we could, and 
having added the prayer that all men everywhere 
may be counted worthy of the truth. And would 
that you also, ina manner becoming piety and phi- 
losophy,* would for your own sakes judge justly ! 


3 [Simon Magus appears to be one with whom Justin is perfectly 
familiar, and hence we are not to conclude rashly that he blundered 
as to the divine honours rendered to him as the Sabine God.] __ 

4 [Another apostrophe, and a home thrust for “‘ Pius the philoso- 
pher” and emperor. ] 


~< 


DIALOGUE OF JUSTIN, PHILOSOPHER AND MARTYR, 


WITH 


TRY PHO, 


A JEW. 





CHAP. I. — INTRODUCTION. 


Wuite I was going about one morning in the 
walks of the Xystus,’ a certain man, with others 
in his company, having met me, and said, “ Hail, 
O philosopher!” And immediately after say- 
ing this, he turned round and walked along with 
me ; his friends likewise followed him. And I in 
turn having addressed him, said, “What is there 
important?” 

And he replied, “I was instructed,” says he, 
“by Corinthus the Socratic in Argos, that I 
ought not to despise or treat with indifference 
those who array themselves in this dress,? but to 
snow them all kindness, and to associate with 
them, as perhaps some advantage would spring 
from the intercourse either to some such man 
or to myself. It is good, moreover, for both, if 
either the one or the other be benefited. On 
this account, therefore, whenever I see any one 
in such costume, I gladly approach him, and now, 
for the same reason, have I willingly accosted 
you; and these accompany me, in the expecta- 
tion of hearing for themselves something profit- 
able from you.” 

“But who are you, most excellent man?” 
So I replied to him in jest.3 

Then he told me frankly both his name and 
his family. “Trypho,” says he, “I am called ; 
and I am a Hebrew of the circumcision,* and 
having escaped from the war 5 lately carried on 
there, I am spending my days in Greece, and 
chiefly at Corinth.” 





I This Xystus, on the authority of Euseb. (iv. 18), was at Ephe- 
sus. There, Philostratus mentions, Appolonius was wont to have 
disputations. — Orro, 

2 Euseb. (iv. 11): ‘ Justin, in philosopher's garb, preached the 
word of God.” 

3 In jest, no doubt, because quoting a line from Homer, 7., vi. 123. 
tis 5€ ov eco, hépiote, KaTaPvynTaY avOpwTwr. 

4 [i.e., “ A Hebrew of the Hebrews” (Phil. iii. 5).] 

6 ‘The war instigated by Bar Cochba. 


194 








« And in what,” said I, “ would you be profited 
by philosophy so much as by your own lawgiver 
and the prophets ?”’ 

“Why not?” he replied. “Do not the phi- 
losophers turn every discourse on God? and do 
not questions continually arise to them about 


‘His unity and providence? Is not this truly the 


duty of philosophy, to investigate the Deity?” 

“ Assuredly,” said I, “so we too have believed. 
But the most® have not taken thought of this, 
whether there be one or more gods, and whether 
they have a regard for each one of us or no, as 
if this knowledge contributed nothing to our hap- 
piness ; nay, they moreover attempt to persuade 
us that God takes care of the universe with its 
genera and species, but not of me and you, and 
each individually, since otherwise we would surely 
not need to pray to Him night and day. But it 
is not difficult to understand the upshot of this ; 
for fearlessness and license in speaking result to 
such as maintain these opinions, doing and say- 
ing whatever they choose, neither dreading pun- 
ishment nor hoping for any benefit from God. 
For how could they? They affirm that the same 
things shall always happen ; and, further, that I 
and you shall again live in like manner, having 
become neither better men nor worse. But there 
are some others,” who, having supposed the soul 
to be immortal and immaterial, believe that 
though they have committed evil they will not 
suffer punishment (for that which is immaterial 
is insensible), and that the soul, in consequence 
of its immortality, needs nothing from God.” 

And he, smiling gently, said, “Tell us your 
opinion of these matters, and what idea you en- 
tertain respecting God, and what.your philosophy 





6 The opinions of Stoics. — OTTo. 
7 The Platonists. 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


195 





CHAP. II.— JUSTIN DESCRIBES HIS STUDIES IN 
PHILOSOPHY. 


“T will tell you,” said I, “ what seems to me ; 
for philosophy is, in fact, the greatest possession, 
and most honourable before God,' to whom it 
leads us and alone commends us ; and these are 
truly holy men who have bestowed attention on 
philosophy. What philosophy is, however, and 
the reason why it has been sent down to men, 
have escaped the observation of most; for there 
would be neither Platonists, nor Stoics, nor Peri- 
patetics, nor Theoretics,? nor Pythagoreans, this 
knowledge being ove.3 I wish to tell you why 
it has become many-headed. It has happened 
that those who first handled it [i.e., philosophy], 
and who were therefore esteemed illustrious men, 
were succeeded by those who made no investi- 
gations concerning truth, but only admired the 
perseverance and self-discipline of the former, 
as well as the novelty of the doctrines ; and each 
thought that to be true which he learned from 
his teacher: then, moreover, those latter persons 
handed down to “heir successors such things, 
and others similar to them ; and this system was 
called by the name of him who was styled the 
father of the doctrine. Being at first desirous of 
personally conversing with one of these men, I 
surrendered myself to a certain Stoic ; and hav- 
ing spent a considerable time with him, when I 
had not acquired any further knowledge of God 
(for he did not know himself, and said such 
instruction was unnecessary), I left him and 
betook myself to another, who was called a Peri- 
patetic, and as fe fancied, shrewd. And this 
man, after having entertained me for the first 
few days, requested me to settle the fee, in order 
that our intercourse might not be unprofitable. 
Him, too, for this reason I abandoned, believing 
him to be no philosopher at all. But when my 
soul was eagerly desirous to hear the peculiar 
and choice philosophy, I came to a Pythagorean, 
very celebrated —a man who thought much of 
his own wisdom. And then, when I had an in- 
terview with him, willing to become his hearer 
and disciple, he said, ‘What then? Are you ac- 
quainted with music, astronomy, and geometry? 
Do you expect to perceive any of those things 
which conduce to a happy life, if you have not 
been first informed on those points which wean 
the soul from sensible objects, and render it fitted 
for objects which appertain to the mind, so that 
it can contemplate that which is honourable in its 
essence and that which is good in its essence?’ 





1 & some omit, and put Oe of prev. cl. in this cl., reading so: 
Philosophy is the greatest possession, and most honourable, and 
introduces us to God,” etc. 

2 Maranus thinks that those who are different from the masters of 
practical philosophy are called Theoretics. Ido not know whether 
they may be better designated Scepzécs or Pyrrhonists. — OTTO, 

3 Julian, Ovat. vi., says: ‘‘ Let no one divide our philosophy into 
many parts, or cut it into many parts, and especially let him not make 
many out of one; for as truth is one, so also is philosophy. 








Having commended many of these branches of 
learning, and telling me that they were necessary, 
he dismissed me when I confessed to him my 
ignorance. Accordingly I took it rather impa- 
tiently, as was to be expected when I failed in 
my hope, the more so because I deemed the man 
had some knowledge ; but reflecting again on the 
space of time during which I would have to 
linger over those branches of learning, I was not 
able to endure longer procrastination. In my 
helpless condition it occurred to me to have a 
meeting with the Platonists, for their fame was 
great. I thereupon spent as much of my time as 
possible with one who had lately settled in our 
city,t—— a sagacious man, holding a high position 
among the Platonists,— and I progressed, and 
made the greatest improvements daily. And the 
perception of immaterial things quite overpowered 
me, and the contemplation of ideas furnished my 
mind with wings,’ so that in a little while I sup- 
posed that I had become wise; and such was 
my stupidity, I expected forthwith to look upon 
God, for this is the end of Plato’s philosophy. 


CHAP. III, JUSTIN NARRATES THE MANNER OF HIS 


CONVERSION. 


“And while I was thus disposed, when I wished 
at one period to be filled with great quietness, 
and to shun the path of men, I used to go into 
a certain field not far from the sea. And when 
I was near that spot one day, which having 
reached I purposed to be by myself, a certain old 
man, by no means contemptible in appearance, 
exhibiting meek and venerable manners, followed 
me at a little distance. And when I turned 
round to him, having halted, I fixed my eyes 
rather keenly on him. 

“ And he said, ‘Do you know me?’ 

“T replied in the negative. 

“««Why, then,’ said he to me, ‘do you so look 
at me?’ 

“‘¢T am astonished,’ I said, ‘ because you have 
chanced to be in my company in the same place ; 
for I had not expected to see any man here.’ 

“And he says to me, ‘I am concerned about 
some of my household. These are gone away 
from me; and therefore have I come to make 
personal search for them, if, perhaps, they shall 
make their appearance somewhere. But why are 
you here?’ said he to me. 

“<T delight,’ said I, ‘in such walks, where my 
attention is not distracted, for converse with my- 
self is uninterrupted ; and such places are most 
fit for philology.’ ® 

““¢ Are you, then, a philologian,’7 said he, ‘ but 





4 Kither Flavia Neapolis is indicated, or Ephesus, — Otro. 
5 Narrating his progress in the study of Platonic philosophy, he 
elegantly employs this trite phrase of Plato’s, — OTTo. 
Philology, used here to denote the exercise of the reson. 
7 Philology, used here to denote the exercise of speech. The two- 
fold use of Aoyos — ovatio and ratio — ought to be kept in view The 
old man uses it in the former, Justin in the latter, sens¢, 


L f 
aS 
a 

‘ 


196 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


een ven cen 


no lover of deeds or of truth? and do you not 
aim at being a practical man so much as being a 
sophist ?’ 

“What greater work,’ said I, ‘could one ac- 
complish than this, to show the reason which 
governs all, and having laid hold of it, and being 
mounted upon it, to look down on the errors of 
others, and their pursuits? But without philos- 
ophy and right reason, prudence would not be 
present to any man. Wherefore it is necessary 
for every man to philosophize, and to esteem this 
the greatest and most honourable work; but 
other things only of second-rate or third-rate 
importance, though, indeed, if they be made to 
depend on philosophy, they are of moderate 
value, and worthy of acceptance ; but deprived 
of it, and not accompanying it, they are vulgar 
and coarse to those who pursue them.’ 

“Does philosophy, then, make happiness?’ 
said he, interrupting. 

“¢ Assuredly,’ I said, ‘and it alone.’ 

“¢What, then, is philosophy?’ he says ; ‘and 
what is happiness? Pray tell me, unless some- 
thing hinders you from saying.’ 

“« Philosophy, then,’ said I, ‘is the knowledge 
of that which really exists, and a clear perception 


of the truth; and happiness is the reward of | 


such knowledge and wisdom.’ 

“« But what do you call God?’ said he. 

“«That which always maintains the same na- 
ture, and in the same manner, and is the cause 
of all other things — that, indeed, is God.’ So 
I answered him; and he listened to me with 
pleasure, and thus again interrogated me : — 

“Ts not knowledge a term common to differ- 
ent matters? For in arts of all kinds, he who 
knows any one of them is called a skilful man, 
in the art of generalship, or of ruling, or of heal- 
ing equally. But in divine and human affairs it 
is not so. Is there a knowledge which affords 
understanding of human and divine things, and 
then a thorough acquaintance with the divinity 
and the righteousness of them?’ 

“¢ Assuredly,’ I replied. 

“«What, then? Is it in the same way we 
know man and God, as we know music, and 
arithmetic, and astronomy, or any other similar 
branch?’ 

“* By no means,’ I replied. 

““*You have not answered me correctly, then,’ 
he said; ‘for some [branches of knowledge | 
come to us by learning, or by some employment, 
while of others we have knowledge by sight. 
Now, if one were to tell you that there exists in 
India an animal with a nature unlike all others, 
but of such and such a kind, multiform and 
various, you would not know it before you saw 
it; but neither would you be competent to give 
any account of it, unless you should hear from 
® one who had seen it.’ 








“ «Certainly not,’ I said. 

“¢ How then,’ he said, ‘should the philoso- 
phers judge correctly about God, or speak any 
truth, when they have no knowledge of Him, 
having neither seen Him at any time, nor heard 
Him?’ : 

“But, father,’ said I, ‘the Deity cannot be 
seen merely by the eyes, as other living beings 
can, but is discernible to the mind alone, as 
Plato says ; and I believe him.’ 


IV.—THE SOUL OF ITSELF CANNOT SEE 
GOD. 


CHAP. 


“<Ts there then,’ says he, ‘such and so great 
power in our mind? Or cana man not perceive 
by sense sooner? Will the mind of man see 
God at any time, if it is uninstructed by the 
Holy Spirit ?’ 

“*Plato indeed says,’ replied I, ‘that the 
mind’s eye is of such a nature, and has been 
given for this end, that we may see that very 
Being when the mind is pure itself, who is the 
cause of all discerned by the mind, having no 
colour, no form, no greatness — nothing, indeed, 
which the bodily eye looks upon; but It is 
something of this sort, he goes on to say, that 
is beyond all essence, unutterable and inexplica- 
ble, but alone honourable and good, coming sud- 
denly into souls well-dispositioned, on account 
of their affinity to and desire of seeing Him.’ 

“«What affinity, then,’ replied he, ‘is there 
between us and God? Is the soul also divine 
and immortal, and a part of that very regal 
mind? And even as that sees God, so also is 
it attainable by us to conceive of the Deity in 
our mind, and thence to become happy?’ 

“¢ Assuredly,’ I said. 

““¢ And do all the souls of all living beings 
comprehend Him?’ he asked ; ‘or are the souls 
of men of one kind and the souls of horses and 
of asses of another kind?’ 

“«No; but the souls which are in all are 
similar,’ I answered. 

««« Then,’ says he, ‘ shall both horses and asses 
see, or have they seen at some time or other, 
God?’ 

“¢No,’ I said; ‘for the majority of men will 
not, saving such as shall live justly, purified by 
righteousness, and by every other virtue.’ 

“¢Tt is not, therefore,’ said he, ‘on account 
of his affinity, that a man sees God, nor because 
he has a mind, but because he is temperate and 
righteous ?’ 

“Ves,” said I; ‘and because he has that 
whereby he perceives God.’ 

“*What then? Do goats or sheep injure any 
one?’ 

“«No one in any respect,’ I said. 

“<Therefore these animals will see [God] 
according to your account,’ says he. 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. A i9Ey 


“* No ; for their body being of such a nature,| “‘ You are right; for what reason has one for 


is an obstacle to them.’ 

“ He rejoined, ‘If these animals could assume 
speech, be well assured that they would with 
greater reason ridicule our body ; but let us now 
dismiss this subject, and let it be conceded to 
you as you say. ‘Tell me, however, this: Does 
the soul see [God] so long as it is in the body, 
or after it has been removed from it?’ 

«So long as it is in the form of a man, it is 
possible for it,’ I continue, ‘to attain to this by 
means of the mind; but especially when it has 
been set free from the body, and being apart by 
itself, it gets possession. of that which it was 
wont continually and wholly to love.’ 

‘“* Does it remember this, then [the sight o 
God], when it is again in the man?’ 

“Tt does not appear to me so,’ I said. 

. “* What, then, is the advantage to those who 
have seen [God]? or what has he who has seen 
more than he who has not seen, unless. he re- 
member this fact, that he Aas seen?’ 

*“T cannot tell,’ I answered. 

“¢ And what do those suffer who are judged 
to be unworthy of this spectacle?’ said he. 

“««They are imprisoned in the bodies of cer- 
tain wild beasts, and this.is their punishment.’ 

. “Do they know, then, that it is for this rea- 
son they are in such forms, and that they have 
committed some sin?’ 

“«¢T do not think so.’ 

“Then these reap no advantage from their 
punishment, as it seems: moreover, I would say 
that they are not punished unless they are con- 
scious of the punishment.’ 

“* No indeed.’ 

“‘« Therefore souls neither see God nor trans- 
migrate-into other bodies; for they would know 
that so they are punished, and they would be 
afraid to commit even the most trivial sin after- 
wards. But that they can perceive that God 
exists, and that righteousness and piety are hon- 
ourable, I also quite agree with you,’ said he. 

«You are right,’ I replied. 


CHAP, V.—THE SOUL IS NOT IN ITS OWN NATURE 
IMMORTAL. 


“«These philosophers know nothing, then, 
about these things; for they cannot tell what a 
soul is.’ 

“¢Tt.does not appear so.’ 

““Nor ought it to be called immortal ; for if 
it is immortal, it is plainly unbegotten.’ 

“<Ttis both unbegotten and immortal, accord- 
ing to some who are styled Platonists.’ 

«To you say that the world is also unbegot- 
ten?’ 

. “*Some say so. I do not, however, agree 
with them.’ ” sk Aa at Dak 








supposing that a body so solid, possessing resist- 
ance, composite, changeable, decaying, and re- 
newed every day, has not arisen from some cause ? 
But if the world is begotten, souls also are neces- 
sarily begotten; and perhaps at one time they 
were not in existence, for they were made on 
account of men and other living creatures, if you 
will say that they have been begotten wholly 
apart, and not along with their respective bodies.’ 

“«This seems to be correct.’ 

“«They are not, then, immortal?’ 

“No; since the world has appeared to us to 
be begotten.’ 

“* But I do not say, indeed, that all souls die ; 
for that were truly a piece of good fortune to 
the evil. What then? The souls of the pious 
remain in a better place, while those of the -un- 
just and wicked are in.a worse, waiting for the 
time of judgment. Thus some which have ap- 
peared worthy of God never die; but others 
are punished so long as God wills them to exist 
and to be punished.’ 

“ «Ts what you say, then, of a like nature with 
that which Plato in Zimaeus hints about the 
world, when he says that it is indeed subject to 
decay, inasmuch as it has been created, but that 
it will neither be dissolved nor meet with the 
fate of death on account of the will of God? 
Does it seem to you the very same can be said 
of the soul, and generally of all things? For 
those things which exist after’ God, or shall at 
any time exist,? these have the nature of decay, 
and are such as may be blotted out and cease 
to exist ; for God alone is unbegotten and incor- 
ruptible, and therefore He is God, but all other 
things after Him are created and corruptible. 
For this reason souls both die and are punished :: 
since, if they were unbegotten, they would nei- 
ther sin, nor be filled with folly, nor be cowardly, 
and again ferocious; nor would they willingly 
transform into swine, and serpents, and dogs; 
and it would not indeed be just to compel them, 
if they be unbegotten. For that which is unbe- 
gotten is similar to, equal to, and the same with 
that which is unbegotten ; and neither in power 
nor in honour should the one be preferred to 
the other, and hence there are not many things 
which are unbegotten: for if there were some 
difference between them, you would not discover 
the cause of the difference, though you searched 
for it ; but after. letting the mind ever wander to 
infinity, you would at length, wearied out, take 
your stand on one Unbegotten, and say that this 
is the Cause of all. Did such escape the obser- 
vation of Plato and Pythagoras, those wise men,’ 








I “ Beside.” ; b 

2 Otto says: Ifthe old man begins to speak here, then €xet must 
be read.tor éyetv. The received text makes it appear that Justin con- 
tinues a quotation, or the substance of it, from Plato. 





I said, ‘who have been as a wall and fortress 
of philosophy to us?’ 


CHAP. VI.— THESE THINGS WERE UNKNOWN TO 


PLATO AND OTHER PHILOSOPHERS. 


““¢Tt makes no matter to me,’ said he, ‘ whether 
Plato or Pythagoras, or, in short, any other man, 
held such opinions. For the truth is so; and 
you would perceive it from this. The soul as- 
suredly is or has life. If, then, it is life, it would 
cause something else, and not itself, to live, even 
as motion would move something else than itself. 
Now, that the soul lives, no one would deny. 
But if it lives, it lives not as being life, but as the 
partaker of life ; but that which partakes of any- 
thing, is different from that of which it does 
partake. Now the soul partakes of life, since 
God wills it to live. Thus, then, it will not even 
partake [of life] when God does not will it to 
live. For to live is not its attribute, as it is 
God’s ; but as a man does not live always, and 
the soul is not for ever conjoined with the body, 
since, whenever this harmony must be broken 
up, the soul leaves the body, and the man ex- 
ists no longer ; even so, whenever the soul must 
cease to exist, the spirit of life is removed from 
it, and there is no more soul, but it goes back to 
the place from whence it was taken.’ 


CHAP. VII.— THE KNOWLEDGE OF TRUTH TO BE 
SOUGHT FROM THE PROPHETS ALONE. 


“«¢Should any one, then, employ a teacher?’ 
T say, ‘or whence may any one be helped, if not 
even in them there is truth?’ 

“«There existed, long before this time, certain 
men more ancient than all those who are es- 
teemed philosophers, both righteous and beloved 
by God, who spoke by the Divine Spirit, and 
foretold events which would take place, and 
which are now taking place. They are called 
prophets. These alone both saw and announced 
the truth to men, neither reverencing nor fear- 
ing any man, not influenced by a desire for glory, 
but speaking those things alone which they saw 
and which they heard, being filled with the Holy 
Spirit. Their writings are still extant, and he 
who has read them is very much helped in his 
knowledge of the beginning and end of things, 
and of those matters which the philosopher 
ought to know, provided he has believed them. 
For they did not use demonstration in their 
treatises, seeing that they were witnesses to the 
truth above all demonstration, and worthy of be- 
lief; and those events which have happened, 
and those which are happening, compel you to 
assent to the utterances made by them, although, 
indeed, they were entitled to credit on account 
of the miracles which they performed, since they 
both glorified the Creator, the God and Father 
of all things, and proclaimed His Son, the Christ 











DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





[sent] by Him: which, indeed, the false proph- 
ets, who are filled with the lying unclean spirit, 
neither have done nor do, but venture to work 
certain wonderful deeds for the purpose of aston- 
ishing men, and glorify the spirits and demons 
of error. But pray that, above all things, the 
gates of light may be opened to you; for these 
things cannot be perceived or understggd by all, 
but only by the man to whom GodYand His 
Christ have imparted wisdom.’ 


CHAP, VIII. — JUSTIN BY HIS COLLOQUY IS KINDLED 
WITH LOVE TO CHRIST. 


“When he had spoken these and many other 
things, which there is no time for mentioning at 
present, he went away, bidding me attend to 
them; and I have not seen him since. But 
straightway a flame was kindled in my soul; 
and a love of the prophets, and of those men 
who are friends of Christ, possessed me; and 
whilst revolving his words in my mind, I found 
this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable. 
Thus, and -for this reason, I am a philosopher. 
Moreover, I would wish that all, mgking a reso- 
lution similar to my own, do not kgep themselves 
away from the words of the Saviour. For they 
possess a terrible power in themselves, and are 
sufficient to inspire those who turn aside from 
the path of rectitude with awe ; while the sweet- 
est rest is afforded those who make a diligent 
practice of them. If, then, you have any con- 
cern for yourself, and if you are eagerly looking 
for salvation, and if you believe in God, you may 
—since you are not indifferent to the matter * — 
become acquainted with the Chri and, 
after being initiated,” live a happy life.” 

When I had said this, my beloved friends3 
those who were with Trypho laughed ; but he, 
smiling, says, “I approve of your other remarks, 
and admire the eagerness with which you study 
divine things ; but it were better for you still to 
abide in the philosophy of Plato, or of some 
other man, cultivating endurance, self-control, 
and moderation, rather than be deceived by false 
words, and follow the opinions of men of no 
reputation. For if you remain in that mode of 
philosophy, and live blamelessly, a hope of a 
better destiny were left to you; but when you 
have forsaken God, and reposed confidence in 
man, what safety still awaits you? If, then, you 
are willing to listen to me (for I have already 
considered you a friend), first be circumcised, 
then observe what ordinances have been enacted 
with respect to the Sabbath, and the feasts, and 


1 According to one interpretation, this clause is applied to God: 
“If you believe in God, seeing He is not indifferent to the matter,” 
etc. Maranus says that it means: A Jew who reads so much of 
Christ in the Old Testament, cannot be indifferent to the things 
which pertain to Him. 

2 Literally; having become perfect. Some refer the words te 
perfection of character; some to initiation by baptism. 

3 Latin version, ‘‘ beloved Pompeius. ” 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





the new moons of God ; and, in a word, do all 
things which have been written in the law: and 
then perhaps you shall obtain mercy from God. 
But Christ ——if He has indeed been born, and 
exists anywhere — is unknown, and does not even 
know Himself, and has no power until Elias 
come to anoint Him, and make Him manifest 
to all, And you, having accepted a groundless 
report, invent a Christ for yourselves, and for his 
sake are inconsiderately perishing.” 


CHAP. IX.—-THE CHRISTIANS HAVE NOT BELIEVED 
GROUNDLESS STORIES. 


“T excuse and forgive you, my friend,” I said. 
“For you know not what you say, but have been 
persuaded by teachers who do. not understand 
the Scriptures ; and you speak, like a diviner, 
whatever comes into your mind. But if you are 
willing to listen to an account of Him, how we 
have not been deceived, and shall not cease 
to confess Him,—although men’s reproaches 
be heaped upon us, although the most terrible 
tyrant compel us to deny Him, —I shall prove to 
you as you stand here that we have not believed 
empty fables, or words without any foundation, 
but words filled with the Spirit of God, and big 
with power, and flourishing with grace.” 

Then again those who were in his company 
laughed, and shouted in an unseemly manner. 
Then I rose up and was about to leave ; but he, 
taking hold of my garment, said I should not 
accomplish that‘ until I had performed what I 
promised. ‘Let not, then, your companions be 
so tumultuous, or behave so disgracefully,” I 
said. “But if they wish, let them listen in 
silence ; or, if some better occupation prevent 
them, let them go away; while we, having re- 
tired to some spot, and resting there, may finish 
the discourse.” It seemed good to Trypho that 
we should do so; and accordingly, having agreed 
upon it, we retired to the middle space of the 
Xystus. Two of his friends, when they had ridi- 
culed and made game of our zeal, went off. 
And when we were come to that place, where 
there are stone seats on both sides, those with 
Trypho, having seated themselves on the one 
side, conversed with each other, some one of them 
having thrown in a remark about the war waged 
in Judea. 


CHAP. X.—-TRYPHO BLAMES THE CHRISTIANS FOR 
THIS ALONE — THE NON-OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW. 


And when they ceased, I again addressed 
them thus :— 

“Is there any other matter, my friends, in 
which we are blamed, than this, that we live not 
after the law, and are not circumcised in the 
flesh as your forefathers were, and do not observe 





I According to another reading, ‘“‘I did not /eawe.” 

















199 





sabbaths as you do? Are our lives and customs 
also slandered among you? And I ask this: 
have you also believed concerning us, that we 
eat men; and that after the feast, having ex- 
tinguished the lights, we engage in promiscuous 
concubinage? Ordo you condemn us in this 
alone, that we adhere to such tenets, and believe 
in an opinion, untrue, as you think?” 

“This is what we are amazed at,” said Trypho, 
“but those things about which the multitude 
speak are not worthy of belief; for they are most 
repugnant to human nature. Moreover, I am 
aware that your precepts in the so-called Gospel 
are so wonderful and so great, that I suspect no 
a ee ; for I have carefully read 

ém. But this is what we are most at a loss 
about : that you, professing to be pious, and sup- 
posing yourselves better than others, are not in 
any particular separated from them, and do not 
alter your mode of living from the nations, in that 
you observe no festivals or sabbaths, and do not 
have the rite of circumcision ; and further, rest- 
ing your hopes on a man that was crucified, you 
yet expect to obtain some good thing from God, 
while you do not obey His commandments. 
Have you not read, that that soul shall be cut 
off from his people who shall not have been cir- 
cumcised on the eighth day? And this has been 
ordained for strangers and for slaves equally. 
But you, despising this covenant rashly, reject 
the consequent duties, and attempt to persuade 
yourselves that you know God, when, however, 
you perform none of those things which they do 
who fear God. If, therefore, you can defend 
yourself on these points, and make it manifest in 
what way you hope for anything whatsoever, 
even though you do not observe the law, this we 
would very gladly hear from you, and we shall 
make other similar investigations.” 


CHAP, XI.— THE LAW ABROGATED ; THE NEW TES- 
TAMENT PROMISED AND GIVEN BY GOD. 


“There will be no other God, O Trypho, nor 
was there from eternity any other existing” (I 
thus addressed him), “but He who made and 
disposed all this universe. Nor do we think that 
there is one God for us, another for you, but that 
He alone is God who led your fathers out from 
Egypt with a strong hand and a high arm. Nor 
have we trusted in any other (for there is no oth- 
er), but in Him in whom you also have trusted, 
the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. 
But we do not trust through Moses or through 
the law ; for then we would do the same as your- 
selves. But now?— (for I have read that there 
shall be a final law, and a covenant, the chiefest 





2 Editors suppose that Justin inserts a long parenthesis here, from 
“for” to “ Egypt.” It is more natural to take this as an anacoluthon. 
Justin was going to say ‘‘ But now we trust through Christ,” but feels 
that sueh a statement requires a preliminary explanation. 


200 


of all, which it is now incumbent on all men to 
observe, as many as are seeking after the inherit- 
ance of God. _/For the law promulgated on Horeb 
is now old, and belongs to yourselves alone ; but 
this is for all universally. Now, law placed 
against law has abrogated that which is before it, 
and a covenant which comes after in like manner 
has put an end to the previous one’; and an 
eternal and final law—namely, Christ — has 
been given to us, and the covenant is, trustworthy, 
after which there shall be no law, no command- 
ment, no ordinance. Have you not read this 
which Isaiah says: ‘ Hearken unto Me, hearken 
unto Me, my people; and, ye kings, give ear 
unto Me: for a law shall go forth from Me, and 
My judgment shall be for a light to the nations. 
My righteousness approaches swiftly, and My 
salvation shall go forth, and nations shall trust in 
Mine arm?’: And by Jeremiah, concerning 
this same new covenant, He thus speaks: ‘ Be- 
hold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will 
make a new covenant with the house of Israel 
and with the house of Judah; not according to 
the covenant which I made with their fathers, 
in the day that I took them by the hand, to bring 
them out of the land of Egypt’). If, therefore, 
God proclaimed a new covenant which was to 
be instituted, and this for a light of the nations, 
we see and are persuaded that men approach 
God, leaving their idols and other unrighteous- 
ness, through the name of Him who was crucified, 
Jesus Christ, and abide by their confession even 
unto death, and maintain piety. Moreover, by 
the works and by the attendant miracles, it is 


law, and the new covenant, and the expectation | very reason, 





‘DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


This same law you have despised, and His new 
holy covenant you have slighted ; and now you 
neither receive it, nor repent of your evil deeds. 
‘For your ears are closed, your eyes are blinded, 
and the heart is hardened,’ Jeremiah * has cried ; 
yet not even then do you listen. The Lawgiver 
is present, yet you do not see Him ; to the poor 
the Gospel is preached, the blind see, yet you 
do not understand. ‘You have now need of a 
second circumcision, though you glory greatly, 
in the flesh. / The new law requires you to keep 
perpetual sabbath, and you, because you are idle 
for one day, suppose you are pious, not discern- 
ing why this has been commanded you : and if 
you eat unleavened bread, you say the will of 
God has been fulfilled.) The Lord our God does 
not take pleasure in such observances : if there 
is any perjured person or a thief among you, let 
him cease to be so; if any adulterer, let him 
repent; then he has kept the sweet and true 
sabbaths of God. If any one has impure hands, 
let him wash and be pure. 


CHAP. XIII. — ISAIAH TEACHES THAT SINS ARE 
FORGIVEN THROUGH CHRIST’S BLOOD. 


“ For Isaiah did not send you to a bath, there to 
wash away murder and other sins, which not even 
all the water of the sea were sufficient to purge ; 
but, as might have been expected, this was that 
saving bath of the olden time which followed 5 
those who repented, and who no longer were 
purified by the blood of goats and of sheep, 
or by the ashes of an heifer, or by the offerings 


as Isaiah himself said, when he 


of fine flour, but by faith through the blood of 
possible for all to understand that He is the new | Christ, and throug His death, who died for this 


of those who out of every people wait for the |spake thus: 


good things of God. For the true spiritual Israel, 
and descendants of Judah, Jacob, Isaac, and 
Abraham (who in uncircumcision was approved 
of and blessed by God on account of his faith, 
and called the father of many nations), are we 
who have been led to God through this crucified 
Christ, as shall be demonstrated while we pro- 
ceed, 


CHAP. XII.—THE JEWS VIOLATE THE ETERNAL 
LAW, AND INTERPRET ILL THAT OF MOSES. 


I also adduced another passage in which 
Isaiah exclaims: “ ‘Hear My words, and your 
soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting 
covenant with you, even the sure mercies of 
David. Behold, I have given Him for a witness 
to the people: nations which know not Thee 
shall call on Thee ; peoples who know not Thee 
shall escape to Thee, because of thy God, the 
Holy One of Israel ; for He has glorified Thee.’3 


1 According to the LXX., Isa. li. 4, 5. 
2 Ors XXX 315 39. 
3 Isa. lv. 3 ff. according to LXX. 


‘The Lord shall make bare His 
holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all 
the nations and the ends of the earth shall see 
the salvation of God. Depart ye, depart ye, de- 
part ye,° go ye out from thence, and touch no 
unclean thing ; go ye out of the midst of her, be 
ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord, for? 
ye go not with haste. For the Lord shall go be- 
fore you; and the Lord, the God of Israel, shall 
gather you together. Behold, my servant shall 
deal prudently ; and He shall be exalted, and be 
greatly glorified. As many were astonished at 
Thee, so Thy form and Thy glory shall be marred 
more than men. So shall many nations be as- 
tonished at Him, and the kings shall shut their 
mouths ; for that which had not been told them 
concerning Him shall they see, and that which 
they had not heard shall they consider. Lord, 





4 Not in Jeremiah; some would insert, in place of Jeremiah, Isaiah 
or John. [St. John xii. 40; Isa. vi. 10: where see full references ip 
the English margin. But comp. Jeremiah vii. 24, 26, xi, 8, and xvii. 
23, 

5 1. Cor. x. 4. Otto reads: which he mentioned and which was 
for those who repented. 

hree times in Justin, not in LXX. 
7 Deviating slightly from LXX., omitting a clause. 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


201 





who hath believed our report? and to whom is 
the arm of the Lord revealed? We have an- 
nounced Him as a child before Him, as a root 
ina dry ground. He hath no form or comeliness, 
and when we saw Him He had no form or beauty ; 
but His form is dishonoured, and fails more than 
the sons of men. He is a man in affliction, and 
acquainted with bearing sickness, because His 
face has been turned away; He was despised, 
and we esteemed Him not. He bears our sins, 
and is distressed for us; and we esteemed Him 
to be in toil and in affliction, and in evil treat- 
ment. But He was wounded for our transgres- 
sions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the 
chastisement of our peace was upon Him. With 
His stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, 
have gone astray. Every man has turned to his 
own way ; and the Lord laid on Him our iniqui- 
ties, and by reason of His oppression He opens 
not His mouth. He was brought as a sheep to 
the slaughter ; and as a lamb before her shearer 
is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth. In His 
humiliation His judgment was taken away. And 
who shall declare His generation? For His life 
is taken from the earth. Because of the trans- 
gressions of my people He came unto death. 
And I will give the wicked for His grave, and 
the rich for His death, because He committed 
no iniquity, and deceit was not found in His 
mouth. And the Lord wills to purify Him from 
affliction. If he has been given for sin, your 
soul shall see a long-lived seed. And the Lord 
wills to take His soul away from trouble, to show 
Him light, and to form Him in understanding, to 
justify the righteous One who serves many well. 
And He shall bear our sins ; therefore He shall 
inherit many, and shall divide the spoil of the 
strong, because His soul was delivered to death ; 
and He was numbered with the transgressors, 
and He bare the sins of many, and was delivered 
for their transgression. Sing, O barren, who 
bearest not; break forth and cry aloud, thou 
who dost not travail in pain: for more are the 
children of the desolate than the children of 
the married wife. For the Lord said, Enlarge 
the place of thy tent and of thy curtains; fix 
them, spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strength- 
en thy stakes ; stretch forth to thy right and thy 
left ; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and 
thou shalt make the desolate cities to be inherited. 
Fear not because thou art ashamed, neither be 
thou confounded because thou hast been re- 
proached; for thou shalt forget everlasting 
shame, and shalt not remember the reproach of 
thy widowhood, because the Lord has made a 
name for Himself, and He who has redeemed 
thee shall be called through the whole earth the 
God of Israel. The Lord has called thee as* a 
Pe mba oe BPS es 


t LX. ‘ #07 as, etc. 








woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, as' a wo- 
man hated from her youth.’ ? 


CHAP. ; XIV. >- RIGHTEOUSNESS IS NOT PLACED IN 
JEWISH .RITES, BUT IN THE CONVERSION OF THE 
HEART GIVEN IN BAPTISM BY CHRIST. 


“‘ By reason, therefore, of this laver of repent- 
ance and knowledge of God, which has been 
ordained on account of the transgression of God’s 
people, as Isaiah cries, we have believed, and 
testify that that very baptism which he announced 
is alone able to purify those who have repented ; 
and this is the water of life. But the cisterns 
which you have dug for yourselves are broxen 
and profitless to you. For what is the use of 
that baptism which cleanses the flesh and body 
alone? Baptize the soul from wrath and from 
covetousness, from envy, and from hatred ; and, 
lo! the body is pure. |For this is the symbolic 
significance of unleavened bread, that you do not 
commit the old deeds of wicked leaven. But 
you have understood all things in a carnal sense, 
and you suppose it to be piety if you do such 
things, while your souls are filled with deceit, 
and, in short, with every wickedness] According- 
ly, also, after the seven days of eating unleavened 
bread, God commanded them to mingle new 
leaven, that is, the performance of other works, 
and not the imitation of the old and evil works. 
And because this is what this new Lawgiver de- 
mands of you, I shall again refer to the words 
which have been quoted by me, and to others 
also which have been passed over. They are re- 
lated by Isaiah to the following effect: ‘Hearken 
to me, and your soul shall live ; and I will make 
with you an everlasting covenant, even the sure 
mercies of David. Behold, I have given Him 
for a witness to the people, a leader and com- 
mander to the nations.. Nations which know not 
Thee shall call on Thee ; and peoples who know 
not Thee shall escape unto Thee, because of Thy 
God, the Holy One of Israel, for He has glorified 
Thee. Seek ye God; and when you find Him, 
call on Him, so long as He may be nigh you. 
Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the un- 
righteous man his thoughts ; and let him return 
unto the Lord, and he will obtain mercy, because 
He will abundantly pardon your sins. For my 
thoughts are not as your thoughts, neither are 
my ways as your ways ; but as far removed as the 
heavens are from the earth, so far is my way re- 
moved from your way, and your thoughts from 
my thoughts. For as the snow or the rain de- 
scends from heaven, and shall not return till it 
waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and 
bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread for 
food, so shall My word be that goeth forth out of 
My mouth: it shall not return until it shall have 





2 Isa. lii. ro ff. following the LXX. on toliv. 6. 


accomplished all that I desired, and I shall make 


My commandments prosperous. For ye shall 
go out with joy, and be taught with gladness. 
For the mountains and the hills shall leap while 
they expect you, and all the trees of the fields 
shall applaud with their branches: and instead 
of the thorn shall come up the cypress, and in- 
stead of the brier shall come up the myrtle. And 
the Lord shall be for a name, and for an ever- 
lasting sign, and He shall not fail!’* Of these 
and such like words written by the prophets, O 
Trypho,” said I, “some have reference to the 
first advent of Christ, in which He is preached 
as inglorious, obscure, and of mortal appearance : 
but others had reference to His second advent, 
when He shall appear in glory and above the 
clouds ; and your nation shall see and know Him 
whom they have pierced, as Hosea, one of the 
twelve prophets, and Daniel, foretold. 


CHAP. kv. — IN WHAT THE TRUE FASTING CON- 
SISTS. 


“ Learn, therefore, to keep the true fast of God, 
as Isaiah says, that you may please God. Isaiah 
has cried thus: ‘Shout vehemently, and do not 
spare: lift up thy voice as with a trumpet, and 
show My people their transgressions, and the 
house of Jacob their sins. They seek Me from 
day to day, and desire to know My ways, as a 
nation that did righteousness, and forsook not 
the judgment of God. They ask of Me now 
righteous judgment, and desire to draw near to 
God, saying, Wherefore have we fasted, and Thou 
seest not? and afflicted our souls, and Thou hast 
not known? Because in the days of your fasting 
you find your own pleasure, and oppress all those 
who are subject to you. Behold, ye fast for 
strifes and debates, and smite the humble with 
your fists. Why do ye fast for Me, as to-day, so 
that your voice is heard aloud? This is not the 
fast which I have chosen, the day in which a man 
shall afflict Hfis soul. And not even if you bend 
your neck like a ring, or clothe yourself in sack- 
cloth and ashes, shall you call this a fast, and a 
day acceptable to the Lord. This is not the fast 
which I have chosen, saith the Lord ; but loose 
every unrighteous bond, dissolve the terms of 
wrongous covenants, let the oppressed go free, 
and avoid every iniquitous contract. Deal thy 
bread to the hungry, and lead the homeless poor 
under thy dwelling ; if thou seest the naked, clothe 
him ; and do not hide thyself from thine own 
flesh. Then shall thy light break forth as the 
morning, and thy garments? shall rise up quickly : 
and thy righteousness shall go before thee, and 
the glory of God shall envelope thee. Then 
shalt thou cry, and the Lord shall hear thee: 





1 Isa, lv. 3 to end. 


2 imdtia: some read iduata, asin LXX., “ thy health,” the better 
reading probably. 








202 DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


while thou art speaking, He will say, Behold, I 


am here. And if thou take away from thee the 
yoke, and the stretching out of the hand, and the 
word of murmuring ; and shalt give heartily thy 
bread to the hungry, and shalt satisfy the afflicted 
soul ; then shall ‘thy light arise in the darkness, 
and thy darkness shall be as the noon-day: and 
thy God shall be with thee continually, and thou 
shalt be satisfied according as thy soul desireth, 
and thy bones shall become fat, and shall be as 
a watered garden, and as a fountain of water, or 
asaland where water fails not.’3 ‘Circumcise, 
therefore, the foreskin of your heart,’ as the words 
of God in all these passages demand.” 


CHAP./ XVI./—— CIRCUMCISION GIVEN AS A SIGN, THAT 
THE JEWS MIGHT BE DRIVEN AWAY FOR THEIR 
‘EVIL DEEDS DONE TO CHRIST AND THE CHRIS- 
TIANS. 


“And God himself proclaimed by Moses, 
speaking thus: ‘And circumcise the hardness_of 
your hearts, and no longer stiffen the neck./ For 
the Lord your God is both Lord of lords, Arid a 
great, mighty, and terrible God, who regardeth 
not persons, and taketh not rewards.’* And in 
Leviticus : ‘ Because they have transgressed against 
Me, and despised Me, and because they have 
walked contrary to Me, I also walked contrary to 
them, and I shall cut them off in the land of their 
enemies. Then shall their uncircumcised heart 
be turned.’5 For the circumcision according to 
the flesh, which is from Abraham, was given for 
a sign; that you may be separated from other 
nations, and from us; and that you alone may 
suffer that which you now justly suffer ; and that 
your land may be desolate, and your cities burned 
with fire ; and that strangers may eat your fruit 
in your presence, and not one of you may go up 
to Jerusalem.’® | For youare not recognised among 
the rest of men by any other mark than your 
fleshly circumcision. For none of you, I suppose, 
will venture to say that God neither did nor does 
foresee the events, which are future, nor fore- 
ordained his deserts foreach one. Accordingly, 
these things have happened to you in fairness 
and justice, for you have slain the Just One, and 
His prophets before Him ; and now you reject 
those who hope in Him, and in Him who sent 
Him—God the Almighty and Maker of all 
things — cursing in your synagogues those that 
believe on Christ. For you have not the power 
to lay hands upon us, on account of those who 
now have the mastery. But as often as you+ 
could, you did so. Wherefore God, by Isaiakd, 
calls to you, saying, ‘ Behold how the righteov— 


sala 
ces 1p 





3 Isa, lviii, 1-12, : d xvii, 
4 Deut. x. 16 f. 
5 Lev. xxvi, 40, 41. lich was 


6 See Afol.,1. 47, The Jews [By Hadrian's recent edic 
rohibited by law from entering Jerusalem on pain of death. 
Justis se@s in circumcision their own punishment. : 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





man perished, and no one regards it. For the 
righteous man is taken away from before iniquity. 
His grave shall be in peace, he is taken away 
from the midst. Draw near hither, ye lawless 


children, seed of the adulterers, and children of 


the whore. Against whom have you sported 
yourselves, and against whom have you opened 
the mouth, and against whom have you loosened 
the tongue ?’’ 


CHAP. XVII. —THE JEWS SENT PERSONS THROUGH 
THE WHOLE EARTH TO SPREAD CALUMNIES ON 
CHRISTIANS. 


“ For other nations have not inflicted on us and 
on Christ this wrong to such an extent as you have, 
who in very deed are the authors of the wicked 
prejudice against the Just One, and us who hold 
by Him. For after that you had crucified Him, 
the only blameless and righteous Man, — through 
whose stripes those who approach the Father by 


Him are healedj — when you knew that He had 


risen from the dead and ascended to heaven, as 
the prophets foretold He would, you not only 
did not repent of the wickedness which you had 


committed, but at that time you selected and 
sent out from Jerusalem chosen men through all 


the land to tell that the godless heresy of the 
Christians had sprung up, and to publish those 


things which all they who knew us not speak 
So that you are the cause not only 
of your own unrighteousness, but in fact of that 
And Isaiah cries justly : ‘ By 
reason of you, My name is blasphemed among 


against us. 
of all other men. 


the Gentiles.’? And: ‘ Woe unto their soul ! be- 
cause they have devised an evil device against 


themselves, saying, Let us bind the righteous, for 
Therefore they shall eat 


he is distasteful to us. 


the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked ! 


evil shall be rendered to him according to the 
And again, in other 


works of his hands.’ 
words :3 ‘Woe unto them that draw their iniqui- 


ty as with a long cord, and their transgressions 


as with the harness of a heifer’s yoke: who say, 


Let his speed come near; and let the counsel 
of the Holy One of Israel come, that we may 


know it. Woe unto them that call evil good, 


and good evil; that put light for darkness, and 
darkness for light ; that put bitter for sweet, and 
sweet for bitter!’4 Accordingly, you displayed 
great zeal in publishing throughout all the land 
bitter and dark and unjust things against the only 


blameless and righteous Light sent by God. 

For He appeared distasteful to you when He 
gried among you, ‘It is written, My house is the 
tiouse of prayer ; 
niieves !’5 He overthrew also the tables of the 


nn ne ee 
the 
Isa. lvii. 1-4. 


GoCIsa. lii. 5. 

, ‘sa. iti. o ff. 
3a, v. 18, 20. 
1 pjatt. xxi. 13. 





but ye have made it a den of 


203 


money-changers in the temple, and exclaimed, 
‘Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
crites ! because ye pay tithe of mint and rue, but 
do not observe the love of God and justice. Ye 
whited sepulchres ! appearing beautiful outward, 
but are within full of dead men’s bones.’® And 
to the Scribes, ‘Woe unto you, Scribes! for ye 
have the keys, and ye do not enter in yourselves, 
and them that are entering in ye hinder; ye 
blind guides !’ 


CHAP. XVIII. — CHRISTIANS WOULD OBSERVE THE 
LAW, IF THEY DID NOT KNOW WHY IT WAS 
INSTITUTED. 


“For since you have read, O Trypho, as you 
yourself admitted, the doctrines taught by our 
Saviour, I do not think that I have done fool- 
ishly in adding some short utterances of His to 
the prophetic statements. Wash therefore, and 
be now clean, and put away iniquity from your 
souls, as God bids you be washed in this laver, 
and be circumcised with the true circumcision. 
[Fe we too would observe the fleshly circumcision, 
' the Sabbaths, and in short all the feasts, if 
we did not know for what reason they were en- 
joined you, — namely, on account of your trans- 
gressions and the hardness of your hearts, For 
if we patiently endure all things contrived-against 
us by wicked men and demons, so that even 
amid cruelties unutterable, death and torments, 
we pray for mercy to those who inflict such 
things upon us, and do not wish to give the least 
retort to any one, even as the new Lawgiver 
commanded us: how is it, Trypho, that we 
would not observe those rites which do not harm 
us, —I speak of fleshly circumcision, and Sab- 
baths, and feasts ? 


et fT 
CHAP. ¢ XIX.)-—- CIRCUMCISION UNKNOWN BEFORE 
ABRAHAM. “TITHE LAW WAS GIVEN BY MOSES ON 
ACCOUNT OF THE HARDNESS OF THEIR HEARTS. 


“Tt is this about which we are at a loss, and 
with reason, because, while you endure such 
things, you do not observe all the other customs 
which we are now discussing.” 

“This circumcision is not, however, necessary 
for all men, but for you alone, in order that, as I 
have already said, you may suffer these things 
which you now justly suffer. Nor do we receive 
that useless baptism of cisterns, for it has noth- 
ing to do with this baptism of life. Wherefore 
also God has announced that you have forsaken 
Him, the living fountain, and digged for your- 
selves broken cisterns which can hold no water. 
Even you, who are the circumcised according to 
the flesh, have need of our circumcision ; but we, 
having the latter, do not require the former. 
For if it were necessary, as you suppose, God 








6 This and following quotation taken promiscuously from Matt. 
xxiii. and Luke xi, 


f 


204 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


ae 


would not have made Adam uncircumcised ; 
would not have had respect to the gifts of Abel 
when, being uncircumcised, he offered sacrifice ; 
and would not have been pleased with the uncir- 
cumcision of Enoch, who was not found, because 
God had translated him. Lot, being uncircum- 
cised, was saved from Sodom, the angels them- 
selves and the Lord sending him out. Noah 
was the beginning of our race; yet, uncircum- 
cised, along with his children he went into the 
ark. Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High, 
was uncircumcised; to whom also Abraham, 
the first who received circumcision after the flesh, 
gave tithes, and he blessed him: after whose 
order God declared, by the mouth of David, 
that He would establish the everlasting priest. 
Therefore to you alone this circumcision was 
necessary, in order that the people may be no 
people, and the nation no nation ; as also Hosea,* 
one of the twelve prophets, declares. Moreover, 
all those righteous men already mentioned, 
though they kept no Sabbaths,? were pleasing to 
God; and after them Abraham with all his de- 
scendants until Moses, under whom your nation 
appeared unrighteous and ungrateful to God, 
making a calf in the wilderness: wherefore God, 
accommodating Himself to that nation, enjoined 
them also to offer sacrifices, as if to His name, 
in order that you might not serve idols. Which 
precept, however, you have not observed ; nay, 
you sacrificed your children to demons. And 
you were commanded to keep Sabbaths, that you 
might retain the memorial of God. For His 
word makes this announcement, saying, ‘That 
ye may know that I am God who redeemed 
you.’ 3 


CHAP, XX.— WHY CHOICE OF MEATS WAS PRE- 
SCRIBED. 


“Moreover, you were commanded to abstain 
from certain kinds of food, in order that you 
might keep God before your eyes while you ate 
and drank, seeing that you were prone and very 
ready to depart from His knowledge, as Moses 
also affirms: ‘The people ate and drank, and 
rose up to play.’4 And again: ‘Jacob ate, and 
was satisfied, and waxed fat; and he who was 
beloved kicked: he waxed fat, he grew thick, he 
was enlarged, and he forsook God who had made 
him.’5 For it was told you by Moses in the 
book of Genesis, that God granted to Noah, 
being a just man, to eat of every animal, but not 
of flesh with the blood, which is dead.”® And 


I Hos, i, and ii. - 

_? [They did not Sadéatzze; but Justin does not deny what is im- 
plied in many Scriptures, that they marked the week, and noted. the 
seventh day. Gen. ii. 3, viii. 10, 12.] ; 

3 Ezek, xx. 12. 

4 Ex, xxxii. 6. 

5 Deut. xxxii. 15. 

§ vexpisaiov, or “ dieth. of itself;” com. reading was éxptatov, 
which was supposed to be derived from éxpimrw, and to mean “ which 
ought to be cast out: ” the above was suggested by H. Stephanus, 








as he was. ready to say, “as the green herbs,” I 
anticipated him: “Why do you not receive this 
statement, ‘as the green herbs,’ in the sense in 
which it was given by God, to wit, that just as God 
has granted the herbs for sustenance to man, even 
so has He given the animals for the diet of flesh ? 
But, you say, a distinction was laid down there. 
after to Noah, because we do not eat certain 
herbs. As you interpret it, the thing is incredi- 
ble. And first I shall not occupy myself with 
this, though able to say and to hold that every 
vegetable is food, and fit to be eaten. But 
although we discriminate between green herbs, 
not eating all, we refrain from eating some, not 
because they are common or unclean, but be- 
cause they are bitter, or deadly, or thorny. But 
we lay hands on and take of all herbs which are 
sweet, very nourishing and good, whether they 
are marine or land plants. Thus also God by the 
mouth of Moses commanded you to abstain 
from unclean and improper? and violent animals : 
when, moreover, though you were eating manna 
in the desert, and were seeing all those wondrous 
acts wrought for you by God, you made and wor- 
shipped the golden calf. Hence he cries con- 
tinually, and justly, ‘They are foolish children, 
in whom is no faith.’ 9 ; 


CHAP. XXI.—SABBATHS WERE INSTITUTED ON AC- 
COUNT OF THE PEOPLE’S SINS, AND NOT FOR A 
WORK OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


“Moreover, that God enjoined you to keep 
the Sabbath, and impose on you other precepts 
for a sign, as I have already said, on account of 
your unrighteousness, and that of your fathers, — 
as He declares that for the sake of the nations, 
lest His name be profaned among them, there- 
fore He permitted some of you to remain alive,— 
these words of His can prove to you: they are 
narrated by Ezekiel thus: Iam the Lord your 
God ; walk in My statutes, and keep My judg- 
ments, and take no part in the customs of Egypt ; 
and hallow My Sabbaths; and they shall be a 
sign between Me and you, that ye may know that 
I am the Lord your God. Notwithstanding ye 
rebelled against Me, and your children walked 
not in My statutes, neither kept My judgments 
to do them: which if a man do, he shall live in 
them. But they polluted My Sabbaths. And I 
said that I would pour out My fury upon them 
in the wilderness, to accomplish My anger upon 
them ; yet I did it not; that My name might 
not be altogether profaned in the sight of the 
heathen. I led them out before their eyes, and 





7 ddukos Kal mapdvomos. 

-8 “ The reasoning of St. Justin is not quite clear to interpreters. 
As we abstain from some herbs, not because they are forbidden by law, 
but because they are deadly; so the law of abstinence from improper 
and violent animals was imposed not on Noah, but on you as a yoke 
on account'of your sins.” — MARANUS. ; 

9 Deut, xxxii, 6, 20, 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





205 





I lifted up Mine hand unto them in the wilder- 
ness, that I would scatter them among the 
heathen, and disperse them through the coun- 
tries ; because they had not executed My judg- 
ments, but had despised My statutes, and polluted 
My Sabbaths, and their eyes were after the devices 
of their fathers. Wherefore I gave them also 
statutes which were not good, and judgments 
whereby they shall not live. And I shall pollute 
them in their own gifts, that I may destroy all 
me openeth the womb, when I pass through 
them.’ ' 


CHAP, XXII.— SO ALSO WERE SACRIFICES AND 
; OBLATIONS, 


“ And that you may learn that it was for the 
sins of your own nation, and for their idolatries, 
and not because there was any necessity for such 
sacrifices, that they were likewise enjoined, listen 
to the manner in which He speaks of these by 
Amos, one of the twelve, saying : ‘Woe unto you 
that desire the day of the Lord! to what end 
is this day of the Lord for you? It is dark- 
ness and not light, as when a man flees from the 
face of a lion, and a bear meets him; and he 
goes into his house, and leans his hands against 
the wall, and the serpent bites him. Shall not 
the day of the Lord be darkness and not light, 
even very dark, and no brightness in it? I have 
hated, I have despised your feast-days, and I 
will not smell in your solemn assemblies : where- 
fore, though ye offer Me your burnt-offerings 
and sacrifices, I will not accept them ; neither will 
I regard the peace-offerings of your presence. 
Take thou away from Me the multitude of thy 
songs and psalms ; I will not hear thine instru- 
ments. But let judgment be rolled down as 
water, and righteousness as an impassable torrent. 
Have ye offered unto Me victims and sacrifices 
in the wilderness, O house of Israel? saith the 
Lord. And have ye taken up the tabernacle of 
Moloch, and the star of your god Raphan, the 
figures which ye made for yourselves? And I will 
carry you away beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, 
whose name is the Almighty God. Woe to them 
that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the moun- 
tain of Samaria: those who. are named among 
the chiefs have plucked away the first-fruits of 
the nations: the house of Israel have entered for 
themselves. Pass all of you unto Calneh, and see ; 
and from thence go ye unto Hamath the great, and 
go down thence to Gath of the strangers, the 
noblest of all these kingdoms, if their boundaries 
are greater than your boundaries. Ye who come 
to the evil day, who are approaching, and who hold 
to false Sabbaths ; who lie on beds of ivory, and 
are at ease upon their couches ; who eat the 

lambs out of the flock, and the sucking calves out 
ee eS 

1 Ezek. xx. 19-26. 


‘thyself in wickedness. 








of the midst of the herd; who applaud at the 
sound of the musical instruments; they reckon 
them as stable, and not as fleeting, who drink 
wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the 
chief ointments, but they are not grieved for the 
affliction of Joseph. Wherefore now they shall 
be captives, among the first of the nobles who are 
carried away; and the house of evil-doers shall 
be removed, and the neighing of horses shall be 
taken away from Ephraim.? And again by Jere- 
miah; ‘Collect your flesh, and sacrifices, and 
eat: for concerning neither sacrifices nor liba- 
tions did I command your fathers in the day in 
which I took them by the hand to lead them out 
of Egypt.3 And again by David, in the forty-ninth 
Psalm, He thus said: ‘The God of gods, the 
Lord hath spoken, and called the earth, from the 
rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. 
Out of Zion is the perfection of His beauty. God, 
even our God, shall come openly, and shall not 
keep silence. Fire shall burn before Him, and it 
shall be very temptestuous round about Him. He 
shall call to the heavens above, and to the earth, 
that He may judge His people. Assemble to 
Him His saints; those that have made a cove- 
nant with Him by sacrifices. And the heavens 
shall declare His righteousness, for God is judge. 
Hear, O My people, and I will speak to thee ; 
O Israel, and I will testify to thee, I am God, 
even thy God. I will not reprove thee for thy 
sacrifices; thy burnt-offerings are continually 
before me. I will take no bullocks out of thy 
house, nor he-goats out of thy folds: for all 
the beasts of the field are Mine, the herds and 
the oxen on the mountains. I know all the 
fowls of the heavens, and the beauty of the field 
is Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee ; 
for the world is Mine, and the fulness thereof. 
Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of 
goats? Offer unto God the sacrifice of praise, 
and pay thy vows unto the Most High, and call 
upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver 
thee, and thou shalt glorify Me. But unto the 
wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to de- 
clare My statutes, and to take My covenant into 
thy mouth? But thou hast hated instruction, 
and cast My words behind thee. When thou 
sawest a thief, thou consentedst with him ; and 
hast been partaker with the adulterer. Thy mouth 
has framed evil, and thy tongue has enfolded 
deceit. Thou sittest and speakest against thy 
brother; thou slanderest thine own mother’s 
son. These things hast thou done, and I kept 
silence ; thou thoughtest that I would be like 
I will reprove thee, and 
set thy sins in order before thine eyes. Now con- 
sider this, ye that forget God, lest He tear you 
in pieces, and there be none to deliver. The 


— 





2 Amos y. 18 to end, vi, 1-7. 
3 Jer, vii. 21 f. 


206 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


en a Ee ee Eee 


sacrifice of praise shall glorify Me; and there is 
the way in which I shall show him My salvation. 
Accordingly He neither takes sacrifices from 
you nor commanded them at first to be offered 
because they are needful to Him, but because 
of your sins. For indeed the temple, which is 
called the temple in Jerusalem, He admitted to 
be His house or court, not as though He needed 
it, but in order that you, in this view of it, giving 
yourselves to Him, might not worship idols. 
And that this is so, Isaiah says: ‘What house 
have ye built Me? saith the Lord. Heaven is 
My throne, and earth is My footstool.’ ? 


CHAP. (XXXII — THE OPINION OF THE JEWS RE- 
GARDING THE LAW DOES AN INJURY TO GOD. 


“But if we do not admit this, we shall be lia- 
ble to fall into foolish opinions, as if it were not 
the same God who existed in the times of Enoch 
and all the rest, who neither were circumcised 
after the flesh, nor observed Sabbaths, nor any 
other rites, seeing that Moses enjoined such ob- 
servances ; or that God has not wished each 
race of mankind continually to perform the 
same righteous actions: to admit which, seems 
to be ridiculous and absurd. Therefore we 
must confess that He, who is ever the same, has 
commanded these and such like institutions on 
account of sinful men, and we must declare Him 
to be benevolent, foreknowing, needing nothing, 
righteous and good. But if this be not so, tell 
me, sir, what you think of those matters which 
we are investigating.” And when no one re- 
sponded ; “ Wherefore, Trypho, I will proclaim 
to you, and to those who wish to become prose- 
lytes, the divine message which I heard from 
that man.3 Do you see that the elements are 
not idle, and keep no Sabbaths? Remain as 
you were born. For if there was no need of 
circumcision before Abraham, or of the observ- 
ance of Sabbaths, of feasts and sacrifices, before 
Moses; no more need is there of them now, 
after that, according to the will of God, Jesus 
Christ the Son of God has been born without 
sin, of a virgin sprung from the stock of Abra- 
ham. For when Abraham himself was in un- 
circumcision, he was justified and blessed by 
reason of the faith which he reposed in God, 
_ as the Scripture tells. Moreover, the Scriptures 
and the facts themselves compel us to admit 
that He received circumcision for a sign,, and 
not for righteousness. _ that it was justly re- 
corded concerning thepeople, that the soul 
which shall not be circumcised on the eighth 
day shall be cut off from his family. And, fur- 
thermore, the inability of the female sex to 
receive fleshly circumcision, proves that this 





1 Ps, i. (in E. V.). 
2 Isa. Ixvi. x. 
3 The man he met by the sea-shore, 








circumcision has been given for a sign, and 
not for a work of righteousness. For God has 
given likewise to women the ability to observe 
all things which are righteous and virtuous ; but 
we see that the bodily form of the male has 
been made different from the bodily form of the 
female ; yet we know that neither of them is 
righteous or unrighteous merely for this cause, 
but [is considered righteous] by reason of piety 
and righteousness) 


CHAP. KxIV. — THE CHRISTIANS’ CIRCUMCISION FAR 
MORE EXCELLENT. 


“ Now, sirs,’”’ I said, “it is possible for us to 
show how the eighth day possessed a certain 
mysterious import, which the seventh day .did 
not possess, and which was promulgated by God 
through these rites. But lest I appear now to 
diverge to other subjects, understand what I 
say: the blood of that circumcision is obsolete, 
and we trust in the blood of salvation; there 
is now another covenant, and another law has ' 
gone forth from Zion. Jesus Christ circumcises 
all who will—as was declared above — with 
knives of stone ;+ that they may be a righteous 
nation, a people keeping faith, holding to the 
truth, and maintaining peace. Come then with 


‘me, all who fear God, who wish to see the good 


of Jerusalem. Come, let us go to the light of 
the Lord; for He has liberated His people, 
the house of Jacob. Come, all nations; let. 
us gather ourselves together at Jerusalem, no 
longer plagued by war for the sins of her peo- 
ple. ‘For I was manifest to them that sought 
Me not; I was found of them that asked not 
for Me;’5 He exclaims by Isaiah: ‘I said, 
Behold Me, unto nations which were not called 
by My name. I have spread out My hands all 
the day unto a disobedient and gainsaying peo- 
ple, which walked in a way that was not good, 
but after their own sins. It is a people that 
provoketh Me to my face,’ 5 


CHAP. XXV.— THE JEWS BOAST IN VAIN THAT 
THEY ARE SONS OF ABRAHAM. 


“Those who justify themselves, and say they 
are sons of Abraham, shall be desirous even in 
a small degree to receive the inheritance along 
with you ;° as the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of 
Isaiah, cries, speaking thus while he personates 
them: ‘Return from heaven, and behold from 
the habitation of Thy holiness and glory. Where 
is Thy zeal and strength? Where is the multi- 
tude of Thy mercy? for Thou hast sustained us, 
O Lord. For Thou art our Father, because 
Abraham is ignorant of us, and Israel has not 


recognised us. But Thou, O Lord, our Father, 


Ss eee 


4 (om v. 2; Isa, xxvi. 2, 3. 
5 Isa, Ixv. 1-3. 
© Other edd. have, “‘ with us.” 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


204 





deliver us: from the beginning Thy name is up- 
onus. O Lord, why hast Thou made us to err 
from Thy way? and hardened our hearts, so 
that we do not fear Thee? Return for Thy ser- 
vants’ sake, the tribes of Thine inheritance, that 
we may inherit for a little Thy holy mountain. 
We were as from the beginning, when Thou 
didst not bear rule over us, and when Thy name 
was not called upon us. If Thou wilt open the 
heavens, trembling shall seize the mountains 
before Thee and they-shall be melted, as wax 
melts before the fire; and fire shall consume 
the adversaries, and Thy name shall be manifest 
among the adversaries ; the nations shall be put 
~ into disorder before Thy face. When Thou 
shalt do glorious things, trembling shall seize 
' the mountains before Thee. From the begin- 
ning we have not heard, nor have our eyes seen 
a God besides Thee : and Thy works,’ the mercy 
which Thou shalt show to those who repent. 
He shall meet those who do righteousness, and 
they shall remember Thy ways. Behold, Thou 
art wroth, and we were sinning. Therefore we 
‘have erred and become all unclean, and all our 
righteousness is as the rags of.a woman set 
apart: and we have faded away like leaves by 
reason of our iniquities ; thus the wind will take 
us away. And there is none that calleth upon 
Thy name, or remembers to take hold of Thee ; 
for Thou hast turned away Thy face from us, 
and hast given us up on account of our sins. 
And now return, O Lord, for we are all Thy 
people. The city of Thy holiness has become 
desolate. Zion has become as a wilderness, 
‘Jerusalem a curse ; the house, our holiness, and 
the glory which our fathers blessed, has been 
burned with fire ; and all the glorious nations? 
have fallen along with it. And in addition to 
these [misfortunes], O Lord, Thou hast refrained 
Thyself, and art silent, and hast humbled us 
very much.’ ”’3 ‘ 
And Trypho remarked, “What is this you 
say? that none of us shall inherit anything on 
the holy mountain of God?” 


CHAP, XXVI.—NO SALVATION TO THE JEWS EX- 
CEPT THROUGH CHRIST. 


And I replied, “I do not say so; but those 
who have persecuted and do persecute Christ, 
if they do not repent, shall not inherit any- 
thing on the holy mountain. But the Gen- 
tiles, who have believed on Him, and have 
repented of the sins which they have committed, 
they shall receive the inheritance along with the 
patriarchs and the prophets, and the just men 
who are descended from Jacob,-even although 





they neither keep the Sabbath, nor are circum- 
cised, nor observe the feasts. Assuredly they 
shall receive the holy inheritance of God. For 
God speaks by Isaiah thus: ‘I, the Lord God, 
have called Thee in righteousness, and will hold 
Thine hand, and will strengthen Thee; and I 
have given Thee for a covenant of the people, 
for a light of the Gentiles, to open the eyes of 
the blind, to bring out them that are bound 
from the chains, and those who sit in darkness 
from the prison-house.’* And again: ‘ Lift upa 
standard 5 for the people ; for, lo, the Lord has 
made it heard unto the end of the earth. Say 
ye to the daughters of Zion, Behold, thy Saviour 
has come; having His reward, and His work 
before His face: and He shall call it a holy na- 
tion, redeemed by the Lord. And thou shalt 
be called a city sought out, and not forsaken. 
Who is this that cometh from Edom? in red gar- 
ments from Bosor? This that is beautiful in ap- 
parel, going up with great strength? I speak 
righteousness, and the judgment of salvation. 
Why are Thy garments red, and Thine apparel 
as from the trodden wine-press? ‘Thou art full 
of the trodden grape. I have trodden the wine- 
press all alone, and of the people there is no 
man with Me; and I have trampled them in 
fury, and crushed them to the ground, and 
spilled their blood on the earth. For the day 
of retribution has come upon them, and the year 
of redemption is present. And I looked, and 
there was none to help; and I considered, 
and none assisted: and My arm delivered ; and 
My fury came on them, and I trampled them 
in My fury, and spilled their blood on the 
earth.2”"° 


CHAPY XXVII. —- WHY GOD TAUGHT THE SAME 
__THINGS BY THE PROPHETS AS BY MOSES. 


\ And Trypho said, “Why do you select and 
quote whatever you wish from the prophetic writ- 
ings, but do not refer to those which expressly 
command the Sabbath to be observed? For 
Isaiah thus speaks: ‘If thou shalt turn away thy 
foot from the Sabbaths, so as not to do thy pleas- 
ure on the holy day, and shalt call the Sabbaths 
the holy delights of thy God ; if thou shalt not 
lift thy foot to work, and shalt not speak a word 
from thine own mouth; then thou shalt trust in 
the Lord, and He shall cause thee to go up to 
the good things of the land; and He shall feed 
thee with the inheritance of Jacob thy father: 
for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.’”7 

And I replied, “I have passed them by, my 
friends, not because such prophecies were con- 
trary to me, but because you have understood, and 





Otto reads: “ Thy works which Thou shalt do to those who 
wait for mercy.” f Ae. 

2 Some suppose the correct reading to be, ‘‘our glorious rastztu- 
tions ae customs, or ordinances] have,” etc., €y for €0v7. 

3 Isa. lxiii. r5 to end, and Ixiv. 





4 Isa. xlii. 6, 7. 

5 ovacecuor, “a shaking,” is the original reading; but LXX 
has avconpov, a standard or signal, and this most edd, adopt. 

6 Isa, Ixii. 10 to end, Ixili, 1-6. 

7 Isa, lviii, 13, 14. 


208 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


et er eee 


do understand, that although God commands you 
by all the prophets to do the same things which 
He also commanded by Moses, it was on account 
of the hardness of your hearts, and your ingrati- 
tude towards Him; that He continually proclaims 
them, in orderthat, even in this way, if you re- 
pented, you might please Him, and neither sac- 
‘rifice your children to demons, nor be partakers 
with thieves, nor lovers of gifts, nor hunters after 
revenge, nor fail in doing judgment for orphans, 
nor be inattentive to the justice due to the widow, 
nor have your hands full of blood. ‘For the 
daughters of Zion have walked with a high neck, 
both sporting by winking with their eyes, and 
sweeping along their dresses.* For they are all 
gone aside,’ He exclaims, ‘they are all become 
useless. There is none that understands, there 
is not so much as one. With their tongues they 
~ have practised deceit, their throat is an open 
sepulchre, the poison of asps is under their lips, 
destruction and misery are in their paths, and 
the way of peace they have not known.’? So 
that, as in the beginning, these things were en- 
joined you because of your wickedness, in like 
manner because of your stedfastness in it, or 
rather your increased proneness to it, by means 
of the same precepts He calls you to a remem- 
brance or knowledge of it. But you are a peo- 
ple hard-hearted and without understanding, 
both blind and lame, children in whom is no 
faith, as He Himself says, honouring Him only 
with your lips, far from *Him in your hearts, 
teaching doctrines that are your own and not 
His. For, tell me, did God wish the priests to 
sin when they offer the sacrifices on the Sabbaths ? 
or those to sin, who are circumcised and do cir- 
cumcise on the Sabbaths; since He commands 
that on the eighth day — even though it happen 
to be a Sabbath — those who are born shall be 
always circumcised? or could not the infants be 
operated upon one day previous or one day sub- 
sequent to the Sabbath, if He knew that it is a 
sinful act upon the Sabbaths? Or why did He 
not teach those — who are called righteous and 
pleasing to Him, who lived before Moses and 
Abraham, who were not circumcised in their 
foreskin, and observed no Sabbaths — to keep 
these institutions ? ” 


CHAP. XXVIII.— TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS IS OB- 
TAINED BY CHRIST. 


And Trypho replied, “We heard you adducing 
this consideration a little ago, and we have given 
it attention : for, to tell the truth, it is worthy of 
attention ; and that answer which pleases most — 
namely, that so it seemed good to Him — does 
not satisfy me. For this is ever the shift to which 





1 Isa. iii, 16, 


? Various passages strung together; comp. Rom, iii. 10, and foll. 
verses, 








those have recourse who are unable to answe: 
the question.” 

Then I said, “Since I bring from the Scriptures 
and the facts themselves both the proofs and the 
inculcation of them, do not delay or hesitate to 
put faith in me, although I am an uncircumcised 
man ; so short a time is left you in which to be- 
come proselytes. If Christ’s coming shall have 
anticipated you, in vain you will repent, in vain 
you will weep ; for He will not hear you. ‘ Break 
up your fallow ground,’ Jeremiah has cried to the 
people, ‘and sow not among thorns. Circumcise 
yourselves to the Lord, and circumcise the fore- 
skin of your heart.’3 Do not sow, therefore, 
among thorns, and in untilled ground, whence 
you can have no fruit. Know Christ ; and be- 
hold the fallow ground, good, good and fat, is in 
your hearts. ‘For, behold, the days come, saith 
the Lord, that I will visit all them that are cir- 
cumcised in their foreskins ; Egypt, and Judah,‘ 
and Edom, and the sons of Moab. For all the 
nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of 
Israel are uncircumcised in their hearts.’5 Do 
you see how that God does not mean this cir- 
cumcision which is given for a sign? For it is 
of no use to the Egyptians, or the sons of Moab,. 
or the sons of Edom. But though a man be a 
Scythian or a Persian, if he has the knowledge 
of God and of His Christ, and keeps the ever- 
lasting righteous decrees, he is circumcised with 
the good and useful circumcision, and is a friend 
of God, and God rejoices in his gifts and offer- 
ings. But I will lay before you, my friends, the 
very words of God, when He said to the people by 
Malachi, one of the twelve prophets, ‘I have no 
pleasure in you, saith the Lord; and I shall not 
accept your sacrifices at your hands: for from 
the rising of the sun unto its setting My name 
shall be glorified among the Gentiles; and in 
every place a sacrifice is offered unto My name, 
even a pure sacrifice : for My name is honoured 
among the Gentiles, saith the Lord ; but ye pro- 
fane it.’° And by David He said, ‘A people 
whom I have not known, served Me; at the 
hearing of the ear they obeyed Me.’ 7 


CHAP. XXIX.— CHRIST IS USELESS TO THOSE WHO 
OBSERVE THE LAW, 


“Let us glorify God, all nations gathered to- 
gether ; for He has also visited us. Let us glorify 
Him by the King of glory, by the Lord of hosts. 
For He has been gracious towards the Gentiles 
also ; and our sacrifices He esteems more grate- 
ful than yours. What need, then, have I of cir- 
cumcision, who have been witnessed to by God? 
What need have I of that other baptism, who 





3 Jer. iv. 3. 
4 Soin A. V. 
5 Jer. ix. 25 £ 
6 Mal.i. ro, etc. 
7 Ps, xviii. 43. 


but supposed to be Idumza, 


DIALOGUE WITH 


TRYPHO. 209 


h 


ave been baptized with the Holy Ghost? I 
think that while I mention this, I would persuade 
even those who are possessed of scanty intelli- 
gence. For these words have neither been pre- 
pared by me, nor embellished by the art of man ; 
but David sung them, Isaiah preached them, 
Zechariah proclaimed them, and Moses wrote 
them. Are you acquainted with them, Trypho? 
They are contained in your Scriptures, or rather 
not yours, but ours.' For we believe them ; but 


you, though you read them, do not catch the |- 


spirit that is in them. Be not offended at, or 
reproach us with, the bodily uncircumcision with 
which God has created us; and think it not 
strange that we drink hot water on the Sabbaths, 
since God directs the government of the universe 
on this day equally as on all others; and the 
priests, as on other days, so on this, are ordered 
to offer sacrifices ; and there are so many right- 
eous men who have performed none of these 
legal ceremonies, and yet are witnessed to by 
God Himself. 


CHAP. XX. — CHRISTIANS POSSESS THE TRUE 
RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


“But impute it to your own wickedness, that 
God even can be accused by those who have no 
understanding, of not having always instructed 
all in the same righteous statutes. For such 
institutions seemed to be unreasonable and un- 
worthy of God to many men, who had not re- 
ceived grace to know that your nation were called 
to conversion and repentance of spirit,? while 
they were in a sinful condition and labouring 
under spiritual disease ; and that the prophecy 
which was announced subsequent to the death 
of Moses is everlasting. And this is mentioned 
in the Psalm, my friends.3 And that we, who 
have been made wise by them, confess that the 
statutes of the Lord are sweeter than honey and 
the honey-comb, is manifest from the fact that, 
though threatened with death, we do not deny 
His rame. Moreover, it is also manifest to all, 
that we who believe in Him pray to be kept by 
Him from strange, i.e., from wicked and deceit- 
ful, spirits ; as the word of prophecy, personat- 
ing one of those who believe in Him, figuratively 
declares. For we do continually beseech God 
by Jesus Christ to preserve us from the demons 
whi@frareé“hestile to the worship of God, and 
whom we of old time served, in order that, after 
our conversion by Him to God, we may be blame- 
less. For we call Him Helper and Redeemer, 
the power of whose name even the demons do 
fear; and at this day, when they are exorcised 





J . 

i [This striking claim of the Old Testament Scriptures is note- 
worthy. 

2 Or, “ repentance of the Father; ” matpos for mvevuatos. Mara- 
nus explains the confusion on the ground of the similarity between 
the contractions for the words, mps and mvs. 

"3 Ps. xix. 








in the name of Jesus Christ, crucified under 
Pontius Pilate, governor of Judzea, they are 
overcome. And thus it is manifest to all, that 
His Father has given Him so great power, by 
virtue of which demons are subdued to His 
name, and to the dispensation of His suffer- 
ing. 


CHAP. XXXI.— IF CHRIST’S POWER BE NOW SO 
GREAT, HOW MUCH GREATER AT THE SECOND 
ADVENT ! 


“But if so great a power is shown to have fol- 
lowed and to be still following the dispensation 
of His suffering, how great shall that be which 
shall follow His glorious advent ! 


foretold, and His angels shall come with Him. 
These are the words: ‘I beheld till the thrones 
were set ; and the Ancient of days did sit, whose 
garment was white as snow, and the hair of His 
head like the pure wool. His throne was like 
a fiery flame, His wheels as burning fire. A 
fiery stream issued and came forth from before 
Him. Thousand thousands ministered unto 
Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood 
before Him. ‘The books were opened, and the 
judgment was set. I beheld then the voice of 
the great words which the horn speaks: and the 
beast was beat down, and his body destroyed, 
and given to the burning flame. And the rest 
of the beasts were taken away from their do- 
minion, and a period of life was given to the 
beasts until a season and time. I saw in the vis- 
ion of the night, and, behold, one like the Son 
of man coming with the clouds of heaven; and 
He came to the Ancient of days, and stood 
before Him. And they who stood by brought 
Him near; and there were given Him power 
and kingly honour, and all nations of the earth 
by their families, and all glory, serve Him. And 
His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which 
shall not be taken away ; and His kingdom shall 
not be destroyed. And my spirit was chilled 
within my frame, and the visions of my head 
troubled me. I came near unto one of them 
that stood by, and inquired the precise meaning 
of all these things. In answer he speaks to me, 
and showed me the judgment of the matters: 
These great beasts are four kingdoms, which 
shall perish from the earth, and shall not receive 
dominion for ever, even for ever and ever. Then 
I wished to know exactly about the fourth beast, 
which destroyed all [the others] and was very 
terrible, its teeth of iron, and its nails of brass ; 
which devoured, made waste, and stamped the 
residue with its feet: also about the ten horns 
upon its head, and of the one which came up, 
by means of which three of the former fell. 
And that horn had eyes, and a mouth speaking 
great things ; and its countenance excelled the 


For He shall to/ 


come on the clouds as the Son of man, so Daniel-—“““ 


\ 


210 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





rest. And I beheld that horn waging war against 
the saints, and prevailing against them, until the 
Ancient of days came ; and He gave judgment 
for the saints of the Most High. And the time 
came, and the saints of the Most High possessed 
the kingdom. And it was told me concerning 
the fourth beast: There shall be a fourth king- 
dom upon earth, which shall prevail over all 
these kingdoms, and shall devour the whole 
earth, and shall destroy and make it thoroughly 
waste. And the ten horns are ten kings that 
shall arise ; and one shall arise after them ;' and 
he shall surpass the first in evil deeds, and he 
shall subdue three kings, and he shall speak 
words against the Most High, and shall over- 
throw the rest of the saints of the Most High, 
and shall expect to change the seasons and the 
times. And it shall be delivered into his hands 
for a time, and times, and half a time. And the 
judgment sat, and they shall take away his 
dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the 
end. And the kingdom, and the power, and the 
great places of the kingdoms under the heavens, 
were given to the holy people of the Most High, 
to reign in an everlasting kingdom: and all 
powers shall be subject to Him, and shall obey 
Him. Hitherto is the end of the matter. I, 
Daniel, was possessed with a very great astonish- 
ment, and my speech was changed in me; yet I 
kept the matter in my heart.’ ”’? 


CHAP. XXXII.— TRYPHO OBJECTING THAT CHRIST 
IS DESCRIBED AS GLORIOUS BY DANIEL, JUSTIN 
DISTINGUISHES TWO ADVENTS. 


And when I had ceased, Trypho said, “These 
and such like Scriptures, sir, compel us to wait 
for Him who, as Son of man, receives from the 
Ancient of days the everlasting kingdom. But 
this so-called Christ of yours was dishonourable 
and inglorious, so much so that the last curse 
contained in the law of God fell on him, for he 
was crucified.” 

Then I replied to him, “If, sirs, it were not 
said by the Scriptures which I have already 
quoted, that His form was inglorious, and His 
generation not declared, and that for His death 
the rich would suffer death, and with His stripes 
we should be healed, and that He would be led 
away like a sheep ; and if I had not explained 
that there would be two advents of His, — one 
in which He was pierced by you; a second, 
when you shall know Him whom you have 
pierced, and your tribes shall mourn, each tribe 
by itself, the women apart, and the men apart, 
— then I must have been speaking dubious and 
obscure things. But now, by means of the con- 
tents of those Scriptures esteemed holy and pro- 
Se es eg 


} Literally, ‘‘ And the ten horns, ten kings shall arise after them.” 
an. Vil. 9-28. 


phetic amongst you, I attempt to prove all [that I 
have adduced], in the hope that some one of you 
may be found to be of that remnant which has 
been left by the grace of the Lord. of Sabaoth 


for the eternal salvation. In order, therefore, 
that the matter inquired into may be plainer to 
you, I will mention to you other words also 
spoken by the blessed David, from which you 
will perceive that the Lord is called _t i 

by the Holy Spirit oterSEES and eee 
Lord, the Father of all, has brought Him again 
from the earth, setting Him at His own right 


hand, until He makes His enemies His footstool ; 
which indeed happens from the time that our 





Lord Jesus Chri ndgd to heaven, after He 
rose again , the times now running 
‘on to their consummation ; and he whom Daniel 
foretells would have dominion for a time, and 
times, and an half, is even already at the door, 
about to speak blasphemous and daring things 
against the Most High. But you, being ignorant 
of how long he will have dominion, hold another 
opinion. For you interpret the ‘time’ as being 
a hundred years. But if this is so, the man of 
sin must, at the shortest, reign three hundred 
and fifty years, in order that we may compute 
that which is said by the holy Daniel —‘and 
‘times’ — to be ¢wo times only. All this I have 
said to you in digression, in order that you at 
length may be persuaded of what has been de- 
clared against you by God, that you are foolish 
sons; and of this, ‘Therefore, behold, I will 
proceed to take away this people, and shall take 
them away; and I will strip the wise of their 
wisdom, and will hide the understanding of their 
prudent men;’3 and may cease to deceive 
yourselves and those who hear you, and may 
learn of us, who have been taught wisdom by 
the grace of Christ. The words, then, which 
were spoken by David, are these:4+ ‘The Lord 
said unto My Lord, Sit Thou at My right hand, 
until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool. The 
Lord shall send the rod of Thy strength out of 
Sion: rule Thou also in the midst of Thine ene- 
mies. With Thee shall be, in the day, the chief 
of Thy power, in the beauties of Thy saints. 
From the womb, before the morning star, have 
I begotten Thee. The Lord hath sworn, and 
will not repent: Thou art a priest for ever after 
the order of Melchizedek. ‘The Lord is at Thy 
right hand: He has crushed kings in the day of 
His wrath: He shall judge among the heathen, 
He shall fill [with] the dead bodies.’ He shall 
drink of the brook in the way; therefore shall 
He lift up the head.’ 


eee 





3 Isa. xxix. 14. 

S. CX. 
S mAnpwcer mre@pata; Lat. version, rmpledit rusnas. Thirlby 
sterested that an omission has -aken place in the Mss. by the tran- 
+ Scriber’s fault. 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


2ht 





CHAP. XXXIII.— PS, CX. IS NOT SPOKEN OF HEZE- 
KIAH. HE PROVES THAT CHRIST WAS FIRST HUM- 
BLE, THEN SHALL BE GLORIOUS. 


“ And,” I continued, “I am not ignorant that 
you venture to expound this psalm as if it re- 
ferred to king Hezekiah ; but that you are mis- 
taken, I shall prove to you from these very words 
forthwith. ‘The Lord hath sworn, and will not 
repent,’ it is said; and, ‘Thou art a priest for 
ever, after the order of Melchizedek,’ with what 
follows and precedes. Not even you will ven- 
ture to object that Hezekiah was either a priest, 
or is the everlasting priest of God ; but that this 
is spoken of our Jesus, these expressions show. 
But your ears are shut up, and your hearts are 
made dull.t For by this statement, ‘The Lord 
hath sworn, and will not repent: Thou art a 
priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek,’ 
with an oath God has shown Him (on account 
of your unbelief) to be the High Priest after 
the order of Melchizedek ; i.e., as Melchizedek 
was described by Moses as the priest of the 
Most High, and he was a priest of those who 
were in uncircumcision, and blessed the circum- 
cised Abraham who brought him tithes, so God 
has shown that His everlasting Priest, called also 


by the Holy Spirit Lord, would be Priest of 


those in uncircumcision. ‘Those too in circum- 
cision who approach Him, that is, believing 
Him and seeking blessings from Him, He will 
both receive and bless. And that He shall be 
first humble as a man, and then exalted, these 
words at the end of the Psalm show: ‘ He shall 
drink of the brook in the way,’ and then, ‘There- 
fore shall He lift up the head.’ 


CHAP. XXXIV.—NOR DOES PS. LXXII. APPLY TO SOLO- 
MON, WHOSE FAULTS CHRISTIANS SHUDDER AT. 


“Further, to persuade you that you have not 
understood anything of the Scriptures, I will re- 
mind you of another psalm, dictated to David 
by the Holy Spirit, which you say refers to Solo- 
mon, who was also your king. But it refers also 
to our Christ. But you deceive yourselves by 
the ambiguous forms of speech. For where it 
is said, ‘The law of the Lord is perfect,’ you 
do not understand it of the law which was to be 
after Moses, but of the law which was giyen by 
Moses, although God declared that Hg’ would 
establish a new law and a new covenant. And 
where it has been said, ‘O God, give Thy judg- 
ment to the king,’ since Solomon was king, you 
say that the Psalm refers to him, although the 
words of the Psalm expressly proclaim that ref- 
erence is made to the everlasting King, i.e., to 
Christ. For Christ is King, and Ea n 
and Lord; and angel, and man, and in_and 
storie, and a son born, and first made subject to 


I wemjpwrra. Maranus thinks mendpwyrat more probable, 


* hardened.” 


suffering, then returning to heaven, and again 
coming with glory, and Hé is preached “a8_hav- 
Jing the everlasting kingdom: so I prove from all 
7 the Scriptures. But that you may perceive what I 
have said, I quote the words of the Psalm ; they 
are these: ‘O God, give Thy judgment to the 
king, and Thy righteousness unto the king’s son, 
to judge Thy people with righteousness, and Thy 
poor with judgment. The mountains shall take 
up peace to the people, and the little hills right- 
eousness. He shall judge the poor of the peo- 
ple, and shall save the children of the needy, 
and shall abase the slanderer. He shall co- 
endure with the sun, and before the moon unto 
all generations. He shall come down like rain 
upon the fleece, as drops falling on the earth. 
In His days shall righteousness flourish, and 
abundance of peace until the moon be taken 
away. And He shall have dominion from sea 
to sea, and from the rivers unto the ends of the 
earth. Ethiopians shall fall down before Him, 
and His enemies shall lick the dust. The kings 
of Tarshish and the isles shall offer gifts; the 
kings of Arabia and Seba shall offer gifts; and 
all the kings of the earth shall worship Him, and 
all the nations shall serve Him: for He has de- 
livered the poor from the man of power, and the 
needy that hath no helper. He shall spare the 
poor and needy, and shall save the souls of 
the needy: He shall redeem their souls from 
usury and injustice, and His name shall be hon- 
ourable before them. And He shall live, and to 
Him shall be given of the gold of Arabia, and 
they shall pray continually for Him: they shall 
bless Him all the day. And there shall be a 
foundation on the earth, it shall be exalted on 
the tops of the mountains: His fruit shall be on 
Lebanon, and they of the city shall flourish like 
grass of the earth. His name shall be blessed 
forever. His name shall endure before the sun ; 
and all tribes of the earth shall be blessed in 
Him, all nations shall call Him blessed. Blessed 
be the Lord, the God of Israel, who only doeth 
wondrous things; and blessed be His glorious 
name for ever, and for ever and ever ;-and the 
whole earth shall be filled with His glory. 
Amen, amen.’? And at the close of this Psalm 
which I have quoted, it is written, ‘The hymns 
of David the son of Jesse are ended.’3 More- 
over, that Solomon was a renowned and great 
king, by whom the temple called that at Jerusa- 
lem was built, 1 know; but that none of those 
things mentioned in the Psalm happened to him, 
is evident. For neither did all kings worship 
him ; nor did he reign to the ends of the earth ; 
nor did his enemies, falling before him, lick the 
dust. Nay, also, I venture to repeat what is 











2 Ps, Ixxii. : } : , 
3 [A striking passage in De Maistre (Guvres, vol. vi. p- 275) is 
worthy of a acaruoa | 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





written in the book of Kings as committed by 
him, how through a woman’s influence he wor- 
shipped the idols of Sidon, which those of the 
Gentiles who know God, the Maker of all things 
through Jesus the crucified, do not venture to 
do, but abide every torture and vengeance even 
to the extremity of death, rather than worship 
idols, or eat meat offered to idols.” 


CHAP, XXXV.— HERETICS CONFIRM THE CATHO- 
LICS IN THE FAITH. 


And Trypho said, “I believe, however, that 
many of those who say that they confess Jesus, 
and are called Christians, eat meats offered to 
idols, and declare that they are by no means 
injured in consequence.” And I replied, “The 
fact that there are such men confessing them- 
selves to be Christians, and admitting the cruci- 
fied Jesus to be both Lord and Christ, yet not 
teaching His doctrines, but those of the spirits 
of error, causes us who are disciples of the true 
and pure doctrine of Jesus Christ, to be more 
faithful and stedfast in the hope announced by 
Him. For what things He predicted would 
take place in His name, these we do see being 
actually accomplished in our sight. For he 
said, ‘ Many shall come in My name, clothed 
outwardly in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they 
are ravening wolves.” * And, ‘There shall be 
schisms and heresies.’ And, ‘ Beware of false 
prophets, who shall come to you clothed out- 
wardly in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they 
are ravening wolves.’: And, ‘ Many false Christs 
and false apostles shall arise, and shall deceive 
many of the faithful.’3 There are, therefore, 
and there were many, my friends, who, coming 
forward in the name of Jesus, taught both to 
speak and act impious and blasphemous things ; 
and these are called by us after the name of the 
men from whom each doctrine and opinion had 
its origin. (For some in one way, others in 
another, teach to blaspheme the Maker of all 
things, and Christ, who was foretold by Him as 
coming, and the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, 
and of Jacob, with whom we have nothing in 
common, since we know them to be atheists, 
impious, unrighteous, and sinful, and confessors 
of Jesus in name only, instead of worshippers of 
Him. Yet they style themselves Christians, just 
as certain among the Gentiles inscribe the name 
of God upon the works of their own hands, and 
partake in nefarious and impious rites.) Some 
are called Marcians, and some Valentinians, and 
some Basilidians, and some Saturnilians, and 
others by other names; each called after the 
originator of the individual opinion, just as each 
one of those who consider themselves philoso- 
eral ec ert I a 


Matt. vii. rg. 
2.1 Cor. xi. 19. 
3 Matt. xxiv. rr. 





phers, as I said before, thinks he must bear: the 
name of the philosophy which he follows, from 
the name of the father of the particular doctrine. 
So. that, in consequence of these events, we 
know that Jesus foreknew what would happen 
after Him, as well as in consequence of many 
other events which He foretold would befall 
those who believed on and confessed Him, the 
Christ. For all that we suffer, even when killed 
by friends, He foretold would take place; so 
that it is manifest no word or act of His can be 
found fault with. Wherefore we pray for you and 
for all other men who hate us ; in order that you, 
having repented along with us, may not blaspheme 
Him who, by His works, by the mighty deeds 
even now wrought through His name, by the 
words He taught, by the prophecies announced 
concerning Him, is the blameless, and in all things 
irreproachable, Christ Jesus; but, believing on 
Him, may be saved in His second glorious ad- 
vent, and may not be condemned to fire by Him,” 


CHAP. XXXVI.— HE PROVES THAT CHRIST IS CALLED 
LORD OF HOSTS. 


Then he replied, “Let these things be so as 
you say —namely, that it was foretold Christ 
would suffer, and be called a stone; and after 
His first appearance, in which it had been an- 
nounced He would suffer, would come in glory, 
and be Judge finally of all, and eternal King 
and Priest. Now show if this man be He of 
whom these prophecies were made.” 

And I said, “As you wish, Trypho, I shall 
come to these proofs which you seek in the fit- 
ting place ; but now you will permit me first to 
recount the prophecies, which I wish to do in 
order to prove that Christ is called both God 
and Lord of hosts, and Jacob, in parable by the 
Holy Spirit ; and your interpreters, as God says, 
are foolish, since they say that reference is made 
to Solomon and not to Christ, when he bere the 
ark of testimony into the temple which he built. 
The Psalm of David is this: ‘The earth is the 
Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and 
all that dwell therein. He hath founded it 
upon the seas, and prepared it upon the floods. 
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or 
who shall stand in His holy place? He that is 
clean of hands and pure of heart: who has not 
received his soul in vain, and has not sworn 
guilefully to his neighbour: he shall receive 
blessing from the Lord, and mercy from God 
his Saviour. This is the generation of them 
that seek the Lord, that seek the face of the 
God of Jacob.4 Lift up your gates, ye rulers; 





“As Justin wrote a little be- 
it seems to convince us that 
Ae meaning in this latter case 

Israel” is equivalent to, and 
an apostrophe to the Church of the 


4 Maranus remarks from Thirlby: 
fore, ‘and is called Jacob in paxalier 
ee wrote, ‘ thy face, O Jacob.’” 

comes plain, if we cbserve that “ 
means, “‘Q house of Jacob: ” 
aucient people, } 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





213 





and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the 
King: of glory shall come in. Who is this King 
of glory? The Lord strong and mighty in 
battle. Lift up your gates, ye rulers; and be 
ye lift up, ye everlasting doors ; and the King of 
giory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? 
The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory.’! 
Accordingly, it is shown that Solomon is not the 
Lord of hosts; but when our Christ rose from 
the dead and ascended to heaven, the rulers in 
heaven, under appointment of God, are com- 
manded to open the gates of heaven, that He 
who is King of glory may enter in, and having 
ascended, may sit on the right hand of the Father 
until He make the enemies His footstool, as has 
been made manifest by another Psalm. For 
when the rulers of heaven saw Him of uncomely 
and dishonoured appearance, and inglorious, not 
recognising Him, they inquired, ‘ Who is this 
King of glory?’ And the Holy Spirit, either 
from the person of His Father, or from His own 
person, answers them, ‘The Lord of hosts, He 
is this King of glory.’ For every one will con- 
fess that not one of those who presided over the 
gates of the temple at Jerusalem would venture 
to say concerning Solomon, though he was so 
glorious a king, or concerning the ark of testi- 
mony, ‘ Who is this King of glory?’ 


CHAP, XXXVII.— THE SAME IS PROVED FROM 
OTHER PSALMS. 


“ Moreover, in the diapsalm of the forty-sixth 
Psalm, reference is thus made to Christ: ‘God 
went up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of 
atrumpet. Sing ye to our God, sing ye: sing to 
our King, sing ye; for God is King of all the 
earth; sing with understanding. God has ruled 
over the nations. God sits upon His holy throne. 
The rulers of the nations were assembled along 
with the God of Abraham, for the strong ones 
of God are greatly exalted on the earth.’ And 
in the ninety-eighth Psalm, the Holy Spirit 
reproaches you, and predicts Him whom you do 
not wish to be king to be King and Lord, both 
of Samuel, and of Aaron, and of Moses, and, 
in short, of all the others. And the words of the 
Psalm are these : ‘The Lord has reigned, let the 
nations be angry: [it is] He who sits upon 
the cherubim, let the earth be shaken. The Lord 
is great in Zion, and He is high above all the 
nations. Let them confess Thy great name, for it 
is fearful and holy, and the honour of the King 
loves judgment. Thou hast prepared equity ; 
judgment and righteousness hast Thou performed 
in Jacob. Exalt the Lord our God, and wor- 
ship the footstool of His feet; for He is holy. 
Moses and Aaron among His priests, and Sam- 





I Ps, xxiv. 
2 Ps. xlvi. 5-9. 


[The dtapsalm is here used for what follows the 
“ Selah.”] 





uel among those who call upon His name. They 
called (says the Scripture) on the Lord, and He 
heard them. In the pillar of the cloud He spake 
to them; for3 they kept His testimonies, and. 
the commandment which he gave them. O 
Lord our God, Thou heardest them: O God, 
Thou wert propitious to them, and [yet] taking 


vengeance on all their inventions. Exalt the 
Lord our God, and worship at His holy hill; for 
the Lord our God is holy.’ ’’4 


CHAP. XXXVIII.—IT IS AN ANNOYANCE TO THE JEW 
THAT CHRIST IS SAID TO BE ADORED. JUSTIN 
CONFIRMS IT, HOWEVER, FROM PS. XLY. 


And Trypho said, “ Sir, it were good for us if 
we obeyed our teachers, who laid down a law 
that we should have no intercourse with any of 
you, and that we should not have even any com- 
munication with you on these questions. For 
you utter many blasphemies, in that you seek to 
persuade us that this crucified man was with 
Moses and Aaron, and spoke to them in the 
pillar of the cloud; then that he became man, 
was crucified, and ascended up to heaven, 
and comes again to earth, and ought to be 
worshipped.” 

Then I answered, “I know that, as the word 
of God says, this great wisdom of God, the 
Maker of all things, and the Almighty, is hid 
from you. Wherefore, in sympathy with you, I 
am striving to the utmost that you may under- 
stand these matters which to you are paradoxi- 
cal; but if not, that I myself may be innocent 
in the day of judgment. For you shall hear other 
words which appear still more paradoxical ; but 
be not confounded, nay, rather remain still more 
zealous hearers and investigators, despising the 
tradition of your teachers, since they are con- 
victed by the Holy Spirit of inability to perceive 
the truths taught by God, and of preferring to 
teach their own doctrines. Accordingly, in the 
forty-fourth [forty-fifth] Psalm, these words are 
in like manner referred to Christ : ‘My heart has 
brought forth a good matter ;5 I tell my works 
to the King. My tongue is the pen of a ready 
writer. Fairer in beauty than the sons of men: 
grace is poured forth into Thy lips: therefore 
hath God blessed Thee for ever. Gird Thy 
sword upon Thy thigh, O mighty One. Press 
on in Thy fairness and in Thy beauty, and pros- 
per and reign, because of truth, and of meek- 
ness, and of righteousness: and Thy right hand 
shall instruct Thee marvellously. Thine arrows 
are sharpened, O mighty One; the people shall 
fall under Thee ; in the heart of the enemies of 
the King [the arrows are fixed]. Thy throne, 
O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of equity 





3 “For” wanting in both Codd. 
4 Ps. xcix. sd 
5 [Hebrew and Greek, “a good word,” i.e. the Logos.] 


214 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


Se eS ee 


is the sceptre of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved 
righteousness, and hast hated iniquity ; therefore 
thy God! hath anointed Thee with the oil of glad- 
ness above Thy fellows. [He hath anointed 
Thee] with myrrh,? and oil, and cassia, from 
Thy garments ; from the ivory palaces, whereby 
they made Thee glad. Kings’ daughters are in 
Thy honour. The queen stood at Thy right 
hand, clad in garments} embroidered with gold. 
Hearken, O daughter, and behold, and incline 
thine ear, and forget thy people and the house 
of thy father: and the King shall desire thy 
beauty; because He is thy Lord, they shall 
worship Him also. And the daughter of Tyre 
[shall be there] with gifts. The rich of the 
people shall entreat Thy face. All the glory of 
the King’s daughter [is] within, clad in embroid- 
ered garments of needlework. The virgins that 
follow her shall be brought to the King; her 
neighbours shall be brought unto Thee: they 
shall be brought with joy and gladness: they 
shall be led into. the King’s shrine. Instead of 
thy fathers, thy sons have been born: Thou 
shalt appoint them rulers over all the earth. I 
shall remember Thy name in every generation : 
therefore the people shall confess Thee for ever, 
and for ever and ever.’ 


CHAP, XXXIX.— THE JEWS HATE THE CHRISTIANS 
WHO BELIEVE THIS. HOW GREAT THE DISTINC- 
TION IS BETWEEN BOTH ! 


“ Now it is not surprising,” I continued, “ that 
you hate us who hold these opinions, and con- 
vict you of a continual hardness of heart. For 
indeed Elijah, conversing with God concerning 
you, speaks thus: ‘Lord, they have slain Thy 
prophets, and digged down Thine altars: and I 
am left alone, and they seek my life.” And He 
answers him: ‘I have still seven thousand men 
who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’5 There- 
fore, just as God did not inflict His anger on ac- 
count of those seven thousand men, even so He 
has now neither yet inflicted judgment, nor does 
inflict it, knowing that daily some [of you] are 
becoming disciples in the name of Christ, and 
quitting the path of error; who are also receiv- 
ing gifts, each as he is worthy, illumined through 
the name of this Christ. For one receives the 
spirit of understanding, another of counsel, an- 
other of strength, another of healing, another of 
foreknowledge, another of teaching, and another 
of the fear of God.” 

To this Trypho said to me, “I wish you knew 
that you are beside yourself, talking these senti- 
ments.” 





1 Or, “‘God, thy God.” 

2 gTakTy. 

3 Literally, ‘‘ garments of gold, variegated.” 
4 Literally, “of a hard-hearted opinion,” 

5 x Kings xix. 14, 18, 





And I said to him, “ Listen, O friend,° for I 
am not mad or beside myself; but it was proph- 
esied that, after the ascent of Christ to heaven, 
He would deliver? us from error and give us 
gifts. The words are these: ‘He ascended up 
on high; He led captivity captive; He gave 
gifts to men.’® Accordingly, we who have re- 
ceived gifts from Christ, who has ascended up on 
high, prove from the words of prophecy that you, 
‘the wise in yourselves, and the men of under- 
standing in your own eyes,’ are foolish, and 
honour God and His Christ by lip only. But 
we, who are instructed in the whole truth,’° hon- 
our Them both in acts, and in knowledge, and 
in heart, even unto death. But you hesitate to 
confess that He is Christ, as the Scriptures and 
the events witnessed and done in His name 
prove, perhaps for this reason, lest you be perse- 
cuted by the rulers, who, under the influence of 
the wicked and deceitful spirit, the serpent, wil) 
not cease putting to death and persecuting those 
who confess the name of Christ until He come 
again, and destroy them all, and render to each 
his deserts.” 

And Trypho replied, “Now, then, render us 
the proof that this man who you say was cru- 
cified and ascended into heaven is the Christ 


‘|of God. For you have sufficiently proved by 


means of the Scriptures previously quoted by 
you, that it is declared in the Scriptures that 
Christ must suffer, and come again with glory, 
and receive the eternal kingdom over all the 
nations, every kingdom being made subject to 
Him: now show us that this man is He.” 

And I replied, “It has been already proved, 
sirs, to those who have ears, even from the facts 
which have been conceded by you ; but that you 
may not think me at a loss, and unable to give 
proof of what you ask, as I promised, I shall do 
so at a fitting place. At present, I resume the 
consideration of the subject which I was dis- 
cussing. 


CHAP. XL.— HE RETURNS TO THE MOSAIC LAWS, 
AND PROVES THAT THEY WERE FIGURES OF THE 
THINGS WHICH. PERTAIN TO CHRIST. 


“The mystery, then, of the lamb which God 
enjoined to be sacrificed as the passover, was a 
type of Christ ; with whose blood, in proportion 
to their faith in Him, they anoint their houses, 
i.e., themselves, who believe on-Him. For that 
the creation which God created — to wit, Adam 
—was a house for the spirit which proceeded 
from God, you all can understand. And that 





6 & ovtos. {Or, Look you, listen!] 
7 Literally, “‘ carry us captive.” 
Ps, Ixvili. 19. 
9 Isa, v. 21, 
10 Constrasting either Catholics with heretics, or Christians with 


Jews. [Note this word Cafholjc, a: in i 
pintecace | » as here used in its legitimate 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


——.. 


215 





this injunction was temporary, I prove thus. God 
does not permit the lamb of the passover to be 
sacrificed in any other place than where His 
name was named; knowing that the days will 
come, after the suffering of Christ, when even the 
place in Jerusalem shall be given over to your 
enemies, and all the offerings, in short, shall cease ; 
and that lamb which was commanded to be 
wholly roasted was a symbol of the suffering of 
the cross which Christ would undergo. For the 
lamb,' which is roasted, is roasted and dressed 
up in the form of the cross. For one spit is 
transfixed right through from the lower parts up 
to the head, and one across the back, to which 
are attached the legs of the lamb. And the two 
goats which were ordered to be offered during 
the fast, of which one was sent away as the scape 
[goat], and the other sacrificed, were similarly 
declarative of the two appearances of Christ : the 
first, in which the elders of your people, and the 
priests, having laid hands on Him and put Him 
to death, sent Him away as the scape [goat] ; and 
His second appearance, because in the same place 
in Jerusalem you shall recognise Him whom you 
have dishonoured, and who was an offering for 
all sinners willing to repent, and keeping the 
fast which Isaiah speaks of, loosening the terms ? 
of the violent contracts, and keeping the other 
precepts, likewise enumerated by him, and which 
I have quoted,3 which those believing in Jesus 
do. And further, you are aware that the offer- 
ing of the two goats, which were enjoined to be 
sacrificed at the fast, was not permitted to take 
place similarly anywhere else, but only in Jeru- 
salem. 


CHAP. XLI.— THE OBLATION OF FINE FLOUR WAS 
A FIGURE OF THE EUCHARIST. 


“ And the offering of fine flour, sirs,” I said, 
“which was prescribed to be presented on behalf 
of those purified from leprosy, was a type of the 
bread of the Eucharist, the celebration of which 
our Lord Jesus Christ prescribed, in remem- 
brance of the suffering which He endured on 
behalf of those who are purified in soul from all 
iniquity, in order that we may at the same time 
thank God for having created the world, with all 
things therein, for the sake of man, and for deliv- 
ering us from the evil in which we were, and for 
utterly overthrowing‘ principalities and powers by 
Him who suffered according to His will. Hence 
God speaks by the mouth of Malachi, one of 
the twelve [prophets], as I said before,’ about 
the sacrifices at that time presented by you: ‘I 
have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord; and I 





I Some think this particularly refers to the paschal lamb, others to 
any lamb which is roasted. 

2 Literally, ‘‘ cords.” 

3 Chap. xv. : f i 

4 Literally, ‘‘ overthrowing with a perfect overthrow. 

5 Chap. xxviii. 











—_ 


will not accept your sacrifices at your hands: for, 
from the rising of the sun unto the going down 
of the same, My name has been glorified among 
the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered 
to My name, and a pure offering: for My name 
is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord: but 
ye profane it.’© [So] He then speaks of those 
Gentiles, namely us, who in every place offer 
sacrifices to Him, i.e., the bread of the Eucha- 
rist, and also the cup of the Eucharist, affirming 
both that we glorify His name, and that you pro- 
fane [it]. The command of circumcision, again, 
bidding [them] always circumcise the children 
on the eighth day, was a type of the true circum- 
cision, by which we are circumcised from deceit 
and iniquity through Him who rose from the 
dead on the first day after the Sabbath, [namely 
through] our Lord Jesus Christ. For the first 
day after the Sabbath, remaining the first? of all 
the days, is called, however, the eighth, accord- 
ing to the number of all the days of the cycle, 
and [yet] remains the first. 


CHAP. (XLI.+THE BELLS ON THE PRIEST’S ROBE 
WERE A FIGURE OF THE APOSTLES. 


“Moreover, the prescription that twelve bells ® 
be attached to the [robe] of the high priest. 
which hung down to the feet, was a symbol of 
the twelve apostles, who depend on the power 
of Christ, the eternal Priest ; and through their 
voice it is that all the earth has been filled with 
the glory and grace of God and of His Christ. 
Wherefore David also says: ‘Their sound has 
gone forth into all the earth, and their words to 
the ends of the world.’9 And Isaiah speaks as 
if he were personating the apostles, when they 
say to Christ that they believe not in their own 
report, but in the power of Him who sent them. 
And so he says: ‘Lord, who hath believed our 
report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord 
revealed? We have preached before Him as if 
[ He were] a child, as if a root ina dry ground.’ ° 
(And what follows in order of the prophecy 
already quoted.'') But when the passage speaks 
as from the lips of many, ‘We have preached 
before Him,’ and adds, ‘as if a child,’ it signifies 
that the wicked shall become subject to Him, 
and shall obey His command, and that all shall 
become as one child. Such a thing as you may 
witness in the body: although the members are 
enumerated as many, all are called ome, and are 
a dody. For, indeed, a commonwealth and a 
church,” though many individuals in number, 





6 Mal. i. 10-12. 

7 Or, ‘being the first.” ‘ 

8 Ex, xxviii. 33 gives no definite number of bells. Otto presumes 
Justin to have confounded the bells and the gems, which were twelve 
in number. 

9 Ps. xix. 4. 

10 sa, liii. 1, 2. 
11 Chap. xiii. 
12 éxxAngia, Lat, vers. has conventus, 


216 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





are in fact as one, called and addressed by one| Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the 
appellation. And in short, sirs,” said I, ‘by|virgin shall conceive, and shall bear a son, and 


enumerating all the other appointments of Moses, 
I can demonstrate that they were types, and 
symbols, and declarations of those things which 
would happen to Christ, of those who it was 
foreknown were to believe in Him, and of those 
things which would also be done by, Christ Him- 
self. But since what I have now enumerated 
appears to me to be sufficient, I revert again to 
the order of the discourse.’ 


CHAP. XLII. — HE CONCLUDES THAT THE LAW 
HAD AN END IN CHRIST, WHO WAS BORN OF 
THE VIRGIN. 


“ As, then, circumcision began with Abraham, 
and the Sabbath and sacrifices and offerings and 
feasts with Moses, and it has been proved they 
were enjoined on account of the hardness of 
your people’s heart, so it was necessary, in ac- 
cordance with the Father’s will, that they should 
have an end in Him who was born of a virgin, 
of the family of Abraham and tribe of Judah, 
and of David; in Christ the Son of God, who 
was proclaimed as about to come to all the world, 
to be the everlasting law and the everlasting cove- 
nant, even as the forementioned prophecies show. 
And we, who have approached God through 
Him, have received not carnal, but spiritual cir- 
cumcision, which Enoch and those like him 
observed. And we have received it through 
baptism, since we were sinners, by God’s mercy ; 
and all men may equally obtain it. But since the 
mystery of His birth now demands our attention, 
I shall speak of it. Isaiah then asserted in regard 
to the generation of Christ, that it could not 
be declared by man, in words already quoted : ? 
‘Who shall declare His generation? for His life 
is taken from the earth: for the transgressions of 
my people was He led 3 to death.’4 The Spirit 
of prophecy thus affirmed that the generation of 
Him who was to die, that we sinful men might 
be healed by His stripes, was such as could not 
be declared. Furthermore, that the men who 
believe in Him may possess the knowledge of 
the manner in which He came into the world,5 
the Spirit of prophecy by the same Isaiah fore- 
told how it would happen thus: ‘And the Lord 
spoke again to Ahaz, saying, Ask for thyself a 
sign from the Lord thy God, in the depth, or 
in the height. And Ahaz said, I will not ask, 
neither will I tempt the Lord. And Isaiah said, 
flear then, O house of David; Is it a small 
thing for you to contend with men, and how do 
you contend with the Lord? Therefore the 





Literally, “to the discourse in order.” 
ap. xili. 
3 Or, ‘‘ was I led.” 
4 Isa, lili, 8. 
5 Literally, ‘‘ He was in the world, being born.” 


pe 





his name shall be called Immanuel. Butter and 
honey shall he eat, before he knows or prefers 
the evil, and chooses out the good ;°® for before 
the child knows good or ill, he rejects evil” by 
choosing out the good. For before the child 
knows how to call father or mother, he shall 
receive the power of Damascus and the spoil 
of Samaria in presence of the king of Assyria. 
And the land shall be forsaken,* which thou 
shalt with difficulty endure in consequence of the 
presence of its two kings.? But God shall bring 
on thee, and on thy people, and on the house 
of thy father, days which have not yet come 
upon thee since the day in which Ephraim took 
away from Judah the king of Assyria.’'? Now 
it is evident to all, that in the race of Abraham 
according to the flesh no one has been born of 
a virgin, or is said to have been born [of a vir- 
gin], save this our Christ. But since you and 
your teachers venture to affirm that in the proph- 
ecy of Isaiah it is not said, ‘ Behold, the virgin 
shall conceive,’ but, ‘ Behold, the young woman 
shall conceive, and bear ason ;’ and [since] you 
explain the prophecy as if [it referred] to Heze- 
kiah, who was your king, I shall endeavor to 
discuss shortly this point in opposition to you, 
and to show that reference is made to Him who 
is acknowledged by us as Christ. 


CHAP. XLIV.— THE JEWS IN VAIN PROMISE THEM- 
SELVES SALVATION, WHICH CANNOT BE OBTAINED 
EXCEPT THROUGH CHRIST. 


“For thus, so far as you are concerned, I 
shall be found in all respects innocent, if I strive 
earnestly to persuade you by bringing forward 
demonstrations. But if you remain hard-hearted, 
or weak in [forming] a resolution, on account 
of death, which is the lot of the Christians, and 
are unwilling to assent to the truth, you shall 
appear as the authors of your own [evils]. And 
you deceive yourselves while you fancy that, be- 
cause you are the seed of Abraham after the flesh, 
therefore you shall fully inherit the good things 
announced to be bestowed by God through Christ. 
For no one, not even of them,’" has anything to 
look for, but only those who in mind are assimi- 
lated to the faith of Abraham, and who have 





LY 

6 See Chap. Ixvi. 

7 Literally, ‘ disobeys evil” (dmevOe? movnpd). 
amwOet, and amecOet movnpia. 

8 The mss. of Justin read, “‘ shall be taken:” caradAnbOjcesar. 
This is plainly a mistake for xataAcibOyoerac; but whether the mis- 
take is Justin’s or the transcribers’, it would be difficult to say, as 
Thirlby remarks. , 

9 The rendering of this is doubtful: literally, “from the face of 
the two kings,” and the words might go with ‘“ shall be forsaken,” 

10 Isa. vil, to-17 with Isa. vill, 4 inserted. The last clause may 
also be translated, ‘‘in which He took away from Judah Ephraim, 
even the king of Assyria.” y Dies 

11 i.¢., of Abraham’s seed. 


Conjectured: 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


aty 





recognised all the mysteries: for I say,’ that 
some injunctions were laid on you in reference 
to the worship of God and practice of righteous- 
ness ; but some injunctions and acts were like- 
wise mentioned in reference to the mystery of 
Christ, on account of? the hardness of your peo- 
ple’s hearts. And that this is so, God makes 
known in Ezekiel, [when] He said concerning 
it: ‘If Noah and Jacob3 and Daniel should beg 
either sons or daughters, the request would not 
be granted them.’* And in Isaiah, of the very 
same matter He spake thus: ‘The Lord God 
said, they shall both go forth and look on the 
members [of the bodies] of the men that have 
transgressed. For their worm shall not die, and 
their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall 
be a gazing-stock to all flesh.’5 So that it be- 
comes you to eradicate this hope from your souls, 
and hasten to know in what way forgiveness of 
sins, and a hope of inheriting the promised good 
things, shall be yours. But there is no other 
[way] than this, —to become acquainted with 
this Christ, to be washed in the fountain © spoken 
of by Isaiah for the remission of sins; and for 
the rest, to live sinless lives.” 


CHAP. XLV.—THOSE WHO WERE RIGHTEOUS BEFORE 
AND UNDER THE LAW SHALL BE SAVED BY 
CHRIST. 


And Trypho said, “If I seem to interrupt 
these matters, which you say must be investi- 
gated, yet the question which I mean to put is 
urgent. Suffer me first.” 

And I replied, “ Ask whatever you please, as 
it occurs to you; and I shall endeavour, after 
questions and answers, to resume and complete 
the discourse.” 

Then he said, “Tell me, then, shall those who 
lived according to the law given by Moses, live 
in the same manner with Jacob, Enoch, and Noah, 
in the resurrection of the dead, or not?” 

I replied to him, “When I quoted, sir, the 
words spoken by Ezekiel, that ‘even if Noah and 
Daniel and Jacob were to beg sons and daugh- 
ters, the request would not be granted them,’ 
but that each one, that is to say, shall be saved 
by his own righteousness, I said also, that those 
who regulated their lives by the law of Moses 
would in like manner be saved. For what in the 





I Justin distinguishes between such essential acts as related to 
God’s worship and the establishment of righteousness, and such cere- 
monial observances as had a mere temporary significance. The recog- 
nition of this distinction he alleges to be necessary to salvation: 
necessary in this sense, that justification must be placed not on the 
latter, but on the former; and without such recognition, a Jew would, 
as Justin says, rest his hopes on his noble descent from Abraham, 

2 More probably, ‘‘ or on account of,” etc. : 

3 In Bible, “ Job;” Maranus prefers “ Jaco! ,” and thinks the 
mention of his name very suitable to disprove the arrogant claims of 
Jacob’s posterity. 

4 Ezek, xiv, 20. 

5 Isa. Ixvi. 24. ; ' 

6 Some refer this to Christ’s baptism. See Cyprian, Adv. Fud. 
\. 24. — Otro. 








law of Moses is naturally good, and pious, and 
righteous, and has been prescribed to be done 
by those who obey it;7 and what was appointed 
to be performed by reason of the hardness of the 
people’s hearts ; was similarly recorded, and done 
also by those who were under the law. Since 
those who did that which is universally, naturally, 
and eternally good are pleasing to God, they 
shall be saved through this Christ in the resur- « 
réction equally with those tighteous men who 
were before them, namely Noah, and Enoch, and 
Jacob, and whoever else there be, along with 
those who have known ® this Christ,Sen-of- Ged, 
who was before the morning star and the moon, 
and submitted to become incarnate, and be born 
of this virgin of the family of David, in order 
that, by this dispensation, the serpent that sinned 
from the beginning, and the angels like him, may 
be destroyed, and that death may be contemned, 
and for ever quit, at the second coming of the 
Christ Himself, those who beliéve in Him and 
live acceptably, — and be no more: when some 
are sent to be punished unceasingly into judg- 
ment and condemnation of fire ; but others shall 
exist in freedom from suffering, from corruption, 
and from grief, and in immortality.” 


CHAP: XLVI. — TRYPHO ASKS WHETHER A MAN WHO 
KEEPS THE LAW EVEN NOW WILL BE SAVED. 
JUSTIN PROVES THAT IT CONTRIBUTES NOTHING 
TO RIGHTEOUSNESS, 


“ But if some, even now, wish to live in the 
observance of the institutions given by Moses, 
and yet believe in this Jesus who was crucified, 
recognising Him to be the Christ of God, and 
that it is given to Him to be absolute Judge of 
all, and that His is the everlasting kingdom, can 
they also be saved?” he inquired of me. 

And I replied, “ Let us consider that also to- 
gether, whether one may now observe all the 
Mosaic institutions.” 

And he answered, “No. For we know that, 
as you said, it is not possible either anywhere to 
sacrifice the lamb of the passover, or to offer the 
goats ordered for the fast ; or, in short, [to pre- 
sent] all the other offerings.” 

And I said, “Tell [me] then yourself, I pray, 
some things which can be observed ; for you will 
be persuaded that, though a man does not keep 
or has not performed the eternal® decrees, he 
may assuredly be saved.” 

Then he replied, “To keep the Sabbath, to be 
circumcised, to observe months, and to be washed 
if you touch anything prohibited by Moses, or 
after sexual intercourse.” 

And I said, “Do you think that Abraham, 
Isaac, Jacob, Noah, and Job, and all the rest be- 








7 It, i.e., the law, or “‘ what in the law,” etc. 
8 Those who live after Christ. _ 
9 “* Eternal,” i.e., as the Jew thii 


218 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 








fore or after them equally righteous, also Sarah 
the wife of Abraham, Rebekah the wife of Isaac, 
Rachel the wife of Jacob, and Leah, and all the 
rest of them, until the mother of Moses the faith- 
ful servant, who observed none of these [stat- 
utes], will be saved?” 

And Trypho answered, ‘Were not Abraham 
and his descendants circumcised ? ” 

And I said, “I know that Abraham and his 
descendants were circumcised. ‘The reason why 
circumcision was given to them I stated at length 
in what has gone before; and if what has been 
said does not convince you,’ let us again search 
into the matter. But you are aware that, up to 
Moses, no one in fact who was righteous observed 
any of these rites at all of which we are talking, 
or received one commandment to observe, except 
that of circumcision, which began from Abraham.” 

And he replied, “ We know it, and admit that 
they. are saved.” 

n I returned answer, “ You perceive that 
God by Moses laid all such ordinances upon you 
on account of the hardness of your people’s 
hearts, in order that, by the large number of them, 
you might keep God continually, and in every 
action, before your eyes, and never begin to act 
unjustly or impiously. For He enjoined you to 


place around you [a fringe] of purple dye,? in: 


order that you might not forget God; and He 
commanded you to wear a phylactery,3 certain 
characters, which indeed we consider holy, being 
engraved on very thin parchment ; and by these 
means stirring you up‘ to retain a constant re- 
membrance of God: at the same time, however, 
convincing you, that in your hearts you have not 
even a faint remembrance of God’s worship. 
Yet not even so were you dissuaded from idola- 
try: for in the times of Elijah, when [God] re- 
counted the number of those who had not bowed 
the knee to Baal, He said the number was seven 
thousand ; and in Isaiah He rebukes you for 
having sacrificed your children to idols. But we, 
because we refuse to sacrifice to those to whom 
we were of old accustomed to sacrifice, undergo 
extreme penalties, and rejoice in death, — be- 
lieving that God will raise us up by His Christ, 
and will make us incorruptible, and undisturbed, 
and immortal ; and we know that the ordinances 
imposed by reason of the hardness of your peo- 
ple’s hearts, contribute nothing to the perform- 
ance of righteousness and of piety.” 


CHAP. XLVII. — JUSTIN COMMUNICATES WITH CHRIS- 
TIANS WHO OBSERVE THE LAW. NOT A FEW 
CATHOLICS DO OTHERWISE. 


And Trypho again inquired, “ But if some one, 
knowing that this is so, after he recognises that 





1 Literally, ‘put you out of countenanee.” 
2 Num. xy, 38. 

3 Deut. vi. 6, 

4 Literally, “‘ importuning.” 








this man is Christ, and has believed in and obeys 
Him, wishes, however, to observe these [institu- 
tions], will he be saved?” 

I said, ‘In my opinion, Trypho, such an one 
will be saved, if he does not strive in every way 
to persuade other men, — I mean those Gentiles 
who have been circumcised from error by Christ, 
to observe the same things as himself, telling 
them that they will not be saved unless they do 
so. This you did yourself at the commencement 
of the discourse, when you declared that I would 
not be saved unless I observe these institutions.” 

Then he replied, ‘Why then have you said, 
‘In my opinion, such an one will be saved,’ un- 
less there are some 5 who affirm that such will not 
be saved?” 

“There are such people, Trypho,” I answered ; 
“and these do not venture to have any inter- 
course with or to extend hospitality to such per- 
sons; but I do not agree with them. But if 
some, through weak-mindedness, wish to observe 
such institutions as were given by Moses, from 
which they expect some virtue, but which we 
believe were appointed by reason of the hardness 
of the people’s hearts, along with their hope in 
this Christ, and [wish to perform] the eternal 
and natural acts of righteousness and piety, yet 
choose to live with the Christians and the faith- 
ful, as I said before, not inducing them either to 
be circumcised like themselves, or to keep the 
Sabbath, or to observe any other such ceremo- 
nies, then I hold that we ought to join ourselves 
to such, and associate with them in all things as 
kinsmen and brethren. But if, Trypho,” I con- 
tinued, “some of your race, who say they be- 
lieve in this Christ, compel those Gentiles who 
believe in this Christ to live in all respects ac- 
cording to the law given by Moses, or choose 
not to associate so intimately with them, I in 
like manner do not approve of them. But I 
believe that even those, who have been per- 
suaded by them to observe the legal dispensa- 
tion along with their confession of God in Christ, 
shall probably be saved. And I hold, further, 
that such as have confessed and known this man 
to be Christ, yet who have gone back from some 
cause to the legal dispensation, and have denied 
that this man is Christ, and have repented not be- 
fore death, shall by no means be saved. Further, 
I hold that those of the seed of Abraham who 
live according to the law, and do not believe in 
this Christ before death, shall likewise not be 
saved, and especially those who have anathema- 
tized and do anathematize this very Christ in the 
synagogues, and everything by which they might 
obtain salvation and escape the vengeance of 
fire.© For the goodness and the loving-kindness 





5 “ Or, Are there not some,” etc. 
© The text seems to be corrupt. Otto reads: “Do avathematize 


those who put their trust in this very Christ so as to ohtan ealva- 
tien, etc. 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


of God, and His boundless riches, hold righteous 
and sinless the man who, as Ezekiel’ tells, re- 
pents of sins; and reckons sinful, unrighteous, 
and impious the man who falls away from piety 
and righteousness to unrighteousness and ungod- 
liness. Wherefore also our Lord Jesus Christ 
iaid, ‘In whatsoever things I shall take you, in 
these I shall judge you.’ ”? 


CHAP, XLVII.— BEFORE THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 
IS PROVED, HE [TRYPHO] DEMANDS THAT IT BE 
SETTLED THAT HE IS CHRIST. 


And Trypho said, “We have heard what you 
think of these matters. Resume the discourse 
where you left off, and bring it to anend. For 
some of it appears to me to be paradoxical, and 
wholly incapable of proof. For when you say 
that this Christ existed as God before the ages, 
then that He submitted to be born and become 
man, yet that He is not man of man, this [asser- 
tion] appears to me to be not merely paradoxi- 
cal, but also foolish.” 

And I replied to this, “‘I know that the state- 
ment does appear to be paradoxical, especially 
to those of your race, who are ever unwilling to 
understand or to perform the [requirements] of 
God, but [ready to perform] those of your teach- 
ers, as God Himself declares.3 Now assuredly, 
Trypho,” I continued, “[the proof] that this 
man‘ is the Christ of God does not fail, though 
I be unable to prove that He existed formerly as 
Son of the Maker of all things, being God, and 
was born a man by the Virgin. But since I have 
certainly proved that this man is the Christ of 
God, whoever He be, even if I do not prove that 
He pre-existed, and submitted to be born a man 
of like passions with us, having a body, accord- 
ing to the Father’s will; in this last matter alone 
is it just to say that I have erred, and not to deny 
that He is the Christ, though it should appear 
that He was born man of men, and [nothing 
more] is proved [than this], that He has become 
Christ by election. For there are some, my 
friends,” I said, “of our race,5 who admit that 
He is Christ, while holding Him to be man of 
men; with whom I do not agree, nor would I,° 
even though most of those who have [now] the 
same opinions as myself should say so ; since we 
were enjoined by Christ Himself to put no faith 





I Ezek. xxxiii. 11-20. ’ : 

2 [Comp. St. John xii. 47, 48.] Grabius thinks this taken, from 
the [apocryphal] Gospel according to the Hebrews. It is not in the 
New or Old Testament. (Query. Is it not, rather, one of the tradi- 
tional sayings preserved among early Christians 2] 

3 Comp. Isa. xxix. 13. 

4 Or, ‘‘such a man.” ; fe 

5 Some read, “‘ of your race,” referring to the Edzonztes, Mara- 
nus believes the reference is to the Ebionites, and supports in a long 
note the reading “‘ our,” inasmuch as Justin would be more likely to 
associate these Mbionies with Christians than with Jews, even though 
they were heretics. f 

6 Langus translates: “ Nor would, indeed, many who are of the 
same opinion as myself say 60.” 











316 


in human doctrines,’ but in those proclaimed by 
the blessed prophets and taught by Himself.” 





CHAP. XLIX.— TO THOSE WHO OBJECT THAT ELIJAH 
HAS NOT YET COME, HE REPLIES THAT HE IS THE 
PRECURSOR OF THE FIRST ADVENT. 


And Trypho said, “Those who affirm him to 
have been a man, and to have been anointed by 
election, and then to have become Christ, appear 
to me to speak more plausibly than you who 
hold those opinions which you express. For we 
all expect that Christ will be a man [born] of 
men, and that Elijah when he comes will anoint 
him. But if this man appear to be Christ, he 
must certainly be known as man [born] of men ; 
but from the circumstance that Elijah has not 
yet come, I infer that this man is not He [the 
Christ ].” 

Then I inquired of him, “ Does not Scripture, 
in the book of Zechariah,’ say that Elijah shall 
come before the great and terrible day of the 
Lord?” 

And he answered, “ Certainly.” 

“If therefore Scripture compels you to admit 
that two advents of Christ were predicted to 
take place,— one in which He would appear suf- 
fering, and dishonoured, and without comeliness ; 
but the other in which He would come glorious. 
and Judge of all, as has been made manifest in 
many of the fore-cited passages, — shall we not 
suppose that the word of God has proclaimed 
that Elijah shall be the precursor of the great 
and terrible day, that is, of His second advent?” 

“ Certainly,” he answered. 

“ And, accordingly, our Lord in His teaching,” 
I continued, “proclaimed that this very thing 
would take place, saying that Elijah would also 
come. And. is shall take place 
iat I] come i 


when our Lord_ Jesus 









rom heaven ;_w 
of God who was in Elijah preceded as herald in 
[the person of] John, a prophet among your 
nation ; /after whom no other prophet appeared 
among you. He cried, as he sat by the river 
Jordan : ‘I baptize you with water to repentance , 
but He that is stronger than I shall come, whose 
shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize 
you with the Holy Ghost and with fire : whose 
fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge 
His floor, and will gather the wheat into the 
barn; but the chaff He will burn up with un- 
quenchable fire.’9 And this very prophet your 
king Herod had shut up in prison ; and when 
his birth-day was celebrated, and the niece ’° of 
the same Herod by her dancing had pleased 
him, he told her to ask whatever she pleased. 








7 Evoke this emphatic testimony of primitive faith.] 
8 Mal. iv. 5. 

9 Matt. iii, rr, 12. | 

10 Literally, “‘ cousin.” 


t_manifestation the Spirit _ 





J 


220 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 








Then the mother of the maiden instigated her 
to ask the head of John, who was in prison; and 
having asked it, [Herod] sent and ordered the 
head of John to be brought in on a charger. 
Wherefore also our Christ said, [when He was] 
on earth, to those who were affirming that Elijah 
must come before Christ: ‘Elijah shall come, 
and restore all things; but I say unto you, that 
Elijah has already come, and they knew him not, 
but have done to him whatsoever they chose.’ ? 
And it is written, ‘Then the disciples understood 
* that He spake to them about John the Baptist.’” 

And Trypho said, ‘‘ This statement also seems 
to me paradoxical; namely, that the prophetic 
Spirit of God, who was in Elijah, was also in 
John.” 

To this I replied, “ Do you not think that the 
same thing happened in the case of Joshua the 
son of Nave (Nun), who succeeded to the com- 
mand of the people after Moses, when Moses 
was commanded to lay his hands on Joshua, and 
God said to him, ‘I will take of the spirit which 
is in thee, and put it on him?’’’? 

And he said, “ Certainly.” 

“ As therefore,” I say, “while Moses was still 
among men, God took of the spirit which was 


in Moses and put it on Joshua, even so God was. 


able to cause [the spirit] of Elijah to come upon 
- John ; in order that, as Christ at His first com- 
ing appeared inglorious, even so the first coming 
of the spirit, which remained always pure in 
Elijah3 like that of Christ, might be perceived 
to be inglorious. For the Lord said He would 
wage war against Amalek with concealed hand ; 
and you will not deny that Amalek fell. But if 
it is said that only in the glorious advent of 
Christ war will be waged with Amalek, how great 
will the fulfilment+ of Scripture be which says, 
“God will wage war against Amalek with con- 
cealed hand!’ You can perceive that the con- 
cealed power of God was in Christ the crucified, 
before whom demons, and all the principalities 
and powers of the earth, tremble.” 


CHAP. L.—IT IS PROVED FROM ISAIAH THAT JOHN 
IS THE PRECURSOR OF CHRIST. 


And Trypho said, “ You seem to me to have 
come out of a great conflict with many persons 
about all the points we have been searching into, 
and therefore quite ready to return answers to 
all questions put to you. Answer me then,, first, 
how you can show that there is another God be- 
sides the Maker of all things ; and then you will 


show, [further], that He submitted to be born | 


of the Virgin.” 





Tt Matt. xvii. 12, 
. 7,Num. xi, 17, spoken of the seventy elders. Justin confuses what 
is said here with Num. xxvii. 18 and Deut. xxxiv. 9. 

3 ‘The meaning is, that no division of person took place. Elijah 
remained the same after as before his spirit was shed on John. 

4 Literally, “ fruit.” 





I replied, “‘ Give me permission first of all to 
quote certain passages from the prophecy of 
Isaiah, which refer to the office of forerunner 
discharged by John the Baptist and prophet be- 
fore this our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

“T grant it,” said he. 

Then I said, “ Isaiah thus foretold John’s fore- 
running: ‘And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, Good 
is the word of the Lord which He spake: Let 
there be peace and righteousness in my days.’ 5 
And, ‘ Encourage the people; ye priests, speak 
to the heart of Jerusalem, and encourage her, 
because her humiliation is accomplished. Her 
sin is annulled ; for she has received of the Lord’s 
hand double for her sins. A voice of one cry- 
ing in the wilderness, Prepare the ways of the 
Lord; make straight the paths of our God. 
Every valley shall be filled up, and every moun- 
tain and hill shall be brought low: and the 
crooked shall be made straight, and the rough 
way shall be plain ways; and the glory of the 
Lord thall be seen, and all flesh shall see the sal- 
vation of God: for the Lord hath spoken it. A 
voice of one saying, Cry ; and I said, What shall 
Icry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory of 
man as the flower of grass. The grass has with- 
ered, and the flower of it has fallen away; but 
the word of the Lord endureth for ever. Thou 
that bringest good tidings to Zion, go up to the 
high mountain ; thou that bringest good tidings 
to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength. 
Lift ye up, be not afraid ; tell the cities of Judah, 
Behold your God! Behold, the Lord comes 
with strength, and [His] arm comes with author- 
ity. Behold, His reward is with Him, and His 
work before Him. As a shepherd He will tend 
His flock, and will gather the lambs with [His] 
arm, and cheer on her that is with young. Who 
has measured the water with [his] hand, and 
the heaven with a span, and all the earth with 
[his] fist? Who has weighed the mountains, and 
[put] the valleys into a balance? Who has 
known the mind of the Lord? And who has 
been His counsellor, and who shall advise Him ? 
Or with whom did He take counsel, and he in- 
structed Him? Or who showed Him judgment? 
Or who made Him to know the way of under- 
standing? All the nations are reckoned as a 
drop of a bucket, and as a turning of a balance, 
and shall be reckoned as spittle. But Lebanon 
is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts sufficient 
for a burnt-offering ; and all the nations are con- 
sidered nothing, and for nothing.’ ” © 


CHAP. LI.—IT IS PROVED THAT THIS PROPHECY 
HAS BEEN FULFILLED. 


And when I ceased, Trypho said, “All the 
words of the prophecy you repeat, sir, are am- 
ee ae eee 


S Isa. xxxix. 8. 
6 Isa. xl. 1-17. 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


biguous, and have no force in proving what you 
wish to prove.” ‘Then I answered, “If the 
prophets had not ceased, so that there were no 
more in your nation, Trypho, after this John, it 
is evident that what I say in reference to Jesus 
Christ might be regarded perhaps as ambiguous. 
But if John came first calling on men to repent, 
and Christ, while [John] still sat by the river 
Jordan, having come, put an end to his proph- 
esying and baptizing, and preached also Himself, 
saying that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, 
and that He must suffer many things from the 
Scribes and Pharisees, and be crucified, and on 
the third day rise again, and would appear again 
in Jerusalem, and would again eat and drink with 
His disciples ; and foretold that in the interval 
between His [first and second] advent, as I pre- 
viously said,’ priests and false prophets would 
arise in His name, which things do actually ap- 
pear; then how can they be ambiguous, when 
you may be persuaded by the facts? Moreover, 
He referred to the fact that there would be no 
longer in your nation any prophet, and to the 
fact that men recognised how that the New Tes- 
tament, which God formerly announced [His 
intention of | promulgating, was then present, L.e., 
Christ Himself; and in the following terms: 
‘The law and the prophets were until John the 
Baptist ; from that time the kingdom of heaven 
suffereth violence, and the violent take it by 
force. And if you can? receive it, he is Elijah, 
who was to come. He that hath ears to hear, 
let him hear.’ 3 


CHAP. Lil. — JACOB PREDICTED TWO ADVENTS OF 
CHRIST. 


“And it was prophesied by Jacob the patri- 
arch ¢ that there would be two advents of Christ, 
and that in the first He would suffer, and that 
after He came there would be neither prophet 
nor king in your nation (I proceeded), and that 
the nations who believed in the suffering Christ 
would look for His future appearance. And for 
this reason the Holy Spirit had uttered these 
truths in a parable, and obscurely : for,” I added, 
“it is said, ‘Judah, thy brethren have praised 
thee: thy hands [shall be] on the neck of thine 
enemies; the sons of thy father shall worship 
thee. Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the germ, 
my son, thou art sprung up. Reclining, he lay 
down like a lion, and like [a lion’s] whelp : who 
shall raise him up? A ruler shall not depart 
from Judah, or a leader from his thighs, until 
that which is laid up in store for him shall come ; 
and he shall be the desire of nations, binding 
his foal to the vine, and the foal of his ass to the 


eS 


1 Chap. xxv. 

2 “ Are willing.” 

3 Matt. xi. 12-15. 

4 [Gen. xlix. 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 
referred to by Justin. 


18, 24. These texts are frequently 





221 





tendril of the vine. He shall wash his garments 
in wine, and his vesture in the blood of the 
grape. His eyes shall be bright with 5 wine, and 
his teeth white like milk.’® Moreover, that in 
your nation there never failed either prophet or 
ruler, from the time when they began until the time 
when this Jesus Christ appeared and suffered, 
you will not venture shamelessly to assert, nor 
can you prove it. For though you affirm that 
Herod, after? whose [reign] He suffered, was 
an Ashkelonite, nevertheless you admit that there 
was a high priest in your nation; so that you 
then had one who presented offerings according 
to the law of Moses, and observed the other 
legal ceremonies ; also [you had] prophets in 
succession until John, (even then, too, when 
your nation was carried captive to Babylon, when 
your land was ravaged by war, and the sacred 
vessels carried off); there never failed to be a 
prophet among. you, who was lord, and leader, 
and ruler of your nation. For the Spirit which 
was in the prophets anointed your kings, and es- 
tablished them. But after the manifestation and 
death of our Jesus Christ in your nation, there 
was and is nowhere any prophet: nay, further, 
you ceased to exist under your own king, your 
jand was laid waste, and forsaken like a lodge 
in a vineyard ; and the statement of Scripture, 
in the mouth of Jacob, ‘And He shall be the 
desire of nations,’ meant symbolically His two 
advents, and that the nations would believe in 
Him ; which facts you may now at length dis- 
cern. For those out of all the nations who are 
pious and righteous through the es of Christ, 


jook for His future appearance. 
leeetatabenian seen 
CHAP. LI. — JACOB PREDICTED THAT CHRIST 
WOULD RIDE ON AN ASS, AND ZECHARIAH CON- 
FIRMS IT. 


“And that expression, ‘binding his foal to 
the vine, and the ass’s foal to the vine tendril,’ 
was a declaring beforehand both of the works 
wrought by Him at His first advent, and also of 
that belief in Him which the nations would re-_ 
pose. For they were like an unharnessed foal, 
which was not bearing a yoke on its neck, until 
this Christ came, and sent His disciples to in- 
struct them; and they bore the yoke of His 
word, and yielded the neck to endure all [hard- 
ships], for the sake of the good things promised 
by Himself, and expected by them. And truly 
our Lord Jesus Christ, when He intended to go 
into Jerusalem; requested His disciples to bring 
Him a certain ass, along with its foal, which was 
bound in an entrance of a village called Beth- 
phage; and having seated Himself on it, He 
pin oe ee. 


5 Or, “in comparison of.” 

6 Gen. xlix. 8-12. Me { 

1 ad’ of; many translated “under whom,” as if éf’ 08. This 
would be erroneous. Conjectured also épvye for éwabev. 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





entered into Jerusalem. And as this was done 
by Him in the manner in which it was prophe- 
sied in precise terms that it would be done by 
the Christ, and as the fulfilment was recognised, 
it became a clear proof that He was the Christ. 
And though all this happened and is proved 
from Scripture, you are still hard-hearted. Nay, 
it was prophesied by Zechariah, one of the 
twelve [prophets], that such would take place, 
in the following words: ‘ Rejoice greatly, daugh- 
ter of Zion; shout, and declare, daughter of 
Jerusalem ; behold, thy King shall come to thee, 
righteous, bringing salvation, meek, and lowly, 
riding on an ass, and the foal of an ass.’' Now, 
that the Spirit of prophecy, as well as the pa- 
triarch Jacob, mentioned both an ass and its 
foal, which would be used by Him ; and, further, 
that He, as I previously said, requested His 
disciples to bring both beasts ; [this fact] was a 
prediction that you of the synagogue, along with 
the Gentiles, would believe in Him. For as the 
unharnessed colt was a symbol of the Gentiles, 
even so the harnessed ass was a symbol of your 
nation. For you possess the law which was 
imposed [upon you] by the prophets. More- 
over, the prophet Zechariah foretold that this 
same Christ would be smitten, and His disciples 
scattered: which also took place. For after 
His crucifixion, the disciples that accompanied 
Him were dispersed, until He rose from the 
dead, and persuaded them that so it had been 
prophesied concerning Him, that He would 
suffer; and being thus persuaded, they went 
into all the world, and taught these truths. 
Hence also we are strong in His faith and doc- 
trine, since we have [this our] persuasion both 
from the prophets, and from those who through- 
out the world are seen to be worshippers of 
God in the name of that crucified One. The 
following is said, too, by Zechariah: ‘O sword, 
rise up against My Shepherd, and against the 
man of My people, saith the Lord of hosts. 
Smite the Shepherd, and His flock shall be 
scattered.’ ? 


CHAP. LIV.— WHAT THE BLOOD OF THE GRAPE 
SIGNIFIES. 


“And that expression which was committed 
to writing? by Moses, and prophesied by the 
patriarch Jacob, namely, ‘He shall wash His 
garments with wine, and His vesture with the 
blood of the grape,’ signified that He would 
wash those that believe in Him with His own 
blood. For the Holy Spirit called those who 
receive remission of sins through Him, His gar- 
ments ; amongst whom He is always present in 
power, but will be manifestly present at His 


tg ee oe tale 
1 Zech. ix. 9. 
2 Zech, xiii.7. 
3 Literally, ‘inquired into.” 





[God].’ 





second coming. That the Scripture mentions 
the blood ‘of the grape has been evidently de- 
signed, because Christ derives blood not from 
the seed of man, but from the power of God. 
For as God, and not man, has produced the 
blood of the vine, so also [the Scripture] has 
predicted that the blood of Christ would be not 
of the seed of man, but of the power of God. 
But this prophecy, sirs, which I repeated, proves 
that Christ is not man of men, begotten in the 
ordinary course of humanity.” 


CHAP. LV. — TRYPHO ASKS THAT CHRIST BE PROVED 
GOD, BUT WITHOUT METAPHOR. JUSTIN PROM- 
ISES TO DO SO. 


And Trypho answered, ‘“ We shall remember 
this your exposition, if you strengthen [your 
solution of ] this difficulty by other arguments : 
but now resume the discourse, and show us that 
the Spirit of prophecy admits another God be- 
sides the Maker of all things, taking care not 
to speak of the sun and moon, which, it is writ- 
ten,t God has given to the nations to worship 
as gods ; and oftentimes the prophets, employ- 
ing 5 this manner of speech, say that ‘ thy God 
is a God of gods, and a Lord of lords,’ adding 
frequently, ‘the great and strong and terrible 
For such expressions are used, not as 
if they really were gods, but because the Scrip- 
ture is teaching us that the true God, who 
made all things, is Lord alone of those who are 
reputed gods and lords. And in order that the 
Holy Spirit may convince [us] of this, He said 
by the holy David, ‘The gods of the nations, 
reputed gods, are idols of demons, and not 
gods ;’° and He denounces a curse on those 
who worship them.” 

And I replied, “I would not bring forward 
these proofs, Trypho, by which I am aware 
those who worship these [idols] and such like are 
condemned, but such [proofs] as no one could 
find any objection to. They will appear strange 
to you, although you read them every day; so 
that even from this fact we? understand that, 
because of your wickedness, God has withheld 
from you the ability to discern the wisdom of 
His Scriptures; yet [there are] some excep- 
tions, to whom, according to the grace of His 
long-suffering, as Isaiah said, He has left a seed 
of § salvation, lest your race be utterly destroyed, 
like Sodom and Gomorrah. Pay attention, 
therefore, to what I shall record out of the holy 
Scriptures, which 9 do not need to be expounded, 
but only listened to. 








4 Deut. iv. 19, an apparent [i.e., evident] misinterpretatio 
the passage. [But see St. John i 33-36.] ] eit we 

5 Or, “‘ misusing.”’ 

© Ps. xcvi. 5. 

7 Com. reading, “ you; ” evidently wrong. 

= ae “dor. 

9 Two constructions, “which” referring either to Scri tures 
whole, or to what he records from them. Laat more-probable, ec 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO, 


324 





CHAP. LVI.— GOD WHO APPEARED TO MOSES IS 
DISTINGUISHED FROM GOD THE FATHER. 


““ Moses, then, the blessed and faithful servant 
of God, declares that He who appeared to Abra- 
ham under the oak in Mamre is God, sent with 
the two angels in His company to judge Sodom 
by Another who remains ever in the superceles- 
tial places, invisible to all men, holding personal 
intercourse with none, whom we believe to be 
Maker and Father of all things; for he speaks 
thus: ‘God appeared to him under the oak in 
Mamre, as he sat at his tent-door at noontide. 
And lifting up his eyes, he saw, and behold, 
three men stood before him; and when he saw 
them, he ran to meet them from the door of his 
tent ; and he bowed himself toward the ground, 
and said;’”* (and so on;)? “‘ Abraham gat 
up early in the morning to the place where he 
stood before the Lord: and he looked toward 
Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward the adjacent 
country, and beheld, and, lo, a flame went up 
from the earth, like the smoke of a furnace.’ ”’ 
And when I had made an end of quoting these 
words, I asked them if they had understood 
them. 

And they said they had understood them, but 
that the passages adduced brought forward no 
proof that there is any other God or Lord, or 
that the Holy Spirit says so, besides the Maker 
of all things. 

Then I replied, “I shall attempt to persuade 
you, since you have understood the Scriptures, 
[of the truth] of what I say, that there is, and 
that there is said to be, another God and Lord 
subject to3 the Maker of all things ; who is also 
called an Angel, because He announces to men 
whatsoever the Maker of all things ——above whom 
there is no other God—wishes to announce 
to them.” And quoting once more the previous 
passage, I asked Trypho, “Do you think that 
God appeared to Abraham under the oak in 
Mamre, as the Scripture asserts?” 

He said, “‘ Assuredly.” 

“Was He one of those three,” I said, “whom 
Abraham saw, and whom the Holy Spirit of 
prophecy describes as men?” 

He said, “ No; but God appeared to him, be- 
fore the vision of the three. Then those three 
whom the Scripture calls men, were angels ; two 
of them sent to destroy Sodom, and one to an- 
nounce the joyful tidings to Sarah, that she would 
bear a son; for which cause he was sent, and 
having accomplished his errand, went away.” 4 

“ How then,” said I, “does the one of the 
three, who was in the tent, and who said, ‘I shall 
return to thee hereafter, and Sarah shall have a 





I Gen. xviii. 1, 2. : 

2 Gen. xix. 27, 28; ‘‘and soon” inserted probably not by Justin, 
but by some copyist, as is evident from succeeding words. 

3 Some, ‘‘ besides; ” but probably as above. 


4 Or, “ going away, departed.” 











son,’ 5 appear to have returned when Sarah had 
begotten a son, and to be there declared, by the 
prophetic word, God? But that you may clearly 
discern what I say, listen to the words expressly 
employed by Moses ; they are these : ‘ And Sarah 
saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian bond-woman, 
whom she bore to Abraham, sporting with Isaac 
her son, and said to Abraham, Cast out this 
bond-woman and her son; for the son of this 
bond-woman shall not share the inheritance of 
my son Isaac. And the matter seemed very 
grievous in Abraham’s sight, because of his son, 
But God said to Abraham, Let it not be grievous 
in thy sight because of the son, and because of the 
bond-woman. In all that Sarah hath said unto 
thee, hearken to her voice; for in Isaac shall 
thy seed be called.’ Have you perceived, 
then, that He who said under the oak that He 
would return, since He knew it would be neces- 
sary to advise Abraham to do what Sarah wished 
him, came back as it is written; and is God, as 
the words declare, when they so speak: ‘God 
said to Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy 
sight because of the son, and because of the 
bond-woman?’” I inquired. And Trypho said, 
“Certainly ; but you have not proved from this 
that there is another God besides Him who ap- 
peared to Abraham, and who also appeared to 
the other patriarchs and prophets. You have 
proved, however, that we were wrong in believ- 
ing that the three who were in the tent with 
Abraham were all angels.” 

I replied again, “If I could not have proved 
to you from the Scriptures that one of those 
three is God, and is called Angel,” because, as I 
already said, He brings messages to those to 
whom God the Maker of all things wishes [mes- 
sages to be brought], then in regard to Him who 
appeared to Abraham on earth in human form 
in like manner as the two angels who came with 
Him, and who was God even before the creation 
of the world, it were reasonable for you to enter- 
tain the same belief as is entertained by the 
whole of your nation.” 

«“ Assuredly,” he said, “for up to this moment 
this has been our belief.” 

Then I replied, “ Reverting to the Scriptures, 
I shall endeavour to persuade you, that He who 
is said to have appeared to Abraham, and to 
Jacob, and to Moses, and who is called God, is 
distinct from Him who made all things, —nu- 
merically, I mean, not [distinct] in will. For I 
affirm that He has never at any time done ® any- 
ie es re i 


5 Gen. xviii. 10. 

6 Gen. xxi. 9-12. 

7 Or, ‘‘ Messenger.” é ) 
passim.| In the various passages 1n which 
for Christ being called angel or messenger, 
ayyéAAw, to convey messages, to announce. S 
ayyedos and ayyéAAw cannot be retained in English, and therefore 
the point of Justin’s remarks is lost to the English reader. 

8 Some supply, “‘ or said.” 


[The ‘‘ Jehovah-angel” of the Pentateuch, 
ustin assigns the reason 
ustin uses also the verb 
The similarity between 


224 


thing which He who made the world —above 
whom there is no other God — has not wished 
Him both to do and to engage Himself with.” 

And Trypho said, “ Prove now that this is the 
case, that we also may agree with you. For we 
do not understand you to affirm that He has 
done or said anything contrary to the will of the 
Maker of all things.” 

Then I said, “The Scripture just quoted by 
me will make this plain to you. It is thus: ‘The 
sun was risen on the earth, and Lot entered into 
Segor (Zoar) ; and the Lord rained on Sodom 
sulphur and fire from the Lord out of heaven, 
and overthrew these cities and all the neighbour- 
hood.’”’ * ‘ 

Then the fourth of those who had remained 
with Trypho said, “It? must therefore necessa- 
rily be said that one of the two angels who went 
to Sodom, and is named by Moses in the Scrip- 
ture Lord, is different from Him who also is God, 
and appeared to Abraham.” 3 

“Tt is not on this ground solely,’ I said, “ that 
it must be admitted absolutely that some other 
one is called Lord by the Holy Spirit besides 
Him who is considered Maker of all things ; not 
solely [for what is said] by Moses, but also [for 


what is said] by David. For there is written by. 
him: ‘The Lord says to my Lord, Sit on My 


right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy foot- 
stool,’+ as I have already quoted. And again, 
in other words: ‘Thy throne, O God, is for ever 
and ever. A sceptre of equity is the sceptre of 
Thy kingdom: Thou hast loved righteousness 
and hated iniquity: therefore God, even Thy 
God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of glad- 
ness above Thy fellows.’5 If, therefore, you 
assert that the Holy Spirit calls some other one 
God and Lord, besides the Father of all things 
and His Christ, answer me; for I undertake to 
prove to you from Scriptures themselves, that 
He whom the Scripture calls Lord is not one of 
the two angels that went to Sodom, but He who 
was with them, and is called God, that appeared 
to Abraham.” 

And Trypho said, “Prove this; for, as you 
see, the day advances, and we are not prepared 
for such perilous replies ; since never yet have 
we heard any man investigating, or searching in- 
to, or proving these matters ; nor would we have 
tolerated your conversation, had you not referred 
everything to the Scriptures:° for you are very 
zealous in adducing proofs from them; and you 





1 Gen. xix. 23. 

2 Or, “ We must of necessity think, that besides the one of the two 
angels who came down to Sodom, and whom the Scripture by Moses 
calls Lord, God Himself appeared to Abraham.” 

3 This passage is rather confused; the translation is necessarily 
free, but, it is believed, correct. Justin’s friend wishes to make out 
that one distinct individuals are called Lovd or God in the narrative. 

IS ICXTN, 

5 Ps, xlv. 6, 7. F 

6 [Note again the fidelity of Justin to this principle, and the 
fact that in no other way could a Jew be persuaded to listen to a 
Christian, Acts xvii, at 











DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


are of opinion that there is no God above the 
Maker of all things.” 

Then I replied, “You are aware, then, that 
the Scripture says, ‘And the Lord said to Abra- 
ham, Why did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I truly 
conceive? for I am old. Is anything impossible 
with God? At the time appointed shall I return 
to thee according to the time of life, and Sarah 
shall have a son.’? And after a little interval: 
‘And the men rose up from thence, and looked 
towards Sodom and Gomorrah; and Abraham 
went with them, to bring them on the way.. And 
the Lord said, I will not conceal from Abraham, 
my servant, what I do.’* And again, after a 
little, it thus says: ‘The Lord said, The cry of 
Sodom and Gomotrah is great,? and their sins 
are very grievous. I will go down now, and see 
whether they have done altogether according to 
their cry which has come unto me; and if not, 
that I may know. And the men turned away 
thence, and went to Sodom. But Abraham was 
standing before the Lord; and Abraham drew 
near, and said, Wilt Thou destroy the righteous 
with the wicked ?’’’?° (and so on," for I do not 
think fit to write over again the same words, 
having written them all before, but shall of neces- 
sity give those by which I established the proof 
to Trypho and his companions. Then I pro- 
ceeded to what follows, in which these words are 
recorded :) “‘And the Lord went His way as 
soon as He had left communing with Abraham ; 
and [Abraham] went to his place. And there 
came two angels to Sodom at even. And Lot 
sat in the gate of Sodom ;’ and what follows 
until, ‘But the men put forth their hands, and 
pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the 
door of the house ;’ "3 and what follows till, ‘And 
the angels laid hold on his hand, and on the 
hand of his wife, and on the hands of his daugh- 
ters, the Lord being merciful to him. And it 
came to pass, when they had brought them forth 
abroad, that they said, Save, save thy life. Look 
not behind thee, nor stay in all the neighbour- 
hood ; escape to the mountain, lest thou be taken 
along with [them]. And Lot said to them, I be- 
seech [Thee], O Lord, since Thy servant hath 
found grace in Thy sight, and Thou hast magnified 
Thy righteousness, which Thou showest towards 
me in saving my life; but I cannot escape to 
the mountain, lest evil overtake me, and I die. 
Behold, this city is near to flee unto, and it is 
small: there I shall be safe, since it is small; 
and my soul shall live. And He said to him, 
Behold, I have accepted thee ™ also in this mat- 





7 Gen. xviii. 13, 14. 

8 Gen, xviii. 16, 17. 

9 Literally, “is multiplied.” 
10 Gen. xvili. 20-23. 

11 Comp. Note 2, p. 223. 

12 Gen, xviil. 33, xix. 1. 

13 Gen. xix. 10. 


14 Literally, ‘‘I have admired thy face.” 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


ter, so as not to destroy the city for which thou 
hast spoken. Make haste to save thyself there ; 
for I shall not do anything till thou be come 
thither. Therefore he called the name of the 
city Segor (Zoar). The sun was risen upon the 
earth ; and Lot entered into Segor (Zoar). And 
the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulphur 
and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and He 
overthrew these cities, and all the neighbour- 
hood.’”* And after another pause I added: 
“ And now have you not perceived, my friends, 
that one of the three, who is both God and Lord, 
and ministers to Him who is in the heavens, is 
Lord of the two angels? For when [the angels ] 
proceeded to Sodom, He remained behind, and 
communed with Abraham in the words recorded 
by Moses ; and when He departed after the con- 
versation, Abraham went back to his place. And 
when he came [to Sodom], the two angels no 
longer conversed with Lot, but Himself, as the 
Scripture makes evident; and He is the Lord 
who received commission from the Lord who 
[remains] in the heavens, i.e., the Maker of all 
things, to inflict upon Sodom and Gomorrah the 
[judgments] which the Scripture describes in 
these terms : ‘The Lord rained down upon Sodom 
and Gomorrah sulphur and fire from the Lord 
out of heaven.’ ” 


CHAP. LVII.—THE JEW OBJECTS, WHY IS HE SAID 
TO HAVE EATEN, IF HE BE GOD? ANSWER OF 
JUSTIN. 


Then Trypho said when I was silent, “That 
Scripture compels us to admit this, is manifest ; 
but there is a matter about which we are deserv- 
edly at a loss — namely, about what was said to 
the effect that [the Lord] ate what was prepared 
and placed before him by Abraham; and you 
would admit this.” 

I answered, “It is written that they ate ; and 
if we believe 2 that it is said the three ate, and not 
the two alone — who were really angels, and are 
nourished in the heavens, as is evident to us, even 
though they are not nourished by food similar to 
that which mortals use — (for, concerning the sus- 
tenance of manna which supported your fathers 
in the desert, Scripture speaks thus, that they 
ate angels’ food) : [if we believe that three ate], 
then I would say that the Scripture which affirms 
they ate bears the same meaning as when we 
would say about fire that it has devoured all 
things; yet it is not certainly understood that 
they ate, masticating with teeth and jaws. So 
that not even here should we be at a loss about 
anything, if we are acquainted even slightly with 
figurative modes of expression, and able to rise 
above them.” 

And Trypho said, “It is possible that [the 


ce i a A ADS LLL LE ERR 
I Gen. xix, 16-25. 
2 Literally, ‘‘ hear,” 





225 


question] about the mode of eating may be thus 
explained: [the mode, that is to say,] in which 
it is written, they took and ate what had been 
prepared by Abraham: so that you may now pro- 
ceed to explain to us how this God who appeared 
to Abraham, and is minister to God the Maker 
of all things, being born of the Virgin, became 
man, of like passions with all, as you said pre- 
viously.” 

Then I replied, “ Permit me first, Trypho, to 
collect some other proofs on this head, so that 
you, by the large number of them, may be per- 
suaded of [the truth of] it, and thereafter I shall 
explain what you ask.” 

And he said, “Do as seems good to you; for 
I shall be thoroughly pleased.” 


CHAP. LVIII.— THE SAME IS PROVED FROM THE 
VISIONS WHICH APPEARED TO JACOB. 


Then I continued, “I purpose to quote to you 
Scriptures, not that lam anxious to make merely 
an artful display of words ; for I possess no such | 
faculty, but God’s grace alone has been granted 
to me to the understanding of His Scriptures, of 
which grace I exhort all to become partakers 
freely and bounteously, in order that they may 
not, through want of it,3 incur condemnation in 
the judgment which God the Maker of all things 
shall hold through my Lord Jesus Christ.” 

And Trypho said, ‘ What you do is worthy of 
the worship of God; but you appear to me to 
feign ignorance when you say that you do not 
possess a store of artful words.” 

I again replied, “ Be it so, since you think so ; 
yet I am persuaded that I speak the truth.t But 
give me your attention, that I may now rather 
adduce the remaining proofs.” 

“‘ Proceed,” said he. ; 

And I continued: “It is again written by 
Moses, my brethren, that He who is called God 
and appeared to the patriarchs is called both 
Angel and Lord, in order that from this you may 
understand Him to be minister to the Father of 
all things, as you have already admitted, and may 
remain firm, persuaded by additional arguments. 
The word of God, therefore, [recorded] by Moses, 
when referring to Jacob the grandson of Abra- 
ham, speaks thus: ‘And it came to pass, when 
the sheep conceived, that I saw them with my 
eyes in the dream: And, behold, the he-goats 
and the rams which leaped upon the sheep and 
she-goats were spotted with white, and speckled 
and sprinkled with adun colour. And the Angel 
of God said to me in the dream, Jacob, Jacob. 
And I said, What is it, Lord? And He said, Lift 
up thine eyes, and see that the he-goats and rams 
leaping on the sheep and she-goats are spotted 








3 Literally, “‘for this sake.” [Note here and_ elsewhere the 
primitive rule as to the duty of all men to search the Scriptures, | 
4 Or, “ speak otherwise.” 


226 





with white, speckled, and sprinkled with a dun 
colour. For I have seen what Laban doeth unto 
thee. I am the God who appeared to thee in 
Bethel,! where thou anointedst a pillarand vowedst 
a vow unto Me. Now therefore arise, and get 
thee out of this land, and depart to the land 
of thy birth, and I shall be with thee And 
again, in other words, speaking of the same Jacob, 
it thus says: ‘And having risen up that night, he 
took the two wives, and the two women-servants, 
and his eleven children, and passed over the ford 
Jabbok ; and he took them and went over the 
brook, and sent over all his belongings. But 
Jacob was left behind alone, and an Angel 3 
wrestled with him until morning. And He saw 
that He is not prevailing against him, and He 
touched the broad part of his thigh; and the 
broad part of Jacob’s thigh grew stiff while he 
wrestled with Him. And He said, Let Me go, 
for the day breaketh. But he said, I will not let 
Thee go, except Thou bless me. And He said 
to him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. 
And He said, Thy name shall be called no more 
Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name; for thou 
hast prevailed with God, and with men shalt be 
powerful. And Jacob asked Him, and said, Tell 
me Thy name. But he said, Why dost thou ask. 
after My name? And He blessed him there. 
And Jacob called the name of that place Peniel,* 
for I saw God face to face, and my soul rejoiced.’ 
And again, in other terms, referring to the same 
Jacob, it says the following: ‘And Jacob came 
to Luz, in the land of Canaan, which is Bethel, 
he and all the people that were with him. And 
there he built an altar, and called the name of 
that place Bethel; for there God appeared to 
him when he fled from the face of his brother 
Esau. And Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and 
was buried beneath Bethel under an oak: and 
Jacob called the name of it The Oak of Sorrow. 
And God appeared again to Jacob in Luz, when 
he came out from Mesopotamia in Syria, and He 
blessed him. And God said to him, Thy name 
shall be no more called Jacob, but Israel shall be 
thy name.’° He is called God, and He is and 
shall be God.” And when all had agreed on 
these grounds, I continued: ‘“ Moreover, I con- 
sider it necessary to repeat to you the words which 
narrate how He who is both Angel and God and 
Lord, and who appeared as a man to Abraham, 
and who wrestled in human form with Jacob, was 
seen by him when he fled from his brother Esau. 
They are as follows: ‘And Jacob went out from 
the well of the oath,7 and went toward Charran.® 





I Literally, ‘in the place of God.” 
2 Gen. xxxi. 10-13. 

3 Some read, ‘‘ a man.” 

4 Literally, ‘‘ the face of God.” 

5 Gen. xxxii. 22-30, 

6 Gen, xxxv. 6-10, 

7 Or, “‘ Beersheba.” 


® So LXX. and N. T.; Heb. “ Haram.” 








DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





And he lighted on a spot, and slept there, for 
the sun was set; and he gathered of the stones 
of the place, and put them under his head. And 
he slept in that place; and he dreamed, and, 
behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, whose 
top reached to héaven; and the angels of God 
ascended and descended upon it. And the Lord 
stood 9 above it, and He said, I am the Lord, the 
God of Abraham thy father, and of Isaac ; be not 
afraid: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will 
I give it, and to thy seed ; and thy seed shall be 
as the dust of the earth, and shall be extended to 
the west, and south, and north, and east: and in 
thee, and in thy seed, shall all families of the 
earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, 
keeping thee in every way wherein thou goest, 
and will bring thee again into this land; for I 
will not leave thee, until I have done all that I 
have spoken to thee of. And Jacob awaked out 
of his sleep, and said, Surely the Lord is in this 
place, and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and 
said, How dreadful is this place! this is none 
other than the house of God, and this is the gate 
of heaven. And Jacob rose up in the morning, 
and took the stone which he had placed under 
his head, and he set it up for a pillar, and poured 
oil upon the top of it ; and Jacob called the name 
of the place The House of God, and the name of 
the city formerly was Ulammaus.’”’ ?° 


CHAP. LIX.—GOD DISTINCT FROM THE FATHER 
CONVERSED WITH MOSES. 


When I had spoken these words, I continued : 
“ Permit me, further, to show you from the book 
of Exodus how this same One, who is both_An; 
gel, and God, and Lord, and aaa ate 
appeared in human form to Abraham and Isaac," 
appeared in a flame of fire from the bush, and 
conversed with Moses.” And after they said they 
would listen cheerfully, patiently, and eagerly, I 
went on: “These words are in the book which 
bears the title of Exodus: ‘And after many 
days the king of Egypt died, and the children 
of Israel groaned by reason of the works ;’ ” 
and so on until, ‘Go and gather the elders of 
Israel, and thou shalt say unto them, The Lord 
God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, 
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath 
appeared to me, saying, I am surely beholding 
you, and the things which have befallen you in 
Egypt.’” *3 In addition to these words, I went 
on: “Have you perceived, sirs, that this very 
God whom‘Moses speaks of as an Angel that 
talked to him in the flame of fire, declares to 





9 Literally, “‘ was set up.” 

10 Gen. xxviii. 10-19. [OvAapAo’G. Sept. Luz Eng.] 

11 Some conjecture ‘‘ Jacob,” others insert “ Jacob” after ‘ Isaac.” 
[Gen. xxii.- The Jehovah-angel was seen no doubt by Isaac, as wel} 
as by his father. ] : 

12 Ex, ii, 23. 

13 Ex. iii. 16, 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


aay 





Moses that He is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, 
and of Jacob?” 


CHAP. LX.— OPINIONS OF THE JEWS WITH REGARD 
TO HIM WHO APPEARED IN THE BUSH. 


Then Trypho said, “We do not perceive this 
from the passage quoted by you, but [only this], 
that it was an angel who appeared in the flame 
of fire, but God who conversed with Moses ; so 
that there were really two persons in company 
with each other, an angel and God, that ap- 
peared in that vision.” 

I again replied, “Even if this were so, my 
friends, that an angel and God were together 
in the vision seen by Moses, yet, as has already 
been proved to you by the passages previously 
quoted, it will not be the Creator of all things 
that is the God that said to Moses that He was 
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and 
the God of Jacob, but it will be He who has 
been proved to you to have appeared to Abra- 
ham, ministering to the will of the Maker of all 
things, and likewise carrying into execution His 
counsel in the judgment of Sodom; so that, 
even though it be as you say, that there were 
two — an angel and God —he who has but the 
smallest intelligence will not venture to assert 
that the Maker and Father of all things, having 
left all supercelestial matters, was visible on a 
little portion of the earth.” 

And Trypho. said, “Since it has been pre- 
viously proved that He who is called God and 
Lord, and appeared to Abraham, received from 
the Lord, who is in the heavens, that which He 
inflicted on the land of Sodom, even although 
an angel had accompanied the God who appeared 
to Moses, we shall perceive that the God who 
communed with Moses from the bush was not 
the Maker of all things, but He who has been 
shown to have manifested Himself to Abraham 
and to Isaac and to Jacob; who also is called 
and is perceived to be the Angel of God the 
Maker of all things, because He publishes to 
men the commands of the Father and Maker of 
all things.” 

And I replied, “ Now assuredly, Trypho, I 
shall show that, in the vision of Moses, this 
same One alone who is called an Angel, and who 
is God, appeared to and communed with Moses. 
For the Scripture says thus: ‘The Angel of the 
Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from 
the bush ; and he sees that the bush burns with 
fire, but the bush was not consumed. And 
Moses said, I will turn aside and see this great 
sight, for the bush is not burnt. And when the 
Lord saw that he is turning aside to behold, 
the Lord called to him out of the bush.’* In 
the same manner, therefore, in which the Scrip- 
eee eae Acca ak a 


t Ex. iii, 2-4. 








ture calls Him who appeared to Jacob in the 
dream an Angel, then [says] that the same An- 
gel who appeared in the dream spoke to him,? 
saying, ‘I am the God that appeared to thee 
when thou didst flee from the face of Esau thy 
brother ;’ and [again] says that, in the judgment 
which befell Sodom in the days of Abraham, the 
Lord had inflicted the punishment3 of the Lord 
who [dwells] in the heavens ;— even so here, 
the Scripture, in announcing that the Angel of 
the Lord appeared to Moses, and in afterwards 
declaring him to be Lord and God, speaks of the 
same One, whom it declares by the many testi- 
monies already quoted to be minister to God, 
who is above the world, above whom there is no 
other [God]. 


CHAP. LXI— WISDOM IS BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER, 
AS FIRE FROM FIRE, 


“T shall give you another testimony, my’ 


friends,” said I, “from the Scriptures, that God 
begat before all creatures a Beginning, [who 
was | a certain rational power [proceeding] from 
Himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now 
the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again 
Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then 
Lord and Logos; and on another occasion He 
calls Himself Captain, when He appeared in 
human form to Joshua the son of Nave (Nun). 
For He can be called by all those names, since 
He ministers to the Father’s will, and since He 
was begotten of the Father by an act of will;5 
just as we see® happening among ourselves: 
for when we give out some word, we beget the 
word ; yet not by abscission, so as to lessen the 
word? [which remains] in us, when we give it 
out: and just as we see also happening in the 
case of a fire, which is not lessened when it has 
kindled [another], but remains the same ; and 
that which has been kindled by it likewise ap- 
pears to exist by itself, not diminishing that from 
which it was kindled. The Word of Wisdom, 
who is Himself this God begotten of the Father 
of all things, and Word, and Wisdom, and Power, 
and the Glory of the Begetter, will bear evidence 
to me, when He speaks by Solomon the follow- 
ing: ‘If I shall declare to you what happens 
daily, I shall call to mind events from everlast- 
ing, and review them. The Lord made me the 





2 Gen. xxxv. 7. 

3 Literally, “judgment.” ‘ 

4 Or, “in the beginning, before all creatures.” [Justin’s reference 
to Joshua (i. 13-15) deserves special consideration; for he supposes 
that the true Joshua (Jesus) was the substance, and the true ‘ captain 
of salvation,” of ne ee one wes ee a shadow (Heb. iv. 8, »a7- 

nt type and pledge. See cap. Ixu. 
4 , he act of will’ ot volition te on the part of the Father. 

6 Or, ‘* Do we not see,” etc. 

7 The word Adyos, translated “word,” means both the thinking 
power or reason which produces ideas and the expression of these ideas. 
And Justin passes here from the one meaning to the other, When 
we utter a thought, the utterance of it does not diminish the power of 
thought in us, though in one sense the thought has gone away from 
wm. 


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; 


soesranec 


vy 
j 


228 | 






beginning of His ways for His works. From 
everlasting He established me in the beginning, 
before He had made the earth, and before He 
had made the deeps, before the springs of the 
waters had issued forth, before the mountains 
had been established. Before all the hills He 
begets me. God made the country, and the 
desert, and the highest inhabited places under 
the sky. When He made ready the heavens, 
I was along with Him, and when He set up His 
throne on the winds: when He made the high 
clouds strong, and the springs of the deep safe, 
when He made the foundations of the earth, I 
was with Him arranging. I was that in which 
He rejoiced ; daily and at all times I delighted 
in His countenance, because He delighted in the 
finishing of the habitable world, and delighted in 
the sons of men. Now, therefore, O son, hear 
me. Blessed is the man who shall listen to me, 
and the mortal who shall keep my ways, watch- 
ing* daily at my doors, observing the posts of 
my ingoings. For my outgoings are the out- 
goings of life, and [my] will has been prepared 
by the Lord. But they who sin against me, tres- 
pass against their own souls ; and they who hate 
me love death.’ ? 


CHAPS: LXIL THE WORDS “‘LET US MAKE MAN”’ 
AGREE WITH THE TESTIMONY OF PROVERBS. 


“ And the same sentiment was expressed, my 
friends, by the word of God [written] by Moses, 
when it indicated to us, with regard to Him 
whom it has pointed out,3 that God speaks in the 
creation of man with the very same design, in 
the following words: ‘Let Us make man after 
our image and likeness. And let them have 
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the 
fowl of the heaven, and over the cattle, and over 
all the earth, and over all the creeping things 
that creep on the earth. And God created 
man: after the image of God did He create 
him ; male and female created He them. And 
God blessed them, and said, Increase and mul- 
tiply, and fill the earth, and have power over it.4 
And that you may not change the [force of the] 
words just quoted, and repeat what your teachers 
assert, — either that God said to Himself, ‘ Let 
Us make,’ just as we, when about to do some- 
thing, oftentimes say to ourselves, ‘ Let us make ;’ 
or that God spoke to the elements, to wit, the 
earth and other similar substances of which we 
believe man was formed, ‘Let Us make,’ —I 
shall quote again the words narrated by Moses 





_ 1! The mss, of Justin read “ sleeping,” but this is regarded as the 
mistake of some careless transcriber. 

2 Prov. viii. 21 ff. 

3 Justin, since he is of opinion that the Word is the beginning of 
the universe, thinks that by these words, “‘ in the beginning,” Moses 
indicated the Word, like many other writers, Hence also he says in 
Ap. i, a that Moses declares the Word “to be begotten first by 
God.” _ If this explanation does not satisfy, read, ‘‘ with regard to Him 
whom I have pointed out” (Maranus). 

4 Gen, i, 26, 28. 











DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


himself, from which we can indisputably learn 
that [God] conversed with some one who was 
numerically distinct from Himself, and also a 
rational Being. These are the words: ‘And 
God said, Behold, Adam has become as one of 
us, to know good and evil.’5 In saying, there- 
fore, ‘as one of us,’ [Moses] has declared that 
[there is a certain] number of persons associated 
with one another, and that they are at least two. 
For I would not say that the dogma of that 
heresy © which is said to be among you? is true, 
or that the teachers of it can prove that [God] 
spoke to angels, or that the human frame was 
the workmanship of angels. But this Offspring, 
which was truly brought forth from the Father, 
was with the Father before all the creatures, and 
the Father communed with Him; even as the 
Scripture by Solomon has made clear, that He 
whom Solomon calls Wisdom, was begotten as a 
Beginning before all His creatures and as Off- 
spring by God, who has also declared this same 
thing in the revelation made by Joshua the son 
of Nave (Nun). Listen, therefore, to the fol- 
lowing from the book of Joshua, that what I say 
may become manifest to you; it is this: ‘And 
it came to pass, when Joshua was near Jericho, 
he lifted up his eyes, and sees a man standing 
over against him. And Joshua approached to 
Him, and said, Art thou for us, or for our ad- 
versaries? And He said to him, I am Captain 
of the Lord’s host: now have I come. And 
Joshua fell on his face on the ground, and said 
to Him, Lord, what commandest Thou Thy ser- 
vant? And the Lord’s Captain says to Joshua, 
Loose the shoes off thy feet; for the place 
whereon thou standest is holy ground. And 
Jericho was shut up and fortified, and no one 
went out of it. And the Lord said to Joshua, 
Behold, I give into thine hand Jericho, and its 
king, [and] its mighty men.’”’® 


CHAP. LXIII. —IT IS PROVED THAT THIS GOD WAS 
INCARNATE, 


And Trypho said, “‘ This point has been proved 
to me forcibly, and by many arguments, my 
friend. It remains, then, to prove that He sub- 
mitted to become man by the Virgin, according 
to the will of His Father; and to be crucified, 
and to die. Prove also clearly, that after this 
He rose again and ascended to heaven.” 

I answered, “This, too, has been already de- 


5 Gen. iii. 22. 

6 Heresy or sect. 
_ 7 Or, “among us.” Maranus pronounces against this latter read 
ing for the following reasons: (1.) The Jews had their own heresies 
which supplied many things to the Christian heresies, especially to 
Menander and Saturninus. (2.) The sect which Justin here refutes 
was of opinion that God spoke to angels. But those angels, as Me- 
nander and Saturninus invented, ‘‘ exhorted themselves, saying, Let 
us make,” etc. (3.) The expression diédcxaAoe suits the rabbins 
well. So Justin frequently calls them. (4.), Those teachers seem for 
no other cause to have put the words in the angels’ mouths than to 
eradicate the testimony by which they proved divine persons. 

8 Josh. vy, 13 ad fin., and vi. 1, 2, 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


229 





monstrated by me in the previously quoted words 
of the prophecies, my friends ; which, by recall- 
ing and expounding for your sakes, I shall en- 
deavour to lead you to agree with me also about 
this matter. The passage, then, which Isaiah 
records, ‘Who shall declare His generation? for 
His life is taken away from the earth,: —does it 
-not appear to you to refer to One who, not hav- 
ing descent from men, was said to be delivered 
over to death by God for the transgressions of 
the people ? — of whose blood, Moses (as I men- 
tioned before), when speaking in parable, said, 
that He would wash His garments in the blood 
of the grape; since His blood did not spring 
from the seed of man, but from the will of God. 
And then, what is said by David, ‘In the splen- 
dours of Thy holiness have I begotten Thee from 
the womb, before the morning star.2 The Lord 
_ hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest 
for ever, after the order of Melchizedek,’ 3 — does 
this not declare to you+ that [He was] from 
of old, and that the God and Father of all things 
intended Him to be begotten by a human 
womb? And speaking in other words, which 
also have been already quoted, [he says]: ‘Thy 
throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre 
of rectitude is the sceptre of Thy kingdom. 
Thou hast loved righteousness, and hast hated 
iniquity: therefore God, even thy God, hath 
anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above 
Thy fellows. [He hath anointed Thee] with 
myrrh, and oil, and cassia from Thy garments, 
from the ivory palaces, whereby they made Thee 
glad. Kings’ daughters are in Thy honour. 
The queen stood at Thy right hand, clad in 
garments embroidered with gold. Hearken, 
© daughter, and behold, and incline thine ear, 
and forget thy people and the house of thy 
father; and the King shall desire thy beauty : 
because he is thy Lord, and thou shalt worship 
Him.’7 Therefore these words testify explicitly 
that He is witnessed to by Him who established 
these things,® as deserving to be worshipped, as 
God and ist. Moreover, that the word o 
God speaks to those who believe in Him as be- 
ing one soul, and one synagogue, and one church, 
as to a daughter; that it thus addresses the 
church which has sprung from His name and 
partakes of His name (for we are all called 
Christians), is distinctly proclaimed in like man- 
ner in the following words, which teach us also 
to forget [our] old ancestral customs, when they 
speak thus :9 ‘ Hearken, O daughter, and behold, 





1 Isa. liii. 8. 

2 Note this beautiful rendering, Ps. cx. 3. 

3 Ps, cx. 4. 

4 Or, “‘to us.” é 

S dvwOev; in Lat. vers. antiguitus, which Maranus prefers. 
6 Literally, ‘‘ garments of gold, variegated. 

7 Ps, xlv. 6-11. 

8 The incarnation, etc. 

9 “ Being so,” literally. 








and incline thine ear; forget thy people and the 
house of thy father, and the King shall desire 
thy beauty: because He is thy Lord, and thou 
shalt worship Him.’ ” 


CHAP. LXIV.— JUSTIN ADDUCES OTHER PROOFS TO 
THE JEW, WHO DENIES THAT HE NEEDS THIS 
CHRIST. 


Here Trypho said, “ Let Him be recognised 
as Lord and Christ and God, as the Scriptures 
declare, by you of the Gentiles, who have from 
His name been all called Christians ; but we who 
are servants of God that made this same [Christ], 
do not require to confess or worship Him.” 

To this I replied, “If I were to be quarrel- 
some and light-minded like you, Trypho, I would 
no longer continue to converse with you, since 
you are prepared not to understand what has 
been said, but only to return some captious 
answer ; '° but now, since I fear the judgment of 
God, I do not state an untimely opinion con- 
cerning any one of your nation, as to whether 
or not some of them may be saved by the grace 
of the Lord of Sabaoth. Therefore, although 
you act wrongfully, I shall continue to reply to 
any proposition you shall bring forward, and 
to any contradiction which you make ; and, in 
fact, I do the very same to all men of every 
nation, who wish to examine along with me, or 
make inquiry at me, regarding this subject. 
Accordingly, if you had bestowed attention on 
the Scriptures previously quoted by me, you 
would already have understood, that those who 
are saved of your own nation are saved through 
this * [man], and partake of His lot; and you 
would not certainly have asked me about this 
matter. I shall again repeat the words of David 
previously quoted by me, and beg of you to 
comprehend them, and not to act wrongfully, 
and stir each other up to give merely some con- 
tradiction. The words which David speaks, 
then, are these : ‘The Lord has reigned ; let the 
nations be angry: [it is] He who sits upon the 
cherubim ; let the earth be shaken. The Lord 
is great in Zion; and He is high above all the 
nations. Let them confess Thy great name, for 
it is fearful and holy; and the honour of the 
king loves judgment. Thou hast prepared 
equity ; judgment and righteousness hast Thou 
performed in Jacob. Exalt the Lord our God, 
and worship the footstool of His feet; for He 
is holy. Moses and Aaron among His priests, 
and Samuel among them that call upon His 
name ; they called on the Lord, and He heard 
them. In the pillar of the cloud He spake to 
them; for they kept His testimonies and His 
commandments which He gave them.’% And 





To Literally, “‘ but only sharpen yourselves to say something.” 
11 (Or, “this one.”’] 
12 Ps, xcix. 1-7. 


230 


from the other words of David, also previously 
quoted, which you foolishly affirm refer to Solo- 
mon, [because] inscribed for Solomon, it can 
be proved that they do not refer to Solomon, 
and that this [Christ] existed before the sun, 
and that those of your nation who are saved 
shall be saved through Him. [The words] are 
these : ‘O God, give Thy judgment to the king, 
and Thy righteousness unto the king’s son. He 
shall judge ‘ Thy people with righteousness, and 
Thy poor with judgment. The mountains shall 
take up peace to the people, and the little hills 
righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the 
people, and shall save the children of the needy, 
and shall abase the slanderer: and He shall 
co-endure with the sun, and before the moon 
unto all generations ;’ and so on until, ‘ His 
name endureth before the sun, and all tribes of 
the earth shall be blessed in Him. All nations 
shall call Him blessed. Blessed be the Lord, 
the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous 
things: and blessed be His glorious name for 
ever and ever: and the whole earth shall be 
filled with His glory. Amen, Amen.’? And 
you remember from other words also spoken by 
David, and which I have mentioned before, how 
it is declared that He would come forth from 
the highest heavens, and again return to the 
same places, in order that you may recognise 
Him as God coming forth from above, and man 
living among men; and [how it is declared] 
that He will again appear, and they who pierced 
Him shall see Him, and shall bewail Him. 
[The words] are these: ‘The heavens declare 
the glory of God, and the firmament showeth 
His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, 
and night unto night showeth knowledge. They 
are not speeches or words whose voices are 
heard. Their sound has gone out through all the 
earth, and their words to the ends of the world. 
In the sun has he set his habitation ; and he, like 
a bridegroom going forth from his chamber, will 
rejoice as a giant to run his race: from the 
highest heaven is his going forth, and he returns 
to the highest heaven, and there is not one who 
shall be hidden from his heat.’ ’”’ 3 


CHAP. LXV.— THE JEW OBJECTS THAT GOD DOES 
NOT GIVE HIS GLORY TO ANOTHER. JUSTIN EX- 
PLAINS THE PASSAGE. 


And Trypho said, “ Being shaken ¢ by so many 
Scriptures, I know not what to say about the Scrip- 
ture which Isaiah writes, in which God says that 
He gives not His glory to another, speaking thus : 
‘Tam the Lord God ; this is my name ; my glory 
will I not give to another, nor my virtues.’ ’’ 5 





T Or, ‘to judge,” as in chap, xxxiv. 
2 Ps, Ixxii. 1, etc 

3 xix. 1-6. 

4 Literally, ‘‘ importuned.” 

S Isa, xlix. 8. 





DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


And I answered, “If you spoke these words, 
Trypho, and then kept silence in simplicity ana 
with no ill intent, neither repeating what goes 
before nor adding what comes after, you must 
be forgiven ; but if [you have done so] because 
you imagined that you could throw doubt on the 
passage, in order that I might say the Scriptures 
contradicted each other, you have erred. But 
I shall not venture to suppose or to say such 
a thing ; and if a Scripture which appears to be 
of such a kind be brought forward, and if there 
be a pretext [for saying] that it is contrary [to 
some other], since I am entirely convinced that 
no Scripture contradicts another, I shall admit 
rather that I do not understand what is recorded, 
and shall strive to persuade those who imagine 
that the Scriptures are contradictory, to be 
rather of the same opinion as myself. With 
what intent, then, you have brought forward the 
difficulty, God knows. But I shall remind you 
of what the passage says, in order that you may 
recognise even from this very [place] that God 
gives glory to His Christ alone. And I shall 
take up some short passages, sirs, those which 
are in connection with what has been said by 
Trypho, and those which are also joined on in 
consecutive order. For I will not repeat those 
of another section, but those which are joined 
together in one. Do you also give me your 
attention. [The words] are these: ‘Thus saith 
the Lord, the God that created the heavens, 
and made ® them fast, that established the earth, 
and that which is in it; and gave breath to the 
people upon it, and spirit to them who walk 
therein: I the Lord God have called Thee in 
righteousness, and will hold Thine hand, and 
will strengthen Thee; and I have given Thee 
for a covenant of the people, for a light of the 
Gentiles, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring 
out them that are bound from the chains, and 
those who sit in darkness from the prison-house. 
I am the Lord God ; this is my name: my glory 
will I not give to another, nor my virtues to 
graven images. Behold, the former things are 
come to pass; new things which I announce, 
and before they are announced they are made 
manifest to you. Sing unto the Lord a new 
song: His sovereignty [is] from the end of the 
earth. [Sing], ye who descend into the sea, 
and continually ‘sail? [on it]; ye islands, and 
inhabitants thereof. Rejoice, O wilderness, and 
the villages thereof, and the houses; and the 
inhabitants of Cedar shall rejoice, and the in- 
habitants of the rock shall cry aloud from the 
top of the mountains: they shall give glory to 
God ; they shall publish His virtues among the 
islands. ‘The Lord God of hosts shall go forth, 
He shall destroy war utterly, He shall stir up 





§ Literally, “ fixed.” 
7 Or, “ ye islands which sail on it; ” or without “ continually.” 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





231 





zeal, and He shall cry aloud to the enemies 
with strength.’”* And when I repeated this, I 
said to them, “ Have you perceived, my friends, 
that God says He will give Him whom He has 
established as a light of the Gentiles, glory, and 
to no other; and not, as Trypho said, that God 
was retaining the glory to Himself?” 

Then Trypho answered, “We have perceived 
this also ; pass on therefore to the remainder of 
the discourse.” 


CHAP/ LXV — HE PROVES FROM ISAIAH THAT GOD 
~ WAS BORN FROM A VIRGIN. 


And I, resuming the discourse where I had 
left off? at a previous stage, when proving that 
He was born of a virgin, and that His birth of 
a virgin had been predicted by Isaiah, quoted 
again the same prophecy. It is as follows: 
‘And the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, 
Ask for thyself a sign from the Lord thy God, 
in the depth or in the height. And Ahaz said, 
I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. 
And Isaiah said, Hear then, O house of David ; 
Is it no small thing for you to contend with 
men? And how do you contend with the Lord ? 
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a 


sign; \Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and 
shall r a son, and they shall call his name 
Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat; 


before he knows or.-prefers the evil he will 
choose out the good: For before the child 
knows ill or good, h€ rejects evil by choosing 
out the good. For before the child knows how 
to call father or mother, he shall receive the 
power of Damascus, and the spoil of Samaria, 
in presence of the king of Assyria. And the 
jand shall be forsaken, which3 thou shalt with 
difficulty endure in consequence of the presence 
of its two kings. But God shall bring on thee, 
and on thy people, and on the house of thy 
father, days which have not yet come upon thee 
since the day in which Ephraim took away from 
Judah the king of Assyria.’”4 And I continued: 
“ Now it is evident to all, that in the race of 
Abraham according to the flesh no one has been 
born of a virgin, or is said to have been born 
[of a virgin], save this our Christ.” 


CHAP, LXVII. — TRYPHO COMPARES JESUS WITH 
PERSEUS } AND WOULD PREFER [TO SAY] THAT 
HE WAS ELECTED [TO BE CHRIST] ON ACCOUNT 
OF OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW. JUSTIN SPEAKS OF 
THE LAW AS FORMERLY. 


And Trypho answered, “‘ The Scripture has not, 
‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive,,and bear a 





I Isa, xlii. 5-13. 

2 Chap. xliii. 

3 mv, which is in chap, xliii., is here omitted, but ought to be 
inserted without doubt. mee 

4 Isa. vii. 10-17, with Isa. viii. 4 inserted between vers. 16 and 


37. 








son,’ but, ‘Behold, the young woman shall con- 
ceive, and bear a son,’ and so on, as you quoted. 
But the whole prophecy refers to Hezekiah, and 
it is proved that it was fulfilled in him, according 
to the terms of this prophecy. Moreover, in the 
fables of those who are called Greeks, it is written 
that Perseus was begotten of Danae, who was a 
virgin ; he who was called among them Zeus hav- 
ing descended on her in the form of a golden 
shower. And you ought to feel ashamed when 
you make assertions similar to theirs, and rather 
[should] say that this Jesus was born man of 
men. And if you prove from the Scriptures that 
He is the Christ, and that on account of having 
led a life conformed to the law, and perfect, He 
deserved the honour of being elected to be 
Christ, [it is well] ; but do not venture to tell 
monstrous phenomena, lest you be convicted 
of talking foolishly like the Greeks.” 

Then I said to this, “Trypho, I wish to per- 
suade you, and all men in short, of this, that 
even though you talk worse things in ridicule 
and in jest, you will not move me from my fixed 
design ; but I shall always adduce from the words 
which you think can be brought forward [by 
you] as proof [of your own views], the demon- 
stration of what I have stated along with the tes- 
timony of the Scriptures. You are not, however, 
acting fairly or truthfully in attempting to undo 
those things in which there has been constantly 
agreement between us; namely, that certain 
commands were instituted by Moses on account 
of the hardness of your people’s hearts. For 
you said that, by reason of His living conforma- 
bly to law, He was elected and became Christ, 
if indeed He were proved to be so.” 

And Trypho said, “ You admitted 5 to us that 
He was both circumcised, and observed the 
other legal ceremonies ordained by Moses.” 

And I replied, “I have admitted it, and do 
admit it: yet I have admitted that He endured 
all these not as if He were justified by them, but 
completing the dispensation which His Father, 
the Maker of all things, and Lord and God, 
wished Him [to complete]. For I admit that 
He endured crucifixion and death, and the in- 
carnation, and the suffering of as many afflic- 
tions as your nation put upon Him. But since 
again you dissent from that to which you but 
lately assented, Trypho, answer me: Are those 
righteous patriarchs who lived before Moses, 
who observed none of those [ordinances] which, 
the Scripture shows, received the commence- 
ment of [their] institution from Moses, saved, 
[and have they attained to] the inheritance of 
the blessed?” 





5 We have not seen that Justin admitted this; but itis not to be 
supposed that the passage where he did, admit it has been lost, as 
Perionius suspected; for sometimes Justin refers to passages at other 
places, which he did not relate in their own place. — MARANUS. 


232 





DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


And Trypho said, “The Scriptures compel order to give our assent to those things which 


me to admit it.” 

“ Likewise I again ask you,” said I, “ did God 
enjoin your fathers to present the offerings and 
sacrifices because He had need of them, or be- 
cause of the hardness of their hearts and ten- 
dency to idolatry?” 

“The latter,” said he, “the Scriptures in like 
manner compel us to admit.” 

“Likewise,” said I, “did not the Scriptures 
predict that God promised to dispense a new 
covenant besides that which [was dispensed] in 
the mountain Horeb?” 

This, too, he replied, had been predicted. 

Then I said again, “‘Was not the old cove- 
nant laid on your fathers with fear and trembling, 
so that they could not give ear to God?” 

He admitted it. 

“What then?” said I: “God promised that 
there would be another covenant, not like that 
old one, and said that it would be laid on them 
without fear, and trembling, and lightnings, and 
that it would be such as to show what kind of 
commands and deeds God knows to be eternal 
and suited to every nation, and what command- 
ments He has given, suiting them to the hard- 
ness of your people’s hearts, as He exclaims also 
by the prophets.” 

“To this also,” said he, “ those who are lovers 
of truth and not lovers of strife must assuredly 
assent.” 

Then I replied, “I know not how you speak 
of persons very fond of strife, [since] you your- 
self oftentimes were plainly acting in this very 
manner, frequently contradicting what you had 
agreed to.” 


CHAP. LXVIIIl. — HE COMPLAINS OF THE OBSTINACY 
OF TRYPHO ; HE ANSWERS HIS OBJECTION; HE 
CONVICTS THE JEWS OF BAD FAITH. 


And Trypho said, “You endeavour to prove 
an incredible and well-nigh impossible thing ; 
[namely], that God endured to be born and _be- 
come man.” 

“Tf I undertook,” said I, “to prove this by 
doctrines or arguments of man, you should not 
bear with me. But if I quote frequently Scrip- 
tures, and so many of them, referring to this 
point, and ask you to comprehend them, you 
are hard-hearted in the recognition of the mind 
and will of God. But if you wish to remain for 
ever so, I would not be injured at all; and 
for ever retaining the same [opinions] which I 
had before I met with you, I shall leave you.” 

And Trypho said, “ Look, my friend, you made 
yourself master of these [truths] with much 
labour and toil! And we accordingly must 
diligently scrutinize all that we meet with, in 


1 [Note the courteous admission of Trypho, and the consent of 
both parties to the duty of searching the Scriptures. ] 











the Scriptures compel us [to believe ].” 

Then I said to this, “Ido not ask you not to 
strive earnestly by all means, in making an in- 
vestigation of the matters inquired into; but [I 
ask you], when you have nothing to say, not to 
contradict those things which you said you had 
admitted.” 

And Trypho said, “So we shall endeavour to 
aon” 

I continued again: “ In addition to the ques- 
tions I have just now put to you, I wish to put 
more: for by means of these questions I shall 
strive to bring the discourse to a speedy termi- 
nation.” ; 

And Trypho said, “ Ask the questions.” 

‘Then I said, “Do you think that any other 
one is said to be worthy of worship and called 
Lord and God in the Scriptures, except the 
Maker of all, and Christ, who by so many Scrip- 
tures was proved to you to have become man?” 

And Trypho replied, “ How can we admit this, 
when we have instituted so great an inquiry as 
to whether there is any other than the Father 
alone?” 

Then I again said, “I must ask you this also, 
that I may know whether or not you are of a 
different opinion from that which you admitted 
some time ago.” 2 

He replied, “ It is not, sir.” 

Then again I, “Since you certainly admit 
these things, and since Scripture says, ‘Who 
shall declare His generation?’ ought you not 
now to suppose that He is not the seed of a 
human race?” 

And Trypho said, “ How then does the Word 
say to David, that out of his loins God shall take 
to Himself a Son, and shall establish His kingdom, 
and shall set Him on the throne of His glory?” 

And I said, “Trypho, if the prophecy which 
Isaiah uttered, “ Behold, the virgin shall con- 
ceive,’ is said not to the house of David, but to 
another house of the twelve tribes, perhaps the 
matter would have some difficulty; but since 
this prophecy refers to the house of David, Isaiah 
has explained how that which was spoken by God 
to David in mystery would take place. But per- 
haps you are not aware of this, my friends, that 
there were many sayings written obscurely, or 
parabolically, or mysteriously, and symbolical 
actions, which the prophets who lived after the 
persons who said or did them expounded.” 

“ Assuredly,” said Trypho. 

“Tf, therefore, I shall show that this prophecy 
of Isaiah refers to our Christ, and not to Heze- 
kiah, as you say, shall I not in this matter, too, 
compel you not to believe your teachers, who 
venture to assert that the explanation which your 


2 réws: Vulg. wapa @eg, vitiose. — Orr. 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





233 








seventy elders that were with Ptolemy the king 
of the Egyptians gave, is untrue in certain re- 
spects? For some statements in the Scriptures, 
which appear explicitly to convict them of a 
foolish and vain opinion, these they venture to 
assert have not been so written. But other state- 
ments, which they fancy they can distort and 
harmonize with human actions,‘ these, they say, 
refer not to this Jesus Christ of ours, but to him 
of whom they are pleased to explain them. 
Thus, for instance, they have taught you that 
this Scripture which we are now discussing refers 
to Hezekiah, in which, as I promised, I shall 
show they are wrong. And since they are com- 
pelled, they agree that some Scriptures which we 
mention to them, and which expressly prove that 
Christ was to suffer, to be worshipped, and [to 
be called] God, and which I have already recited 
to you, do refer indeed to Christ, but they ven- 
ture to assert that this man is not Christ. But 
they admit that He will come to suffer, and to 
reign, and to be worshipped, and to be God ;? 
and this opinion I shall in like manner show to 
be ridiculous and silly. But since I am pressed 
to answer first to what was said by you in jest, I 
shall make answer to it, and shall afterwards give 
replies to what follows. 


CHAP. LXIX.—THE DEVIL, SINCE HE EMULATES 
THE TRUTH, HAS INVENTED FABLES ABOUT BAC- 
CHUS, HERCULES, AND Z=SCULAPIUS. 


“‘ Be well assured, ‘then, Trypho,” I continued, 
“that I am established in the knowledge of and 
faith in the Scriptures by those counterfeits which 
he who is called the devil is said to have per- 
formed among the Greeks; just as some were 
wrought by the Magi in Egypt, and others by the 
false prophets in Elijah’s days. For when they 
tell that Bacchus, son of Jupiter, was begotten by 
[Jupiter’s] intercourse with Semele, and that he 
was the discoverer of the vine ; and when they 
relate, that being torn in pieces, and having died, 
he rose again, and ascended to heaven ; and 
when they introduce wine’ into his mysteries, 
do I not perceive that [the devil] has imitated 
the prophecy announced by the patriarch Jacob, 
and recorded by Moses? And when they tell 
that Hercules was strong, and travelled over all 
the world, and was begotten by Jove of Alcmene, 
and ascended to heaven when he died, do I not 
perceive that the Scripture which speaks of 
Christ, ‘strong as a giant to run his race,’ + has 
been in like manner imitated? And when he 
[the devil] brings forward Aisculapius as the 
raiser of the dead and healer of all diseases, may 
I not say that in this matter likewise he has 





I The text is corrupt, and various emendations have been proposed. 

2 Or, “and to be worshipped as God.” 

3 Or,“anass.” The ass was sacred to Bacchus; and many fluctu- 
ate between olvoy and ovor. 

4 Ps. xix. 5. 





imitated the prophecies about Christ? But since 
I have not quoted to you such Scripture as tells 
that Christ will do these things, I must neces- 
sarily remind you of one such: from which you 
can understand, how that to those destitute of a 
knowledge of God, I mean the Gentiles, who, 
‘having eyes, saw not, and having a heart, under- 
stood not,’ worshipping the images of wood, 
[how even to them] Scripture prophesied that 
they would renounce these [vanities], and hope 
in this Christ. It is thus written: ‘ Rejoice, 
thirsty wilderness: let the wilderness be glad, 
and blossom as the lily: the deserts of the Jor- 
dan shall both blossom and be glad: and the 
glory of Lebanon was given to it, and the honour 
of Carmel. And my people shall see the exal- 
tation of the Lord, and the glory of God. Be 
strong, ye careless hands and enfeebled knees. 
Be comforted, ye faint in soul: be strong, fear 
not. Behold, our God gives, and will give, re- 
tributive judgment. He shall come and save us. 
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and 
the ears of the deaf shall hear. ‘Then the lame 
shall leap as an hart, and the tongue of the stam- 
merers shall be distinct: for water has broken 
forth in the wilderness, and a valley in the thirsty 
land; and the parched ground shall become 
pools, and a spring of water shall [rise up] in 
the thirsty land.’5 The spring of living water 
which gushed forth from God in the land desti- 
tute of the knowledge of God, namely the land 
of the Gentiles, was this Christ, who also ap- 
peared in your nation, and healed those who 
were maimed, and deaf, and lame in body from 
their birth, causing them to leap, to hear, and to 
see, by His word. And having raised the dead, 
and causing them to live, by His deeds He com- 
pelled the men who lived at that time to recog- 
nise Him. But though they saw such works, 
they asserted it was magical art. For they dared 
to call Him a magician, and a deceiver of the 
people. Yet He wrought such works, and per- 
suaded those who were [destined to] believe on 
Him ; for even if any one be labouring under a 
defect of body, yet be an observer of the doc- 
trines delivered by Him, He shall raise him up 
at His second advent perfectly sound, after He 
has made him immortal, and incorruptible, and 
free from grief. 


CHAP. LXX. —SO ALSO THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRAS 
ARE DISTORTED FROM THE PROPHECIES OF 
DANIEL AND ISAIAH. 


«And when those who record the mysteries 
of Mithras say that he was begotten of a rock, 
and call the place where those who believe in 
him are initiated a cave, do I not perceive here 
that the utterance of Daniel, that a stone with- 
rr che ele My eS A ag ee 


5 Isa, xxxv. I-7- 


234 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





out hands was cut out of a great mountain, has 
been imitated by them, and that they have at- 
tempted likewise to imitate the whole of Isaiah’s* 
words?? For they: contrived that the words of 
righteousness be quoted also by them.* But I 
must repeat to you the words of Isaiah referred 
to, in order that from them you may know that 
these things are so. They are these: ‘ Hear, ye 
that are far off, what I have done ; those that are 
near shall know my might. The sinners in Zion 
are removed ; trembling shall seize the impious. 
Who shall announce to you the everlasting place ? 
The man who walks in righteousness, speaks in 
the right way, hates sin and unrighteousness, 
and keeps his hands pure from bribes, stops the 
ears from hearing the unjust judgment of blood, 
closes the eyes from seeing unrighteousness: he 
shall dwell in the lofty cave of the strong rock. 
Bread shall be given to him, and his water [shall 
be] sure. Ye shall see the King with glory, and 
your eyes shall look far off. Your soul shall 
pursue diligently the fear of the Lord. Where 
is the scribe? where are the counsellors? where 
is he that numbers those who are nourished, — 
the small and great people? with whom they did 
not take counsel, nor knew the depth of the 
voices, so that they heard not. The people who 
are become depreciated, and there is no under- 
standing in him who hears.’5 Now it is evident, 
that in this prophecy [allusion is made] to the 
bread which our Christ gave us to eat,® in re- 
membrance of His being made flesh for the sake 
of His believers, for whom also He suffered ; 
and to the cup which He gave us to drink,° in 
remembrance of His own blood, with giving of 
thanks. And this prophecy proves that we shall 
behold this very King with glory ; and the very 
terms of the prophecy declare loudly, that the 
people foreknown to believe in Him were fore- 
known to pursue diligently the fear of the Lord. 
Moreover, these Scriptures are equally explicit 
in saying, that those who are reputed to know 
the writings of the Scriptures, and who hear the 
prophecies, have no understanding. And when 
I hear, Trypho,” said I, “that Perseus was be- 





1 The text here has tadra wovqoat opmoiws. 
*Heaiov for rovjoat; and so we have translated. 

2 Justin says that the priests of Mithras imitated all the words of 
Isaiah about to be quoted; and to prove it, is content with a single 
example, namely, the precepts of righteousness, which they were wont 
to relate to him, as in these words of Isaiah: ‘He who walks in 
righteousness,” etc. Justin omitted many other passages, as easy and 
obvious. For since Mithras is the same as fire, it manifestly answers 
to the fire of which Isaiah speaks. And since Justin reminded them 
who are initiated, that they are said to be initiated by Mithras him- 
self, it was not necessary to remind them that the words of Isaiah are 
imitated in this: ‘‘ You shall see the King with glory.” Bread and 
water are referred to by Isaiah: so also in these mysteries of Mithras, 
Justin testifies that bread and a cup of water are placed before them 
(Apol. i.). — MaRANus. 

3 ie, the devils. 

4 i.e., the priests of Mithras, 

5 Isa, xxxiii. 13-19. 

§ Literally, “‘to do,” movety, (The horrible charge of banqueting 
on blood, etc., constantly repeated against Christians, was probably 
based on the Eucharist. See Kaye’s [i/ustrations from Tatian, 
Athenagorus, and Theoph. Antioch., cap, ix. p. 153.] 


Maranus suggests 





gotten of a virgin, I understand that the deceiv- 
ing serpent counterfeited also this. 


CHAP, LXXI.—THE JEWS REJECT THE INTERPRETA- 
TION OF THE LXX., FROM WHICH, MOREOVER, 
THEY HAVE TAKEN AWAY SOME PASSAGES. 


“But I am far from putting reliance in your 
teachers, who refuse to admit that the interpre- 
tation made by the seventy elders who were with 
Ptolemy [king] of the Egyptians is a correct 
one; and they attempt to frame another. And 
I wish you to observe, that they have altogether 
taken away many Scriptures from the translations 
effected by those seventy elders who were with 
Ptolemy, and by which this very man who was 
crucified is proved to have been-set forth ex- 
pressly as God, and man, and as being crucified, 
and as dying ; but since I am aware that this is 
denied by all of your nation, I do not address 
myself to these points, but I proceed? to carry 
on my discussions by means of those passages 
which are still admitted by you. For you assent 
to those which I have brought before your atten- 
tion, except that you contradict the statement, 
‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive,’ and say it 
ought to be read, ‘Behold, the young woman 
shall conceive.’ And I promised to prove that 
the prophecy referred, not, as you were taught, 
to Hezekiah, but to this Christ of mine : and now 
I shall go to the proof.” 

[Here Trypho remarked, “ We ask you first of 
alFto tell us some of the Scriptures which you 
allege have been completely cancelled.” 


CHAP. LXXII. + PASSAGES HAVE BEEN REMOVED 
BY THE JEWS FROM ESDRAS AND ee 
rom 


And I said, “TI shall do as you please. 
the statements, then, which Esdras made in refer- 
ence to the law of the passover, they have taken 
away the following: ‘And Esdras said to the 
people, This passover is our Saviour and our ref- 
uge. And if you have understood, and your 
heart has taken it in, that we shall humble Him 
on a standard, and® thereafter hope in Him, 
then this place shall not be forsaken for ever, 
says the God of hosts. But if you will not be- 
lieve Him, and will not listen to His declaration 
you shall be a laughing-stock to the nations’? 
And from the sayings of Jeremiah they have cut 
out the following: ‘I [was] like a lamb that is 
brought to the slaughter: they devised a device 
against me, saying, Come, let us lay on wood on 
His bread, and let us blot Him out from the land 
of the living ; ra His name shall no more be 
remembered.’'2’ And since this passage from the 
sayings of Jeremiah is still written in some copies 





7 Or, ‘‘ profess.”” 

8 Or, “‘ even if we.” 

9 It is not known where this passage comes from. 
10 Jer. xi. 19. 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





{of the Scriptures] in the synagogues of the 
Jews (for it is only a short time since they were 
cut out), and since from these words it is demon- 
strated that the Jews deliberated about the Christ 
Himself, to crucify and put Him to death, He 
Himself is both declared to be led as a sheep to 
the slaughter, as was predicted by Isaiah, and 
is here represented as a harmless lamb; but 
being in a difficulty about them, they give them- 
selves over to blasphemy. And again, from the 
sayings of the same Jeremiah these have been 
cut out: ‘The Lord God remembered His dead 
people of Israel who lay in the graves; and He 
descended to preach to them His own salva- 
tion.’ ' 


CHAP. LXXIII.—[THE WORDS] “FROM THE WOOD” 
HAVE BEEN CUT OUT OF PS. XCVI. ? 


“And from the ninety-fifth (ninety-sixth) 
Psalm they have taken away this short saying of 
the words of David: ‘From the wood.’? For 
when the passage said, ‘Tell ye among the na- 
tions, the Lord hath reigned from the wood,’ they 
have left, ‘Tell ye among the nations, the Lord 
hath reigned.’ Now no one of your people has 
ever been said to have reigned as God and Lord 
among the nations, with the exception of Him 
only who was crucified, of whom also the Holy 
Spirit affirms in the same Psalm that He was 
raised again, and freed from [the grave], declar- 
ing that there is none like Him among the gods 
of the nations: for they are idols of demons. But 
I shall repeat the whole Psalm to you, that you 
may perceive what has been said. It is thus: 
‘Sing unto the Lord a new song; sing unto the 
Lord, all the earth. Sing unto the Lord, and bless 
His name ; show forth His salvation from day to 
day. Declare His glory among the nations, His 
wonders among all people. For the Lord is great, 
and greatly to be praised : He is to be feared above 
all the gods. For all the gods of the nations are 
demons but the Lord made the heavens. Con- 
fession and beauty are in His presence ; holiness 
and magnificence are in His sanctuary. Bring 
to the Lord, O ye countries of the nations, bring 
to the Lord glory and honour, bring to the Lord 
gloryin His name. Take sacrifices, and go into 
His courts ; worship the Lord in His holy tem- 
ple. Let the whole earth be moved before Him: 
tell ye among the nations, the Lord hath reigned.3 
For He hath established the world, which shall 
not be moved; He shall judge the nations with 
equity. Let the heavens rejoice, and the earth 
be glad ; let the sea and its fulness shake. Let 
the fields and all therein be joyful. Let all the 
ee Oe ay aa ander unt ot foreach. — 
MR nse words were not taken away by the Jews, but added by 
some Christian. — Otro. [A statement not proved. ] 


3 It is strange that ‘‘ from the wood” is not added; but the auda- 
city of the copyists in such matters is well known. — MARANUS. 





435 














trees of the wood be glad before the Lord: for 
He comes, for He comes to judge the earth. 
He shall judge the world with righteousness, and 
the people with His truth.’ ” 

Here Trypho remarked, “ Whether [or not] 
the rulers of the people have erased any portion 
of the Scriptures, as you affirm, God knows ; but 
it seems incredible.” 

“ Assuredly,” said I, “it does seem incredible. 
For it is more horrible than the calf which they 
made, when satisfied with manna on the earth ; 
or than the sacrifice of children to demons ; or 
than the slaying of the prophets. But,” said I, 
“you appear to me not to have heard the Scrip- 
tures which I said they had stolen away. For 
such as have been quoted are more than enough 
to prove the points in dispute, besides those 
which are retained by us,* and shall yet be 
brought forward.” 


CHAP, LXXIV.—THE BEGINNING OF PS. XCVI. IS 
ATTRIBUTED TO THE FATHER [BY TRYPHO]. 
BUT [IT REFERS] TO CHRIST BY THESE WORDS : 
“TELL YE AMONG THE NATIONS THAT THE 
LORD,” ETC. 


Then Trypho said, “ We know that you quoted 
these because we asked you. But it does not 
appear to me that this Psalm which you quoted 
last from the words of David refers to any other 
than the Father and Maker of the heavens and 
earth. You, however, asserted that it referred 
to Him who suffered, whom you also are eagerly 
endeavouring to prove to be Christ.” 

And I answered, “Attend to me, I beseech 
you, while I speak of the statement which the 
Holy Spirit gave utterance to in this Psalm ; and 
you shall know that I speak not sinfully, and that 
we 5 are not really bewitched ; for so you shall be 
enabled of yourselves to understand many other 
statements made by the Holy Spirit. ‘Sing unto 
the Lord ‘a new song ; sing unto the Lord, all the 
earth: sing unto the Lord, and bless His name ; 
show forth His salvation from day to day, His 
wonderful works among all people.’ He bids 
the inhabitants of all the earth, who have known 
the mystery of this salvation, i.e., the suffering of 
Christ, by which He saved them, sing and give 
praises to God the Father of all things, and 
recognise that He is to be praised and feared, 
and that He is the Maker of heaven and earth, 
who effected this salvation in behalf of the hu- 
man race, who also was crucified and was dead, 
and who was deemed worthy by Him (God) to 
reign over all the earth. As [is clearly seen °] 
also by the land into which [He said] He would 
ee en 

4 Many think, “you.” 


5 In text, “‘ you.” Maranus suggests, as far better, “ we.” 
6 Something is here wanting; the suggested reading of Maranus 


has been adopted. [As to omissions between this chapter and the ners 
critics are not agreed. The Benedictine editors see no proofs 


them. ] 


236 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


OP ee 


bring [your fathers] ; [for He thus speaks] :" 
‘This people [shall go a whoring after other 
gods], and shall forsake Me, and shall break my 
covenant which I made with them in that day ; 
and I will forsake them, and will turn away My 
face from them; and they shall be devoured,’ 
and many evils and afflictions shall find them 
out; and they shall say in that day, Because the 
Lord my God is not amongst us, these misfor- 
tunes have found us out. And I shall certainly 
turn away My face from them in that day, on 
account of all the evils which they have commit- 
ted, in that they have turned to other gods.’ 3 


CHAP. LXXV.—IT IS PROVED THAT JESUS WAS THE 
NAME OF GOD IN THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 


“ Moreover, in the book of Exodus we have 
also perceived that the name of God Himself, 
which, He says, was not revealed to Abraham or 
to Jacob, was Jesus, and was declared mysteri- 
ously through Moses. Thus it is written: ‘And 
the Lord spake to Moses, Say to this people, 
Behold, I send My angel before thy face, to keep 
thee in the way, to bring thee into the land which 
I have prepared for thee. Give heed to Him, 
and obey Him; do not disobey Him. For He 
will not draw back from you ; for My name is in 
Him.’* Now understand that He who led your 
fathers into the land is called by this name Jesus, 
and first called Auses5 (Oshea). For if you 
shall understand this, you shall likewise perceive 
that the name of Him who said to Moses, ‘ for 
My name is in Him,’ was Jesus. For, indeed, 
He was also called Israel, and Jacob’s name was 
changed to this also. Now Isaiah shows that 
those prophets who are sent to publish tidings 
from God are called His angels and apostles. 
For Isaiah says in a certain place, ‘Send me.’® 
And that the prophet whose name was changed, 
Jesus [Joshua], was strong and great, is manifest 
to all. If, then, we know that God revealed 
Himself in so many forms to Abraham, and to 
Jacob, and to Moses, how are we at a loss, and 
do not believe that, according to the will of the 
Father of all things, it was possible for Him to 
be born man of the Virgin, especially after we 
have such? Scriptures, from which it can be 
plainly perceived that He became so according 
to the will of the Father? 


CHAP. LXXVI.—FROM OTHER PASSAGES THE SAME 
MAJESTY AND GOVERNMENT OF CHRIST ARE 
PROVED. 


“For when Daniel speaks of ‘one like unto 


I Deut. xxxi. 16-18. 
2 Literally, ‘ for food.” 
_ 3 The first conference seems to have ended hereabout. [It occu- 
pC two days. But the student must consult the learned note of 
aye (Fustin Martyr, p. 20, Rivingtons, London. 1853).] 
4 Ex. xxiii, 20, 21. 
5 ey xiii. 16.] 
® Isa. vi. 8. 
7 Or, “‘ so many.” 











the Son of man’ who received the everlasting 
kingdom, does he not hint at this very thing? 
For he declares that, in saying ‘like unto the Son 
of man,’ He appeared, and was man, but not of 
human seed. And the same thing he proclaimed 
in mystery when she speaks of this stone which 
was cut out without hands. For the expression 
‘it was cut out without hands’ signified that it is 
not a work of man, but [a work] of the will of 
the Father and God of all things, who brought 
Him forth. And when Isaiah says, ‘Who shall 
declare His generation?’ he meant that His de- 
scent could not be declared. Now no one who 
is a man of men has a descent that cannot be 
declared. And when Moses says that He will 
wash His garments in the blood of the grape, 
does not this signify what I have now often told 
you is an obscure prediction, namely, that He 
had blood, but not from men ; just as not man, 
but God, has begotten the blood of the vine? 
And when Isaiah calls Him the Angel of mighty 
counsel,’ did he not foretell Him to be the 
Teacher of those truths which He did teach 
when He came [toearth]? For Healone taught 
openly those mighty counsels which the Father 
designed both for all those who have been and 
shall be well-pleasing to Him, and also for those 
who have rebelled against His will, whether men 
or angels, when He said : ‘ They shall come from 
the east [and from the west 9], and shall sit down 
with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the 
kingdom of heaven: but the children of the 
kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness.’ *° 
And, ‘ Many shall say to Me in that day, Lord, 
Lord, have we not eaten, and drunk, and prophe- 
sied, and cast out demons in Thy name? And 
I will say to them, Depart from Me.’*" Again, 
in other words, by which He shall condemn 
those who are unworthy of salvation, He said, 
‘Depart into outer darkness, which the Father 
has prepared for Satan and his angels.’** And 
again, in other words, He said, ‘I give unto you 
power to tread on serpents, and on scorpions, 
and on scolopendras, and on all the might of the 
enemy.’ '3 And now we, who believe on our 
Lord Jesus, who was crucified under Pontius 
Pilate, when we exorcise all demons and evil 
spirits, have them subjected to us. For if the 
prophets declared obscurely that Christ would 
suffer, and thereafter be Lord of all, yet that 
[declaration] could not be understood by any 
man until He Himself persuaded the apostles 
that such statements were expressly related in 
the Scriptures. For He exclaimed before His 
crucifixion: ‘The Son of man must suffer many 

> No ad okt ea 

10 Matt. viii. 11. 

Il Matt. vil. 22. 

12 Matt. xxv. 41. 


13 Luke x. 19. 


“And on scolopendras” (i.e. 7 
BG co [ scolopendras” (i.e. centipedes) not 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


237 





things, and be rejected by the Scribes and Phari- 
sees, and be crucified, and on the third day rise 
again.’: And David predicted that He would 
be born from the womb before sun and moon,? 
according to the Father’s will, and made Him 
known, being Christ, as God strong and to be 
worshipped.” 


CHAP. LXXVII.— HE RETURNS TO EXPLAIN THE 
PROPHECY OF ISAIAH. 


Then Trypho said, “I admit that such and so 
great arguments are sufficient to persuade one ; 
but I wish [you] to know that I ask you for the 
proof which you have frequently proposed to 
give me. Proceed then to make this plain to us, 
that we may see how you prove that that [pas- 
sage] refers to this Christ of yours. For we as- 
sert that the prophecy relates to Hezekiah.” 
And I replied, “I shall do as you wish. But 
show me yourselves first of all how it is said of 
Hezekiah, that before he knew how to call father 
or mother, he received the power of Damascus 
and the spoils of Samaria in the presence of the 
king of Assyria. For it will not be conceded to 
you, as you wish to explain it, that Hezekiah 
waged war with the inhabitants of Damascus 
and Samaria in presence of the king of Assyria. 
‘For before the child knows how to call father 
or mother,’ the prophetic word said, ‘He shall 
take the power of Damascus and spoils of Sa- 
maria in presence of the king of Assyria.’ For 
if the Spirit of prophecy had not made the state- 
ment with an addition, ‘ Before the child knows 
how to call father or mother, he shall take the 
power of Damascus and spoils of Samaria,’ but 
had only said, ‘And shall bear a son, and he 
shall take the power of Damascus and _ spoils 
of Samaria,’ then you might say that God foretold 
that he would take these things, since He fore- 
knew it. But now the prophecy has stated it 
with this addition : ‘Before the child knows how 
to call father or mother, he shall take the power 
of Damascus and spoils of Samaria.’ And you 
cannot prove that such a thing ever happened 
to any one among the Jews. But we are able to 
prove that it happened in the case of our Christ. 
For at the time of His birth, Magi who came from 
Arabia worshipped Him, coming first to Herod, 
who then was sovereign in your land, and whom 
the Scripture calls king of Assyria on account of 
his ungodlyand sinful character. For you know,” 
continued I, “that the Holy Spirit oftentimes 
announces such events by parables and simili- 
tudes ; just as He did towards all the people in 





I Luke ix. 22. ’ Sar’, 
2 Justin puts “ sun and moon.” instead of ‘ Lucifer. 
Sept, compounded with Prov, vi. 27e] Maranus says, 
redict, not that Christ would be born of Mary before sun and moon, 
bia that it would happen before sun and moon that He would be born 
of a virgin. 


Ps, cx. 3, 
avid did 





Jerusalem, frequently saying to them, ‘Thy father 
is an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite.’ 3 


CHAP. LXXVIII. — HE PROVES THAT THIS PROPHECY 
HARMONIZES WITH CHRIST ALONE, FROM WHAT 
IS AFTERWARDS WRITTEN. i 


“Now this king Herod, at the time when the 
Magi came to him from Arabia, and said they 
knew from a star which appeared in the heavens 
that a King had been born in your country, and 
that they had come to worship Him, learned 
from the elders of your people that it was thus 
written regarding Bethlehem in the prophet: 
‘And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art 
by no means least among the princes of Judah ; 
for out of thee shall go forth the leader who shall 
feed my people.’* Accordingly the Magi from 
Arabia came to Bethlehem and worshipped the 
Child, and presented Him with gifts, gold and 
frankincense, and myrrh; but returned not to 
Herod, being warned in a revelation after wor- 
shipping the Child in Bethlehem. And Joseph, 
the spouse of Mary, who wished at first to put 
away his betrothed Mary, supposing her to be 
pregnant by intercourse with a man, ive., IfOm, 
fornication, was commanded in a vision not to 
put away his wife ; and the angel who appeared 
to him told him that what is in her womb is of 
the Holy Ghost. Then he was afraid, and did 
not put her away; but on the occasion of the 
first census which was taken in Judza, under 
Cyrenius, he went up from Nazareth, where he 
lived, to Bethlehem, to which he belonged, to 
be enrolled ; for his family was of the tribe of 
Judah, which then inhabited that region. Then 
along with Mary he is ordered to proceed into 
Egypt, and remain there with the Child until 
another revelation warn them to return into 
Judzea. But when the Child was born in Beth- 
lehem, since Joseph could not find a lodging in 
that village, he took up his quarters in a certain 
cave near the village ; and while they were there 
Mary brought forth the Christ and placed Him 
in a manger, and here the Magi who came from 
Arabia found Him. I have repeated to you,” | 
continued, “ what Isaiah foretold about the sign 
which foreshadowed the cave ; but for the sake 
of those who have come with us to-day, I shall 
again remind you of the passage.” Then I re- 
peated the passage from Isaiah which I have , 
already written, adding that, by means of those 
words, those who presided over the mysteries of 
Mithras were stirred up by the devil to say that 
in a place, called among them a cave, they were 
initiated by him.s “So Herod, when the Magi 





3 Ezek. xvi. 3. 
4 Mic. v. 2. : : 
5 Text has, by “‘them;” but Maranus etek artifice lay in the 
riest’s compelling the initiated to say that Mithras himself was the 
initiator in the cave, 


238 





from Arabia did not return to him, as he had 
asked them to do, but had departed by another. 
way to their own country, according to the com- 
mands laid on them; and when Joseph, with 
Mary and the Child, had now gone into Egypt, 
as it was revealed to them to do; as he did not 
know the Child whom the Magi had gone to 
worship, ordered simply the whole of the children 
then in Bethlehem to be massacred. And Jere- 
miah prophesied that this would happen, speak- 
ing by the Holy Ghost thus: ‘A voice was heard 
in Ramah, lamentation and much wailing, Rachel 
weeping for her children ; and she would not be 
comforted, because they are not.’* Therefore, 
on account of the voice which would be heard 
from Ramah, ie., from Arabia (for there is in 
Arabia at this very time a place called Rama), 
wailing would come on the place where Rachel 
the wife of Jacob called Israel, the holy patriarch, 
has beén buried, i.e., on Bethlehem ; while the 
women weep for their own slaughtered children, 
and have ‘no consolation by reason of what has 
happened tothem. For that expression of Isaiah, 
‘He shall take the power of Damascus and spoils 
of Samaria,’ foretold that the power of the evil 
demon that dwelt in Damascus should be over- 
come by Christ as soon as He was born; and 
this is proved to have happened. For the Magi, 
who were held in bondage? for the commission 
of all evil deeds through the power of that demon, 
by coming to worship Christ, shows that they have 
revolted from that dominion which held them 
captive ; and this [dominion] the Scripture has 
showed us to reside in Damascus. Moreover, 
that sinful and unjust power is termed well in 
parable, Samaria. And none of you can deny 
that Damascus was, and is, in the region of 
Arabia, although now it belongs to what is called 
Syrophoenicia. Hence it would be becoming 
for you, sirs, to learn what you have not per- 
ceived, from those who have received grace from 
God, namely, from us Christians; and not to 
strive in every way to maintain your own doc- 
trines, dishonouring those of God. Therefore 
also this grace has been transferred to us, as 
Isaiah says, speaking to the following effect: 
‘This people draws near to Me, they honour 
Me with their lips, but their heart is far from 
Me ; but in vain they worship Me, teaching the 
commands and doctrines of men. Therefore, 
behold, I will proceed4 to remove this people, 
and I shali remove them; and I shall take 
away the wisdom of their wise men, and bring 
to nothing the understanding of the prudent 
men,’”’ 5 





< Jer. -xxxi. 15, 

2 Literally, “ spoiled.” 

3 Justin thinks the “‘ spoils of Samaria” denote spoils of Satan; 
Tertull. thinks that they are spoils of Christ. 

4 Literally, ‘‘ add.” 

5 Isa. xxix. 13, 14. 








DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


— s 


CHAP. LXXIX.— HE PROVES AGAINST TRYPHO THAT 
THE WICKED ANGELS HAVE REVOLTED FROM 
GOD. 


On this, Trypho, who was somewhat angry, 
but respected the Scriptures, as was manifest 
from his countenance, said to me, “The utter- 
ances of God are holy, but your expositions are 
mere contrivances, as is plain from what ‘has 
been explained by you; nay, even blasphemies, 
for you assert that angels sinned and revolted 
from God.” 

And I, wishing to get him to listen to me, 
answered in milder tones, thus: “I admire, sir, 
this piety of yours; and I pray that you may 
entertain the same disposition towards Him to 
whom angels are recorded to minister, as Daniel 
says; for [one] like the Son of man is led to 
the Ancient of days, and every kingdom is given 
to Him for ever and ever. But that you may 
know, sir,” continued I, “ that it is not our auda- 
city which has induced us to adopt this exposition, 
which you reprehend, I shall give you evidence 
from Isaiah himself; for he affirms that evil 
angels have dwelt and do dwell in Tanis, in 
Egypt. These are [his] words: ‘Woe to the 
rebellious children! Thus saith the Lord, You 
have taken counsel, but not through Me; and 


‘[made] agreements, but not through My Spirit, 


to add sins to sins; who have sinned® in going 
down to Egypt (but they have not inquired at 
Me), that they may be assisted by Pharaoh, and 
be covered with the shadow of the Egyptians. 
For the shadow of Pharaoh shall be a disgrace 
to you, and a reproach to those who trust in the 
Egyptians ; for the princes in Tanis7 are evil 
angels. In vain will they labour for a people 
which will not profit them by assistance, but [will 
be] for a disgrace and a reproach [to them].’*® 
And, further, Zechariah tells, as you yourself have 
related, that the devil stood on the right hand 
of Joshua the priest, to resist him; and [the 
Lord] said, ‘The Lord, who has taken? Jerusa- 
lem, rebuke thee.’ '° And again, it is written in 
Job,'! as you said yourself, how that the angels 
came to stand before the Lord, and the devil 
came with them. And we have it recorded by 
Moses in the beginning of Genesis, that the ser- 
pent beguiled Eve, and was cursed. And we 
know that in Egypt there were magicians who 
emulated '? the mighty power displayed by God 
through the faithful servant Moses. And you 
are aware that David said, ‘The gods of the 
nations are demons.’ ” 13 





6 LXX. “ who walk,” mopevduevor for movynpevdpevor. 

7 In BV. Zoan,” 

8 Isa, xxx. 1-5. 

9 éxdeEdmevos; in chap, cxv. 2#f. itis éxAckdpevos. 

10 Zech, iii, 1. : 

41 Jobi1. 6. 

12 Maranus suggests the insertion of émoinaav or éme(pagay before 
éftcovaba. 

13 Ps, xcvi. 5. 





DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


239 





CHAP. LXXX.— THE OPINION OF JUSTIN WITH 
REGARD TO THE REIGN OF A THOUSAND YEARS. 
SEVERAL CATHOLICS REJECT IT. 


And Trypho to this replied, “ I remarked to you 
sir, that you are very ahxious to be safe in all 
respects, since you cling to the Scriptures. But 
tell me, do you really admit that this place, 
Jerusalem, shall be rebuilt; and do you expect 
your people to be gathered together, and made 
joyful with Christ and the patriarchs, and the 
prophets, both the men of our nation, and other 
proselytes who joined them before your Christ 
came? or have you given way, and admitted 
this in order to have the appearance of worsting 
us in the controversies ? ” 

Then I answered, “I am not so miserable a 
fellow, Trypho, as to say one thing and think 
another. I admitted to you formerly,’ that I 
and many others are of this opinion, and [be- 
lieve] that such will take place, as you assuredly 
are aware ;? but, on the other hand, I signified to 
you that many who belong.to the pure and pious 
faith, and are true Christians, think otherwise. 
Moreover, I pointed out to you that some who 
are called Christians, but are godless, impious 
heretics, teach doctrines that are in every way 
blasphemous, atheistical, and foolish. But that 
you may know that I do-not say this before you 
alone, I shall draw up a statement, so far as I 
can, of all the arguments which have passed be- 
tween us; in which I shall record myself as ad- 
mitting the very same things which I admit to 
you. For I choose to follow not men or men’s 
doctrines, but God and the doctrines [delivered] 
by Him. For if you have fallen in with some 
who are called Christians, but who do not admit 
- this [truth],‘ and venture to blaspheme the God 
of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God 
of Jacob; who-say there is no resurrection of 
the dead, and that their souls, when they die, are 
taken to heaven; do not imagine that they are 
Christians, even as one, if he would rightly con- 
sider it, would not admit that the Sadducees, or 
similar sects of Geniste, Meriste,5 Galilzeans, 
Hellenists,° Pharisees, Baptists, are Jews (do not 





1 Justin made no previous allusion to this point, so far as we 
know from the writing preserved. : 

2 Or, “so as to believe thoroughly that such will take place” (after 
“opinion”’). : 

3 [A hint of the origin of this work. See Kaye’s Note, p. 18]. 

4 1.e., resurrection. 

5 Maranus says, Hieron. thinks the Genzst@ were so called be- 
cause they were sprung from Abraham (yévos) the Merzst@ so called 
because they separated the Scriptures, Josephus bears testimony to 
the fact that the sects of the Jews differed in regard to fate and provi- 
dence: the Pharisees submitting all things indeed to God, with the 
exception of human will; the Essenes making no exceptions, and 
submitting all to God. I believe therefore that the Gezzste@ were so 
called because they believed the world to be in general governed by 
God; the Meriste, because they believed that a fate or providence 
belonged to each man. f : ‘ 

6 Otto says, the author and chief of this’ sect of Galileans was 
Judas Galileeus, who, after the exile of king Archelaus, when the 
Romans wished to raise a tax in Judzea, excited his countrymen to the 
retaining of their former liberty. —The Hellenists, or rather Hedle- 
neans. No one mentions this sect but Justin; perhaps Herodtans or 
Willeleans (from R. Hillel). 








hear me impatiently when I tell you what I tnink), 
but are [only] called Jews and children of Abra- 
ham, worshipping God with the lips, as God 
Himself declared, but the heart was far from 
Him. But I and others, who are right-minded 
Christians on all points, are assured that there 
will be a resurrection of the dead, and a thou- 
sand years 7 in Jerusalem, which will then be built, 
adorned, and enlarged, [as] the prophets Ezekiel 
and Isaiah and others declare. 


CHAP. LXXXI.— HE ENDEAVOURS TO PROVE THIS 
OPINION FROM ISAIAH AND THE APOCALYPSE, 


“For Isaiah spake thus concerning this space 
of a thousand years: ‘ For there shall be the new 
heaven and the new earth, and the former shall 
not be remembered, or come into their heart ; 
but they shall find joy and gladness in it, which 
things I create. For, Behold, I make Jerusalem 
a rejoicing, and My people a joy; and I shall 
rejoice over Jerusalem, and be glad over My 
people. And the voice of weeping shall be no 
more heard in her, or the voice of crying. And 
there shall be no more there a person of imma- 
ture years, or an old man who shall not fulfil his 
days. For the young man shall be an hundred 
years old ;9 but the sinner who dies an hundred 
years old,? he shall be accursed. And they shall 
build houses, and shall themselves inhabit them ; 
and they shall plant vines, and shall themselves 
eat the produce of them, and drink the wine. 
They shall not build, and others inhabit; they 
shall not plant, and others eat. For according 
to the days of the tree of life shall be the days of 
my people ; the works of their toil shall abound.’ 
Mine elect shall not toil fruitlessly, or beget chil- 
dren to be cursed ; for they shall be a seed right- 
eous and blessed by the Lord, and their offspring 
with them. And it shall come to pass, that be- 
fore they call I will hear; while they are still 
speaking, I shall say, What is it? Then shall 
the wolves and the lambs feed together, and the 
lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent 
[shall eat] earth as bread. They shall not hurt 
or maltreat each other on the holy mountain, 
saith the Lord.’ ** Now we have understood that 
the expression used among these words, ‘Accord- 
ing to the days of the tree [of life **] shall be the 
days of my people ; the works of their toil shall 
abound,’ obscurely predicts a thousand years. 
For as Adam was told that in the day he ate of 
the tree he would die, we know that he did not 





7 We have translated the text of Justin as it stands, Commen- 
tators make the sense, “‘ and that there will be a thousand years in 
ao ,” or “that the saints will live a thousand years in Jerusa- 
em.” 

8 Literally, ‘‘ time.” 

9 Literally, “ the son of an hundred years. ” eye 

10 Or, as in margin of A. V., “ they shall make the works of their toil 
continue long,” so reading maAatwcover for mAesracovoi: thus 
also LXX, ‘ 

Il Isa. Ixy. 17 to end. ’ 

12 These words are not found in the Mss. 





complete a thousand years. We have perceived, 
moreover, that the expression, ‘The day of the 
Lord is as a thousand years,’ ! is connected with 
this subject. And further, there was a certain 
man with us, whose name was John, one of the 
apostles of Christ, who prophesied, by a revela- 
tion that was made to him, that those who be- 
lieved in our Christ would dwell? a thousand 
years in Jerusalem ; and that thereafter the gen- 
eral, and, in short, the eternal resurrection and 
judgment of all men would likewise take place. 
Just as our Lord also said, ‘ They shall neither 
marry nor be given in marriage, but shall be 
‘equal to the angels, the children of the God of 
the resurrection.’ 3 


CHAP. LXXXII.— THE PROPHETICAL GIFTS OF THE 
JEWS WERE TRANSFERRED TO THE CHRISTIANS. 


“ For the prophetical gifts remain with us, even 
to the present time. And hence you ought to 
understand that [the gifts] formerly among your 
nation have been transferred to us. And just as 
there were false prophets contemporaneous with 
your holy prophets, so are there now many false 
teachers amongst us, of whom our Lord fore- 
warned us to beware ; so that in no respect are 
we deficient, since we know that He foreknew all 
that would happen to us after His resurrection 
from the dead and ascension to heaven. For He 
said we would be put to death, and hated for 
His name’s sake; and that many false prophets 
and false Christs would appear in His name, and 
deceive many: and so has it come about. For 
many have taught godless, blasphemous, and un- 
holy doctrines, forging them in His name ; have 
taught, too, and even yet are teaching, those 
things which proceed from the unclean spirit of 
the devil, and which were put into their hearts. 
Therefore we are most anxious that you be per- 
suaded not to be misled by such persons, since 
we know that every one who can speak the truth, 
and yet speaks it not, shall be judged by God, as 
God testified by Ezekiel, when He said, ‘I have 
made thee a watchman to the house of Judah. 
If the sinner sin, and thou warn him not, he 
himself shall die in his sin; but his blood will I 
require at thine hand. But if thou warn him, 
thou shalt be innocent.’* And on this account 
we are, through fear, very earnest in desiring to 
converse [with men] according to the Scriptures, 
but not from love of money, or of glory, or of 
pleasure. For no man can convict us of any 
of these [vices]. No more do we wish to live 
like the rulers of your people, whom God re- 
proaches when He says, ‘ Your rulers are com- 





tPs, xc. 4; 2\Pet. 11, 8; 

2 Literally, ‘‘ make.” [A very noteworthy passage, as a primitive 
exposition of Rev. xx. 4-5. See Kaye, chap. v.] 

3 Luke xx. 35 f. 

4 Ezek, iii. 17, 18, 19. 








DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


panions of thieves, lovers of bribes, followers 
of the rewards.’5 Now, if you know certain 
amongst us to be of this sort, do not for their 
sakes blaspheme the Scriptures and Christ, and 
do not assiduously strive to give falsified inter- 
pretations. 


CHAP. LXXXIII.—IT IS PROVED THAT THE PSALM, 
“THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD,” ETC., DOES NOT 
SUIT HEZEKIAH. 


“For your teachers have ventured to refer 
the passage, ‘The Lord says to my Lord, Sit at 
my right hand, till I make Thine enemies Thy 
footstool,’ to Hezekiah ; as if he were requested 
to sit on the right side of the temple, when the 
king of Assyria sent to him and threatened him ; 
and he was told by Isaiah not to be afraid. 
Now we know and admit that what Isaiah said 
took place; that the king of Assyria desisted 
from waging war against Jerusalem in Hezekiah’s 
days, and the angel of the Lord slew about 
185,000 of the host of the Assyrians. But it is 
manifest that the Psalm does not refer to him. 
For thus it is written, ‘The Lord says to my 
Lord, Sit at My right hand, till I make Thine 
enemies Thy footstool. He shall send forth a 


‘rod of power over ® Jerusalem, and it shall rule 


in the midst of Thine? enemies. In the splen- 
dour of the saints before the morning star have 
I begotten Thee. The Lord hath sworn, and 
will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after 
the order of Melchizedek.’ Who does not 
admit, then, that Hezekiah is no priest for ever 
after the order of Melchizedek? And who 
does not know that he is not the redeemer of 
Jerusalem? And who does not know that he 
neither sent a rod of power into Jerusalem, nor 
ruled in the midst of his enemies; but that it 
was God who averted from him the enemies, 
after he mourned and was afflicted? But our 
Jesus, who has not yet come in glory, has sent 
into Jerusalem a rod of power, namely, the 
word of calling and repentance [meant] for all 
nations over which demons held sway, as David 
says, ‘The gods of the nations are demons.’ 
And His strong word has prevailed on many to 
forsake the demons whom they used to serve, 
and by means of it to believe in the Almighty 
God because the gods of the nations are de- 
mons.’ And we mentioned formerly that the 
statement, ‘In the splendour of the saints before 
the morning star have I begotten Thee from the 
womb,’ is made to Christ. 





5 Isa. i. 23. 

_ © emi, but afterwards eis. Maranus thinks that émi is the inser- 
tion of some copyist. ; 

__/ Or better, “‘ His.” This quotation from Ps. cx. is put very 
differently from the previous quotation of the same Psalm in chap. 
XXxXil, [Justin often quotes from memory. Kaye, cap. viii.] 

8 This last clause is thought to be an interpolation, 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


241 





CHAP. LXXXIV.— THAT PROPHECY, ‘“‘ BEHOLD, A 
VIRGIN,’ ETC., SUITS CHRIST ALONE. 


“Moreover, the prophecy, ‘ Behold, the virgin 
shall conceive, and bear a son,’ was uttered 


respecting Him. For if He to whom Isaiah 
referred was not to be begotten of a virgin, of 
whom* did the Holy Spirit declare, ‘ Behold, 
the Lord Himself shall give us a sign: behold, 
the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son?’ For 
if He also were to be begotten of sexual inter- 
course, like all other first-born sons, why did 
God say that He would give a sign which is not 
common to all the first-born sons? But that 
which is truly a sign, and which was to be made 
trustworthy to mankind, — namely, that the first- 
begotten of all creation should become incarnate 
by the Virgin’s womb, and be a child, — this he 
anticipated by the Spirit of prophecy, and pre- 
dicted it, as I have repeated to you, in various 
ways ; in order that, when the event should take 
place, it might be known as the operation of the 
power and will of the Maker of all things ; just 
as Eve was made from one of Adam’s ribs, and 
as all living beings were created in the begin- 
ning by the word of God. But you in these 
matters venture to pervert the expositions which 
your elders that were with Ptolemy king of 
Egypt gave forth, since you assert that the 
Scripture is not so as they have expounded it, 
but says, ‘ Behold, the young woman shall con- 
c.lve,’ as if great events were to be inferred if a 
woman should beget from sexual intercourse : 
which indeed all young women, with the excep- 
tion of the barren, do; but even these, God, if 
He wills, is able to cause [to bear]. For Sam- 
uel’s mother, who was barren, brought forth by 
the will of God; and so also the wife of the 
holy patriarch Abraham; and Elisabeth, who 
bore John the Baptist, and other such. So that 
you must not suppose that it is impossible for 
God to do anything He wills. And especially 
when it was predicted that this would take place, 
do not venture to pervert or misinterpret the 
prophecies, since you will injure yourselves 
alone, and will not harm God. 


CHAP. LXXXV.— HE PROVES THAT CHRIST IS THE 
LORD OF HOSTS FROM PS. XXIV., AND FROM 
HIS AUTHORITY OVER DEMONS. 


“ Moreover, some of you venture to expound 
the prophecy which runs, ‘ Lift up your gates, 
ye rulers; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting 
doors, that the King of glory may enter,’ * as if 
it referred likewise to Hezekiah, and others of 
you [expound it] of Solomon ; but neither to 
the latter nor to the former, nor, in short, to any 
of your kings, can it be proved to have refer- 
tL oe ee 


I Or, “ why was it.” 
2 Ps, xxiv. 7. 





ence, but to this our Christ alone, who appeared 
without comeliness, and inglorious, as Isaiah 
and David and all the Scriptures said; who is 
the Lord of hosts, by the will of the Father who 
conferred on Him [the dignity] ; who also rose 
from the dead, and ascended to heaven, as the 
Psalm and the other Scriptures manifested when 
they announced Him to be Lord of hosts ; and 
of this you may, if you will, easily be persuaded 
by the occurrences which take place before your 
eyes. For every demon, when exorcised in the 
name of this very Son of God — who is the First- 
born of every creature, who became man by the 
Virgin, who suffered, and was crucified under 
Pontius Pilate by your nation, who died, who 
rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven 
—jis overcome and subdued. But though you 
exorcise any demon in the name of any of those 
who were amongst you — either kings, or right- 
eous men, or prophets, or patriarchs —it will 
not be subject to you. But if any of you exorcise 
it in [the name of ] the God of Abraham, and 
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, it will 
perhaps be subject to you. * Now assuredly your 
exorcists, I have said,3 make use of craft when 
they exorcise, even as the Gentiles do, and em- 
ploy fumigations and incantations. But that 
they are angels and powers whom the word of 
prophecy by David [commands] to lift up the 
gates, that He who rose from the dead, Jesus 
Christ, the Lord of hosts, according to the will 
of the Father, might enter, the word of David 
has likewise showed ; which I shall again recall 
to your attention for the sake of those who were 
not with us yesterday, for whose benefit, more- 
over, I sum up many things I said yesterday. 
And now, if I say this to you, although I have 
repeated it many times, I know that it is not 
absurd so to do. For it is a ridiculous thing to 
see the sun, and the moon, and the other stars, 
continually keeping the same course, and bring- 
ing round the different seasons ; and to see the 
computer who may be asked how many are 
twice two, because he has frequently said that 
they are four, not ceasing to say again that they 
are four ; and equally so other things, which are 
confidently admitted, to be continually men- 
tioned and admitted in like manner; yet that 
he who founds his discourse on the prophetic 
Scriptures should leave them and abstain from 
constantly referring to the same Scriptures, be- 
cause it is thought he can bring forth something 
better than Scripture. The passage, then, by 
which I proved that God reveals that there are 
both angels and hosts in heaven is this: ‘ Praise 





3 Chap. Ixxvi. 

4 xatadeu.or, by some thought to be verses by which evil spirits, 
once expelled, were kept from returning. Plato (Ref.) speaks of 
incantations by which demons were summoned to the help of those 
who practised such rites; but Justin refers to them only as being 
pnd ey Others regard them as drugs. 


242 





the Lord from the heavens: praise Him in the 
highest. Praise Him, all His angels: praise 
Him, all His hosts.’”’ * 

Then one of those who had come with them 
on the second day, whose name was Mnaseas, 
said, ‘“‘We are greatly pleased that you under- 
take to repeat the same things on our account.” 

And I said, “ Listen, my friends, to the, Scrip- 
‘ture which induces me to act thus. Jesus com- 
manded [us] to love even [our] enemies, as 
was predicted by Isaiah in many passages, in 
which also is contained the mystery of our own 
regeneration, as well, in fact, as the regeneration 
of all who expect that Christ will appear in 
Jerusalem, and by their works endeavour ear- 
nestly to please Him. These are the words 
spoken by Isaiah: ‘ Hear the word of the Lord, 
ye that tremble at His word. Say, our brethren, 
to them that hate you and detest you, that the 
name of the Lord has been glorified. He has 
appeared to your joy, and they shall be ashamed. 
A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the 
temple,? a voice of the Lord who rendereth 
recompense to the proud. Before she that 
travailed brought forth, and before the pains of 
labour came, she brought forth a male child. 


Who hath heard such a thing? and who hath. 


seen such a thing? has the earth brought forth in 
one day? and has she produced a nation at 
once? for Zion has travailed and borne her 
children. But I have given such an expectation 
even to her that does not bring forth, said the 
Lord. Behold, I have made her that begetteth, 
and her that is barren, saith the Lord. Rejoice, 
O Jerusalem, and hold a joyous assembly, all ye 
that love her. Be glad, all ye that mourn for 
her, that ye may suck and be filled with the 
breast of her consolation, that having suck ye 
may be delighted with the entrance of His 
glory.’ 3 ¢ 


CHAP(_EXXXV}. — THERE ARE VARIOUS FIGURES IN 
THE “OLD. TESTAMENT OF THE WOOD OF THE 
CROSS BY WHICH CHRIST REIGNED. 


And when I had quoted this, I added, “ Hear, 
then, how this Man, of whom the Scriptures de- 
clare that He will come again in glory after His 
crucifixion, was symbolized both by the tree of 
life, which was said to have been planted in para- 
dise, and by those events which should happen 
to all the just. Moses was sent with a rod to 
effect the redemption of the people ; and with 
this in his hands at the head of the people, he 
divided the sea. By this he saw the water gush- 
ing out of the rock; and when he cast a tree 
into the waters of Marah, which were bitter, he 





1 Ps, cxlviii, 1, 2. [Kaye’s citations (chap. ix. p. 181) from 
Tatian, concerning angels and demons, are valuable aids to the un- 
derstanding of Justin in his frequent references to this subject. ] 

2 In both mss, “‘ people.” 

3 Isa. Ixvi. 5-11, 








DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


made them sweet. Jacob, by putting rods into 
the water-troughs, caused the sheep of his uncle 
to conceive, so that he should obtain their young. 
With his rod the same Jacob boasts that he had - 
crossed the river. He said he had seen a ladder, 
and the Scripture has declared that God stood 
above it. But that this was not the Father, we 
have proved from the Scriptures. And Jacob, 
having poured oil on a stone in the same place, 
is testified to by the very God who appeared to 
him, that he had anointed a pillar to the God who 
appeared to him. And that the stone symboli- 
cally proclaimed Christ, we have also proved by 
many Scriptures ; and that the unguent, whether 
it was of oil, or of stacée,4 or of any other com- 
pounded sweet balsams, had reference to Him, 
we have also proved,’ inasmuch as the word says : 
‘Therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed 
Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.’ ® 
For indeed all kings and anointed persons ob- 
tained from Him their share in the names of 
kings and anointed : just as He Himself received 
from the Father the titles of King, and Christ, 
and Priest, and Angel, and such like other titles 
which He bears or did bear. Aaron’s rod, which 
blossomed, declared him to be the high priest. 
Isaiah prophesied that a rod would come forth 
from the root of Jesse, [and this was] Christ. 
And David says that the righteous man is ‘like 
the tree that is planted by the channels of waters, 
which should yield its fruit in its season, and 
whose leaf should not fade.’7 Again, the right- 
eous is said to flourish like the palm-tree. God 
appeared from a tree to Abraham, as it is written, 
near the oak in Mamre. The people found sev- 
enty willows and twelve springs after crossing the 
Jordan.’ David affirms that God comforted him 
with a rod and staff. Elisha, by casting a stick 9 
into the river Jordan, recovered the iron part of 
the axe with which the sons of the prophets had 
gone to cut down trees to build the house in 
which they wished to read and study the law and 
commandments of God; even as our Christ, by 
being crucified on the tree, and by purifying [us ] 
with water, has redeemed us, though plunged in 
the direst offences which we have committed, 
and has made [us] a house of prayer and adora- 
tion. Moreover, it was a rod that pointed out 
Judah to be the father of Tamar’s sons by a 


great mystery.” 


CHAP. LXXXVII. — TRYPHO MAINTAINS IN OBJECTION 
THESE WORDS: “AND SHALL REST ON HIM,” 
ETC. THEY ARE EXPLAINED BY JUSTIN. 


Hereupon Trypho, after I had spoken these 


4 (Myrrh, Christ the (Anointed) Rock is also referred 
Jacob (Gen. xlix. 24).] 
5 In chap, Ixiii. probably, where the same Psalm is quoted. 
6 Ps. xlv. 7. 
@ The Red S 
ie Red Sea, not the Jordan. [Ex. xy. 27.] 
9 Literally, ‘a tree.” : [ 7] 





to by 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


———_ 


243 





words, said, ‘‘ Do not now suppose that I am en- 
deavouring, by asking what I do ask, to overturn 
the statements you have made; but I wish to 
receive information respecting those very points 
about which I now inquire. ‘Tell me, then, how, 
when the Scripture asserts by Isaiah, ‘ There shall 
come forth a rod from the root of Jesse; anda 
flower shall grow up from the root of Jesse ; and 
the Spirit of God shall rest upon Him, the spirit 
of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of coun- 
sel and might, the spirit of knowledge and piety : 
and the spirit of the fear of the Lord shall fill 
Him :’' (now you admitted to me,” continued 
he, “that this referred to Christ, and you main- 
tain Him to be pre-existent God, and having be- 
come incarnate by God’s will, to be born man 
by the Virgin :) how He can be demonstrated to 
have been pre-existent, who is filled with the 
powers of the Holy Ghost, which the Scripture by 
Isaiah enumerates, as if He were in lack of them?” 

Then I replied, “ You have inquired most dis- 
creetly and most prudently, for truly there does 
seem to be a difficulty ; but listen to what I say, 
that you may perceive the reason of this also. 
The Scripture says that these enumerated powers 
of the Spirit have come on Him, not because He 
stood in need of them, but because they would 
rest in Him, i.e., would find their accomplish- 
ment in Him, so that there would be no more 
prophets in your nation after the ancient custom : 
and this fact you plainly perceive. For after Him 
no prophet has arisen among you. Now, that 
[you may know that] your prophets, each receiv- 
ing some one or two powers from God, did and 
spoke the things which we have learned from the 
Scriptures, attend to the following remarks of 
mine. Solomon possessed the spirit of wisdom, 
Danie! that of understanding and counsel, Moses 
that of might and piety, Elijah that of fear, and 
Isaiah that of knowledge ; and so with the others : 
each possessed one power, or one joined alter- 
nately with another; also Jeremiah, and the 
twelve [prophets], and David, and, in short, the 
rest who existed amongst you. Accordingly 
He? rested, i.e., ceased, when He came, after 
whom, in the times of this dispensation wrought 
out by Him amongst men,} it was requisite that 
such gifts should cease from you; and having 
received their rest in Him, should again, as had 
been predicted, become gifts which, from the 
grace of His Spirit’s power, He imparts to those 
who believe in Him, according as He deems each 
man worthy thereof. I have already said, and 
do again say, that it had been prophesied that 
this would be done by Him after His ascension 
to heaven. It is accordingly said, ‘ He ascended 





1 Isa, xi. x ff. : ‘ i 
2 He, that is, the Spirit. The following *¢ He” is Christ. 
3 Or, “ wrought out:amongst His aaa -So Otto. 


4 Literally,"/He said accordingly.” Ps. Leviit, x8. 





on high, He led captivity captive, He gave gifts 
unto the sons of men.’ And again, in another 
prophecy it is said: ‘And it shall come to pass 
after this, I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh, 
and on My servants, and on My handmaids, and 
they shall prophesy.’ 5 


CHAP. LXXXVIII. — CHRIST HAS NOT RECEIVED THE 
HOLY SPIRIT ON ACCOUNT OF POVERTY. 


“‘ Now, it is possible to see amongst us women 
and men who possess gifts of the Spirit of God ; 
so that it was prophesied that the powers enu- 
merated by Isaiah would come upon Him, not 
because He needed power, but because these 
would not continue after Him. And let this be 
a proof to you, namely, what I told you was done 
by the Magi from Arabia, who as soon as the 
Child was born came to worship Him, for even 
at His birth He was in possession of His power ; 
and as He grew up like all other men, by using 
the fitting means, He assigned its own [require- 
ments] to each development, and was sustained 
by all kinds of nourishment, and waited for thirty 
years, more or less, until John appeared before 
Him as the herald of His approach, and pre- 
ceded Him in the way of baptism, as I have 
already shown. And then, when Jesus had gone 
to the river Jordan, where John was baptizing, 
and when He had stepped into the water, a fire © 
was kindled in the Jordan; and when He came 
out of the water, the Holy Ghost lighted on Him 
like a dove, [as] the apostles of this very Christ 
of ours wrote. Now, we know that he did not go 
to the river because He stood in need of. bap- 
tism, or of the descent of the Spirit like a dove ; 
even as He submitted to be born and to be cru- 
cified, not because He needed such things, but 
because of the human race, which from Adam 
had fallen under the power of death and the 
guile of the serpent, and each one of which had 
committed personal transgression. For God, 
wishing both angels and men, who were endowed 
with freewill, and at their own disposal, to do 
whatever He had strengthened each to do, made 
them so, that if they chose the things acceptable 
to Himself, He would keep them free trom death 
and from punishment ; but that if they did evil, 
He would punish each as He sees fit. For it was 
not His entrance into Jerusalem sitting on an ass, 
which we have showed was prophesied, that em- 
powered Him to be Christ, but it furnished men 
with a proof that He is the Christ ; just as it was 
necessary in the time of John that men have 





5 Joel ii 28 f. 

6)The Skechtnah probably attended the descent of the Holy 
Spirit, and what follows in the note seems a gratuitous explanation. 
The Ebionite corruption of a truth need not be resorted to. See chap. 
éxxvili: The fire in the bush.] Justin learned this either from tradi- 
tion or from apocryphal books. Mention is made of a fire both in the 
Ebionite Gospel and in another publication called Paul? fredicatio, 
the readers and users of which denied that the rite of baptism had been 
duly performed, unless guam 1iox in aquam descendernne statis 


super aquam ignis appareat, 


1 


244 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





proof, that they might know who is Christ. For 
when John remained! by the Jordan, and preached 
the baptism of repentance, wearing only a leath- 
ern girdle and a vesture made of camels’ hair, 
eating nothing but locusts and wild honey, men 
supposed him to be Christ ; but he cried to them, 
‘Iam not the Christ, but the voice of one crying ; 
for He that is stronger than I shall come, whose 
shoes I am not worthy to bear.’? And when 
Jesus came to the Jordan, He was considered to 
be the son of Joseph the carpenter; and He 
appeared without comeliness, as the Scriptures 
declared ; and He was deemed a carpenter (for 
He was in the habit of working as a carpenter 
when among men, making ploughs and yokes ; 
by which He taught the symbols of righteous- 
ness and an active life) ; but then the Holy 
Ghost, and for man’s sake, as I formerly stated, 
lighted on Him in the form of a dove, and there 
came at the same instant from the heavens a voice, 
which was uttered also by David when he spoke, 
personating Christ, what the Father would say 
to Him: ‘Thou art My Son: this day have I 
begotten Thee ;’3 [the Father] saying that His 
generation would take place for men, at the time 
when they would become acquainted with Him: 


‘Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten, 


thee:.24 


CHAP. LXXXIX. — THE CROSS ALONE IS OFFENSIVE 
TO TRYPHO ON ACCOUNT OF THE CURSE, YET 
IT PROVES THAT JESUS IS CHRIST. 


Then Trypho remarked, “ Be assured that all 
our nation waits for Christ; and we admit that 
all the Scriptures which you have quoted refer to 
Him. Moreover, I do also admit that the name 
of Jesus, by which the the son of Nave (Nun) 
was called, has inclined me very strongly to adopt 
this view. But whether Christ should be so 
shamefully crucified, this we are in doubt about. 
For whosoever is crucified is said in the law to 
be accursed, so that I am exceedingly incredu- 
lous on this point. It is quite clear, indeed, that 
the Scriptures announce that Christ had to suffer ; 
but we wish to learn if you can prove it to us 
whether it was by the suffering cursed in the law.” 

I replied to him, “If Christ was not to suffer, 
and the prophets had not foretold that He would 
be led to death on account of the sins of the 
people, and be dishonoured and scourged, and 
reckoned among the transgressors, and as a sheep 
be led to the slaughter, whose generation, the 
prophet says, no man can declare, then you would 
have good cause to wonder. But if these are 
to be characteristic of Him and mark Him out to 
all, how is it possible for us to do anything else 


OO, 


I Literally, “ sat.” 

2 Isa. i. 27, 

3 Ps. ii. 7. 

4 The repetition seems quite superfluous. 








than believe in Him most confidently? And will 
not as many as have understood the writings of 
the prophets, whenever they hear merely that He 
was crucified, say that this is He and no other?” 


CHAP. XC. — THE STRETCHED-OUT HANDS OF MOSES 
SIGNIFIED BEFOREHAND THE CROSS. 


“ Bring us on, then,” said [Trypho], “by the 
Scriptures, that we may also be persuaded by 
you ; for we know that He should suffer and be 
led as a sheep. But prove to us whether He 
must be crucified and die so disgracefully and 
so dishonourably by the death cursed in the law.5 
For we cannot bring ourselves even to think of 
this.” 

“You know,” said I, “ that what the prophets 
said and did they veiled by parables and types, 
as you admitted to us ; so that it was not easy for 
all to understand the most [of what they said], 
since they concealed the truth by these means, 
that those who are eager to find out and learn it 
might do so with much labour.” 

They answered, “ We admitted this.” 

“ Listen, therefore,” say I, “to what follows ; 
for Moses first exhibited this seeming curse of 
Christ’s by the signs which he made.” 

“Of what [signs] do you speak?” said he. 

“When the people,” replied I, “waged war 
with Amalek, and the son of Nave (Nun) by name 
Jesus (Joshua), led the fight, Moses himself 
prayed to God, stretching out both hands, and 
Hur with Aaron supported them during the 
whole day, so that they might not hang down 
when he got wearied. For if he gave up any 
part of this sign, which was an imitation of the 
cross, the people were beaten, as is recorded 
in the writings of Moses; but if he remained 
in this form, Amalek was proportionally defeated, 
and he who prevailed prevailed by the cross. 
For it was not because Moses so prayed that the 
people were stronger, but because, while one 
who bore the name of Jesus (Joshua) was in the 
forefront of the battle, he himself made the sign 
of the cross. For who of you knows not that the 
prayer of one who accompanies it with lamen- 
tation and tears, with the body prostrate, or with 
bended knees, propitiates God most of all ? 
But in such a manner neither he nor any other 
one, while sitting on a stone, prayed. Nor even 
the stone symbolized Christ, as I have shown. 


CHAP. XCI.— THE CROSS WAS FORETOLD IN THE 
BLESSINGS OF JOSEPH, AND IN THE SERPENT 
THAT WAS LIFTED UP. 


“And God by Moses shows in another way 
the force of the mystery of the cross, when He 
said in the blessing wherewith Joseph was blessed, 
stn i arse ne De ee A 


5 [This intense abhorrence of the cross made it worth while to 
show that these similitudes existed under the law. They were ad 
hominem appeals, and suited to Jewish modes of thought. ] 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





— 


245 





‘From the blessing of the Lord is his land ; for 
the seasons of heaven, and for the dews, and 
for the deep springs from beneath, and for the 
seasonable fruits of the sun,’ and for the coming 
together of the months, and for the heights of 
the everlasting mountains, and for the heights 
of the hills, and for the ever-flowing rivers, and 
for the fruits of the fatness of the earth; and 
let the things accepted by Him who appeared 
in the bush come on the head and crown of 
Joseph. Let him be glorified among his breth- 
ren ;? his beauty is [like] the firstling of a bul- 
lock ; his horns the horns of an unicorn: with 
these shall he push the nations from one end of 
the earth to another.’3 Now, no one could say 
or prove that the horns of an unicorn represent 
any other fact or figure than the type which por- 
trays the cross. For the one beam is placed 
upright, from which the highest extremity is 
raised up into a horn, when the other beam is 
fitted on to it, and the ends appear on both 
sides as horns joined on to the one horn. And 
the part which is fixed in the centre, on which 
are suspended those who are crucified, also 
stands out like a horn; and it also looks like a 
horn conjoined and fixed with the other horns. 
And the expression, ‘ With these shall he push as 
with horns the nations from one end of the earth 
to another,’ is indicative of what is now the fact 
among all the nations. For some out of all the 
nations, through the power of this mystery, having 
been so pushed, that is, pricked in their hearts, 
have turned from vain idols and demons to serve 
God. But the same figure is revealed for the 
destruction and condemnation of the unbeliev- 
ers; even as Amalek was defeated and Israel 
victorious when the people came out of Egypt, 
by means of the type of the stretching out of 
Moses’ hands, and the name of Jesus (Joshua), 
by which the son of Nave (Nun) was called. 
And it seems that the type and sign, which was 
erected to counteract the serpents which bit 
Israel, was intended for the salvation of those 
who believe that death was declared to come 
thereafter on the serpent through Him that would 
be crucified, but salvation to those who had been 
bitten by him and had betaken themselves to 
Him that sent His Son into the world to be cru- 
cified.4 For the Spirit of prophecy by Moses 
did not teach us to believe in the serpent, since 
it shows us that he was cursed by God from the 
beginning ; and in Isaiah tells us that he shall be 
put to death as an enemy by the mighty sword, 
which is Christ. 


! There is a variety of reading here: either 4Bvocov anyav 
kdtw0ev Kabapav: or, aBiccov myyav KaTwOev, Kat Kad’ wpay 
i TAs ich we prefer. 
eu ne te ater text is a rendering of the Septuagint. 
The mss. of Justin read: “ Being glorified as the first-born among 
his brethren.’ 
3 Deut. xxxiii, 13-17. 


4 [A clumsy expouton of St. John, iii. 14.] 











CHAP. XCII. — UNLESS THE SCRIPTURES BE UNDER- 
STOOD THROUGH GOD’S GREAT GRACE, GOD WILL 
NOT APPEAR TO HAVE TAUGHT ALWAYS THE SAME 
RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


“Unless, therefore, a man by God’s great 
grace receives the power to understand what has 
been said and done by the prophets, the appear- 
ance of being able to repeat the words or the 
deeds will not profit him, if he cannot explain 
the argument of them. And will they not as- 
suredly appear contemptible to many, since they 
are related by those who understood them not? 
For if one should wish to ask you why, since 
Enoch, Noah with his sons, and all others in 
similar circumstances, who neither were circum- 
cised nor kept the Sabbath, pleased God, God 
demanded by other leaders, and by the giving 
of the law after the lapse of so many genera- 
tions, that those who lived between the times of 
Abraham and of Moses be justified by circum- 
cision, and that those who lived after Moses be 
justified by circumcision and the other ordi- 
nances —to wit, the Sabbath, and sacrifices, 
and libations,5 and offerings ; [God will be slan- 
dered] unless you show, as I have already said, 
that God who foreknew was aware that your na- 
tion would deserve expulsion from Jerusalem, 
and that none would be permitted to enter into 
it. (For® you are not distinguished in any 
other way than by the fleshly circumcision, as I 
remarked previously. For Abraham was de- 
clared by God to be righteous, not on account 
of circumcision, but on account of faith. For 
before he was circumcised the following state- 
ment was made regarding him: ‘ Abraham be- 
lieved God, and it was accounted unto him for 
righteousness.’7? And we, therefore, in the uncir- 
cumcision of our flesh, believing God through 
Christ, and having that circumcision which is of 
advantage to us who have acquired it— namely, 
that of the heart — we hope to appear righteous 
before and well-pleasing to God: since already 
we have received His testimony through the 
words of the prophets.) [And, further, God 
will be slandered unless you show] that you 
were commanded to observe the Sabbath, and to 
present offerings, and that the Lord submitted to 
have a place called by the name of God, in order 
that, as has been said, you might not become 
impious and godless by worshipping idols and 
forgetting God, as indeed you do always appear 
to have been. (Now, that God enjoined the ordi- 
nances of Sabbaths and offerings for these rea- 
sons, I have proved in what I previouslyremarked ; 
but for the sake of those who came to-day, I 





5 Or, “ashes,” onodav for movida. 

6 We have adopted the parenthesis inserted by Maranus. Langus 
would insert before it, ré éfere dmoxpivacdat; “‘ What will you have 
to answer ?” 


7 Gen. xv. 6, 


246 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





wish to repeat nearly the whole.) For if this 
is not the case, God will be slandered,’ as hav- 
ing no foreknowledge, and as not teaching 
all men to know and to do the same acts of 
righteousness (for many generations of men ap- 
pear to have existed before Moses) ; and the 
Scripture is not true which affirms that ‘God is 
true and righteous, and all His ways are judg- 
ments, and there is no unrighteousness in him.’ 
But since the Scripture is true, God is always 
willing that such even as you be neither foolish 
nor lovers of yourselves, in order that you may 
obtain the salvation of Christ,? who pleased 
God, and received testimony from Him, as I 
have already said, by alleging proof from the 
holy words of prophecy. 


CHAP. XCIII. — THE SAME KIND OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
IS BESTOWED ON ALL. CHRIST COMPREHENDS IT 
IN TWO PRECEPTS. 


“For [God] sets before every race of mankind 
that which is always and universally just, as well 
as all righteousness ; and every race knows that 
adultery, and fornication, and homicide,3 and 
such like, are sinful ; and though they all commit 
such practices, yet they do not escape from the 


knowledge that they act unrighteously whenever | 


they so do, with the exception of those who are 
possessed with an unclean spirit, and who have 
been debased by education, by wicked customs, 
and by sinful institutions, and who have lost, or 
rather quenched and put under, their natural 
ideas. For we may see that such persons are 
unwilling to submit to the same things which 
they inflict upon others, and reproach each 
other with hostile consciences for the acts which 
they perpetrate. And hence I think that our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ spoke well when 
He summed up all righteousness and piety in 
two commandments. They are these: ‘Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and with all thy strength, and thy neighbour as 
thyself.’ For the man who loves God with all 
the heart, and with all the strength, being filled 
with a God-fearing mind, will reverence no other 
god ; and since God wishes it, he would rever- 
ence that angel who is beloved by the same 
Lord and God. And the man who loves his 
neighbour as himself will wish for him the same 
good things that he wishes for himself, and no 
man will wish evil things for himself. Accord- 
ingly, he who loves his neighbour would pray 
and labour that his neighbour may be possessed 
of the same benefits as himself. Now nothing 
else is neighbour to man than that similarly- 
affectioned and reasonable being — man. There- 





_ © We have supplied this phrase twice above. 
_.? Literally, salvation along with Christ, that is, salvation by the 
aid of Christ. 
3 avdpopnavia is read ia Mss. for avdpopovia, 
4 Matt. xxii, 37. 





fore, since all righteousness is divided into two 
branches, namely, in so far as it regards God 
and men, whoever, says the Scripture, loves the 
Lord God with all the heart, and all the strength, 
and his neighbour as himself, would be truly a 
righteous man. But you were never shown tu 
be possessed of friendship or love either towards 
God, or towards the prophets, or towards your- 
selves, but, as is evident, you are ever found to 
be idolaters and murderers of righteous men, so 
that you laid hands even on Christ Himself ; and 
to this very day you abide in your wickedness, 
execrating those who prove that this man who 
was crucified by you is the Christ. Nay, more 
than this, you suppose that He was crucified as 
hostile to and cursed by God, which supposition 
is the product of your most irrational mind. For 
though you have the means of understanding 
that this man is Christ from the signs given by 
Moses, yet you will not ; but, in addition, fancy- 
ing that we can have no arguments, you put 
whatever question comes into your minds, while 
you yourselves are at a loss for arguments when- 
ever you meet with some firmly established 
Christian. 


CHAP. XCIV. — IN WHAT SENSE HE WHO HANGS ON 
A TREE IS CURSED. 


‘For tell me, was it not God who commanded 
by Moses that no image or likeness of anything 
which was in heaven above or which was on the 
earth should be made, and yet who caused the 
brazen serpent to be made by Moses in the wil- 
derness, and set it up for a sign by which those 
bitten by serpents were saved? Yet is He free 
from unrighteousness. For by this, as I pre- 
viously remarked, He proclaimed the mystery, 
by which He declared that He would break the 
power of the serpent which occasioned the trans- 
gression of Adam, and [would bring] to them 
that believe on Him [who was foreshadowed] 
by this sign, i.e., Him who was to be crucified, 
salvation from the fangs of the serpent, which 
are wicked deeds, idolatries, and other unright- 
eous acts. Unless the matter be so understood, 
give me a reason why Moses set up the brazen 
serpent for a sign, and bade those that were 
bitten gaze at it, and the wounded were healed ; 
and this, too, when he had himself commanded 
that no likeness of anything whatsoever should 
be made.” 

On this, another of those who came on the 
second day said, “‘ You have spoken truly: we 
cannot give a reason. For I have frequently 
interrogated the teachers about this matter, and 
none of them gave me a reason: therefore con- 
tinue what you are speaking ; for we are paying 
attention while you unfold the mystery, on ac: 
count of which the doctrines of the prophets are 
falsely slandered.” 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


247 








Then I replied, “Just as God commanded thie! 


sign to be made by the brazen serpent, and yet 
He is blameless ; even so, though a curse lies 
in the law against persons who are crucified, 
yet no curse lies on the Christ of God, by whom 
all that have committed things worthy of a curse 
are saved.! 


CHAP, XCV.— CHRIST TOOK UPON 
CURSE DUE TO US. 


“ For the whole human race will be found to 
be under a curse. For it is written in the law 
of Moses, ‘Cursed is every one that continueth 
not in all things that are written in the book of 
the law to do them.’? And no one has accu- 
rately done all, nor will you venture to deny 
this ; but some more and some less than others 
have observed the ordinances enjoined. But if 
those who are under this law appear to be under 
a curse for not having observed all the require- 
ments, how much more shall all the nations ap- 
pear to be under a curse who practise idolatry, 
who seduce youths, and commit other crimes? 
If, then, the Father of all wished His Christ for 
the whole human family to take upon Him the 
curses of all, knowing that, after He had been 
crucified and was dead, He would raise Him up, 
why do you argue about Him, who submitted to 
suffer these things according to the Father’s will, 
as if He were accursed, and do not rather bewail 
yourselves? For although His Father caused 
Him to suffer these things in behalf of the human 
family, yet you did not commit the deed as in 
obedience to the will of God. For you did not 
practise piety when you slew the prophets. And 
let none of you say: If His Father wished Him 
to suffer this, in order that by His stripes the 
human race might be healed, we have done no 
wrong. If, indeed, you repent of your sins, and 
recognise Him to be Christ, and observe His 
commandments, then you may assert this; for, 
as I have said before, remission of sins shall be 
yours. But if you curse Him and them that 
believe on Him, and, when you have the power, 
put them to death, how is it possible that requi- 
sition shall not be made of you, as of unright- 
eous and sinful men, altogether hard-hearted 
and without understanding, because you laid 
your hands on Him? 


HIMSELF THE 


CHAP, XCVI.— THAT CURSE WAS A PREDICTION OF 
THE THINGS WHICH THE JEWS WOULD DO. 


“For the statement in the law, ‘Cursed is 
every one that hangeth on a tree,’ 3 confirms our 
hope which depends on the crucified Christ, not 
because He who has been crucified is cursed by 
God, but because God foretold that which would 





1 foe iii. 13.] 
2 Deut. xxvil. 26. 
3 Deut. xxi. 23. 








be done by you all, and by those like to you, who 
do not know ‘ that this is He who existed before 
all, who is the eternal Priest of God, and King, 
and Christ. And you clearly see that this has 
come to pass. For you curse in your synagogues 
all those who are called5 from Him Christians ; 
and other nations effectively carry out the curse, 
putting to death those who simply confess them- 
selves to be Christians ; to all of whom we say, 
You are our brethren ; rather recognise the truth 
of God. And while neither they nor you are 
persuaded by us, but strive earnestly to cause 
us to deny the name of Christ, we choose rather 
and submit to death, in the full assurance that 
all the good which God has promised through 
Christ He will reward us with. And in addition 
to all this we pray for you, that Christ may have 
mercy upon you. For He taught us to pray for 
our enemies also, saying, ‘Love your enemies ; 
be kind and merciful, as your heavenly Father 
is.© For we see that the Almighty God is kind 
and merciful, causing His sun to rise on the un- 
thankful and on the righteous, and sending rain 
on the holy and on the wicked ; all of whom He 
has taught us He will judge. 


CHAP. XCVII. — OTHER PREDICTIONS OF THE CROSS 
OF CHRIST. 


“For it was not without design that the proph- 
et Moses, when Hur and Aaron upheld his hands, 
remained in this form until evening. For indeed 
the Lord remained upon the tree almost until 
evening, and they buried Him at eventide ; then 
on the third day He rose again. This was de- 
clared by David thus: ‘With my voice I cried 
to the Lord, and He heard me out of His holy 
hill. I laid me down, and slept; I awaked, for 
the Lord sustained me.’?7 And Isaiah likewise 
mentions concerning Him the manner in which 
He would die, thus: ‘I have spread out My 
hands unto a people disobedient, and gainsaying, 
that walk in a way which is not good.’® And 
that He would rise again, Isaiah himself said : 
‘His burial has been taken away from the midst, 
and I will give the rich for His death.’9 And 
again, in other words, David in the twenty-first °° 
Psalm thus refers to the suffering and to the 
cross in a parable of mystery: ‘They pierced 
my hands and my feet; they counted all my 
bones. They considered and gazed on me ; they 
parted my garments among themselves, and cast 
lots upon my vesture.’ For when they crucified 
Him, driving in the nails, they pierced His hands 
and feet; and ‘those who crucified Him parted 





4 We read émcrapuévwy for émurtapevov. Otherwise to be trans- 
lated: ‘‘ God foretold that which you did not know,” etc. 
5 Aeyomevwy for yevouerwr. 
6 Luke vi. 35. 
7 Ps, iii. -4, 5. 
8 Isa. Ixv. 2; comp. also Rom. x. 21. 


9 Isa. liii. a - 
10 That is, 'Ps. xxii. 16-18. 


248 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


= —__—$—<—_$$ $$ $<. _ eee 





His garments among themselves, each casting 
lots for what he chose to have, and receiving 
according to the decision of the lot. And this 
very Psalm you maintain does not refer to Christ ; 
for you are in all respects blind, and do not un- 
derstand that no one in your nation who has 
been called King or Christ has ever had his 
hands or feet pierced while alive, or has died in 
this mysterious fashion — to wit, by the cross — 
save this Jesus alone. 


CHAP. XCVIII.— PREDICTIONS OF CHRIST IN PS. 
XXII. 


“J shall repeat the whole Psalm, in order that 
you may hear His reverence to the Father, and 
how He refers all things to Him, and prays to 
be delivered by Him from this death; at the 
same time declaring in the Psalm who they are 
that rise up against Him, and showing that He 
has truly become man capable of suffering. It 
is as follows: ‘O God, my God, attend to me: 
why hast Thou forsaken me? The words of my 
transgressions are far from my salvation. O my 
God, I will cry to Thee in the day-time, and 
Thou wilt not hear; and in the night-season, 
and it is not for want of understanding in me. 
But Thou, the Praise of Israel, inhabitest the holy 
place. Our fathers trusted in Thee ; they trusted, 
and Thou didst deliver them. They cried unto 
Thee, and were delivered: they trusted in Thee, 
and were not confounded. But I am a worm, 
and no man; a reproach of men, and despised 
of the people. All they that see me laughed me 
to scorn; they spake with the lips, they shook 
the head: He trusted on the. Lord: let Him 
deliver him, let Him save him, since he desires 
Him. For Thou art He that took me out of the 
womb ; my hope from the breasts of my mother : 
I was cast upon Thee from the womb. Thou 
art my God from my mother’s belly: be not far 
from me, for trouble is near; for there is none 
to help. Many calves have compassed me ; fat 
bulls have beset me round. They opened their 
mouth upon me, as a ravening and roaring lion. 
All my bones are poured out and dispersed like 
water. My heart has become like wax melting 
in the midst of my belly. My strength is dried 
up like a potsherd ; and my tongue has cleaved 
to my throat; and Thou hast brought me into 
the dust of death. For many dogs have sur- 
rounded me; the assembly of the wicked have 
beset me round. They pierced my hands and 
my feet, they did tell all my bones. They 
did look and stare upon me; they parted my 
garments among them, and cast lots upon my 
vesture. But do not Thou remove Thine assist- 
ance from me, O Lord: give heed to help me; 
deliver my soul from the sword, and my* only- 





1 Probably should be “‘ Thy.” 











begotten from the hand of the dog. Save me 
from the lion’s mouth, and my humility from the 
horns of the unicorns. I will declare Thy name 
to my brethren ; in the midst of the Church will 
I praise Thee. Ye that fear the Lord, praise 
Him: all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify Him. 
Let all the seed of Israel fear Him.’” 


CHAP. XCIX.—IN THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE 
PSALM ARE CHRIST’S DYING WORDS. 


And when I had said these words, I con- 
tinued: “Now I will demonstrate to you that 
the whole Psalm refers thus to Christ, by the 
words which I shall again explain. What is 
said at first —‘O God, my God, attend to me: 
why hast Thou forsaken me?’ — announced 
from the beginning that which was to be said in 
the time of Christ. For when crucified, He 
spake : ‘O God, my God, why hast Thou for- 
saken me?’ And what follows: ‘The words of 
my transgressions are far from my salvation. O 
my God, I will cry to Thee in the day-time, and 
Thou wilt not hear; and in the night-season, 
and it is not for want of understanding in me.’ 
These, as well as the things which He was to do, 
were spoken. For on the day on which He was 
to be crucified,? having taken three of His dis- 
ciples to the hill called Olivet, situated opposite 
to the temple in Jerusalem, He prayed in these 
words: ‘Father, if it be possible, let this cup 
pass from me.’3 And again He prayed: “ Not 
as I will, but as Thou wilt ;’* showing by this 
that He had become truly a suffering man. But 
lest any one should say, He did not know then 
that He had to suffer, He adds immediately in 
the Psalm: ‘And it is not for want of under- 
standing in me.’ Even as there was no igno- 
rance on God’s part when He asked Adam 
where he was, or asked Cain where Abel was ; 
but [it was done] to convince each what kind 
of man he was, and in order that through the 
record [of Scripture] we might have a knowl- 
edge of all: so likewise Christ declared that 
ignorance was not on His side, but on theirs, 
who thought that He was not the Christ, but 
fancied they would put Him to death, and that 
He, like some common mortal, would remain in 
Hades. 


CHAP. C.—IN WHAT SENSE CHRIST IS [CALLED | 
JACOB, AND ISRAEL, AND SON OF MAN. 


“Then what follows —‘ But Thou, the praise 
of Israel, inhabitest the holy place ’ — declared 
that He is to do something worthy of praise and 
wonderment, being about to rise again from the 
dead on the third day after the crucifixion ; and 
this He has obtained from the Father. . For I 
z 2 [Jewish computation of the evening as part of the Sooeecdng 

3 Matt. xxvi. 39. 

4 Ibid. 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





have showed already that Christ is called both 
Jacob and Israel; and [have proved that it is 
not in the blessing of Joseph and Judah alone 
that what relates to Him was proclaimed mys- 
teriously, but also in the Gospel it is written 
that He said: ‘All things are delivered unto me 
by My Father;’ and, ‘No man knoweth the 
Father but the Son ; nor the Son but the Father, 
and they to whom the Son will reveal Him.’ 
Accordingly He revealed to us all that we have 
perceived by His grace out of the Scriptures, so 
that we know Him to be the first-begotten of 
God, and to be before all creatures ; likewise 
to be the Son of the patriarchs, since He as- 
sumed flesh by the Virgin of their family, and 
submitted to become a man without comeliness, 
dishonoured, and subject to suffering. Hence, 
also, among His words He said, when He was 
discoursing about His future sufferings: ‘The 
Son of man must suffer many things, and be 
rejected by the Pharisees and Scribes, and be 
crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ He 
said then that He was the Son of man, either 
because of His birth by the Virgin, who was, as 
I said, of the family of David,3 and Jacob, and 
Isaac, and Abraham; or because Adam* was 
the father both of Himself and of those who 
have been first enumerated from whom Mary 
derives her descent. For we know that the 
fathers of women are the fathers likewise of 
those children whom their daughters bear. For 
[Christ] called one of His disciples — previously 
known by the name of Simon — Peter ; since he 
recognised Him to be Christ the Son of God, by 
the revelation of His Father: and since we find 
it recorded in the memoirs of His apostles that 
He is the Son of God, and since we call Him 
the Son, we have understood that He proceeded 
before all creatures from the Father by His 
power and will (for He is addressed in the writ- 
ings of the prophets in one way or another as 
Wisdom, and the Day,3 and the East, and a 
Sword, and a Stone, and a Rod, and Jacob, and 
Israel) ; and that He became man by the Virgin, 
in order that the disobedience which proceeded 
from the serpent might receive its destruction in 
the same manner in which it derived its origin. 
For Eve, who was a virgin and undefiled, having 
conceived the word of the serpent, brought 
forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin 
Mary received faith and joy, when the angel 
Aas ee 


1 Matt. xi. 27. 

2 Matt. xvi. 21. : 

3 [Note this testimony to Mary’s descent from David.] 

4 The text is, avrav rov ’ABpaau marépa. Thirlby proposed 
avrey rov ‘Addu: Maranus changed this into a’trov tov ‘Aday 
watépa. 

3 It is not easy, says Maranus, 
so called. [Clearly he refers to the ke 
the LXX. render many texts of the O. T, See Zech. iii. 8.] _ Per- 
haps Justin had in his mind the passage, ‘‘ This is the day which the 
Lord hath made” (Ps. cxviii. 24). Clem. Alex. teaches that Christ 
is here referred to. 


; 
to say in what Scripture Christ is 


Dayspring (St. Luke, ii, 78) as 








249 


Gabriel announced the good tidings to her that 
the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her, 
and the power of the Highest would overshadow 
her: wherefore also the Holy Thing begotten 
of her is the Son of God;® and she replied, 
‘Be it unto me according to thy word.’””?7. And 
by her has He been born, to whom we have 
proved so many Scriptures refer, and by whom 
God destroys both the serpent and those angels 
and men who are like him; but works déliver- 
ance from death to those who repent of their 
wickedness and believe upon Him. 


CHAP. CI. — CHRIST REFERS ALL THINGS TO THE 
FATHER, 


“Then what follows of the Psalm is this, in 
which He says: ‘Our fathers trusted in Thee ; 
they trusted, and Thou didst deliver them. 
They cried unto Thee, and were not confounded. 
But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of 
men, and despised of the people ;’ which show 
that He admits them to be His fathers, who 
trusted in God and were saved by Him, who 
also were the fathers of the Virgin, by whom 
He was born and became man; and He fore- 
tells that He shall be saved by the same God, 
but boasts not in accomplishing anything through 
His own will or might. For when on earth He 
acted in the very same manner, and answered, 
to one who addressed Him as ‘Good Master :’ 
‘Why callest thou me good? One is good, my 
Father who is in heaven.’® But when He says, 
‘T am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, 
and despised of the people,’ He prophesied the 
things which do exist, and which happen to 
Him. For we who believe on Him are every- 
where a reproach, ‘despised of the people ;’ 
for, rejected and dishonoured by your nation, 
He suffered those indignities which you planned 
against Him. And the following: ‘All they 
that see me laughed me to scorn; they spake 
with the lips, they shook the head: He trusted 
in the Lord; let Him deliver him, since he 
desires Him ;’ this likewise He foretold should 
happen to Him. For they that saw Him cruci- 
fied shook their heads each one of them, and 
distorted their lips, and twisting their noses to 
each other,? they spake in mockery the words 
which are recorded in the memoirs of His apos- 
tles: ‘ He said he was the Son of God: let him 
come down; let God save him.’ 


CHAP. Cll. — THE PREDICTION OF THE EVENTS 
WHICH HAPPENED TO CHRIST WHEN HE WAS 
BORN. WHY GOD PERMITTED IT. 


“And what follows—‘My hope from the 


i 
6 Luke i. 35. See Meyer 1 doc. 
7 Luke i. 38. 
8 Luke xviii. 18 f. i 
9 The text is corrupt, and the meaning doubtful. 
nartbus inter se certantes. 


Otto translates: 


5860 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 








breasts of my mother. On Thee have I been 
cast from the womb; from my mother’s belly 
Thou art my God: for there is no helper. 
Many calves have compassed me; fat bulls 
have beset me round. ‘They opened their 
mouth upon me, as a ravening and a roaring 
lion. All my bones are poured out and dis- 
persed like water. My heart has become like 
wax melting in the midst of my belly. My 
strength is become dry like a potsherd ; and my 
tongue has cleaved to my throat’— foretold 
what would come to pass; for the statement, 
‘My hope from the breasts of my mother,’ [is 
thus explained]. As soon as He was born in 
Bethlehem, as I previously remarked, king 
Herod, having learned from the Arabian Magi 
about Him, made a plot to put Him to death ; 
and by God’s command Joseph took Him with 
Mary and departed into Egypt. For the Father 
had decreed that He whom He had begotten 
should be put to death, but not before He had 
grown to manhood, and proclaimed the word 
which proceeded from Him. But if any of you 
say to us, Could not God rather have put Herod 
to death? I return answer by anticipation: 
Could not God have cut off in the beginning 
the ‘serpent, so that he exist not, rather than 
have said, ‘And I will put enmity between him 
and the woman, and between his seed and her 
seed?’ Could He not have at once created a 
multitude of men? But yet, since He knew 
that it would be good, He created both angels 
and men free to do that which is righteous, and 
He appointed periods of time during which He 
knew it would be good for them to have the 
exercise of free-will; and because He likewise 
knew it would be good, He made general and 
particular judgments; each one’s freedom of 
will, however, being guarded. Hence Scripture 
says the following, at the destruction of the 
tower, and division and alteration of tongues: 
“And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, 
and they have all one language ; and this they 
have begun to do: and now nothing will be 
restrained from them of all which they have 
attempted to do.’? And the statement, ‘My 
strength is become dry like a potsherd, and my 
tongue has cleaved to my throat,’ was also a 
prophecy of what would be done by Him accord- 
ing to the Father’s will. For the power of His 
strong word, by which He always confuted the 
Pharisees and Scribes, and, in short, all your 
nation’s teachers that questioned Him, had a 
cessation like a plentiful and strong spring, the 
waters of which have been turned off, when He 
kept silence, and chose to return no answer to 
any one in the presence of Pilate ; as has been 
declared in the memoirs of His apostles, in 





1 Gen, iii. 15. 
2 Gen, xi. 6, 








T 


order that what is recorded by Isaiah might 
have efficacious fruit, where it is written, ‘The 
Lord gives me a tongue, that I may know when 
I ought to speak.’3 Again, when He said, 
‘Thou art my God; be not far from me,’ He 
taught that all men ought to hope in God who 
created all things, and seek salvation and help 
from Him alone; and not suppose, as the rest 
of men do, that salvation can be obtained by 
birth, or wealth, or strength, or wisdom. And 
such have ever been your practices: at one 
time you made a calf, and always you have 
shown yourselves ungrateful, murderers of the 
righteous, and proud of your descent. For if 
the Son of God evidently states that He can be 
saved, [neither] * because He is a son, nor be- 
cause He is strong or wise, but that without God 
He eannot be saved, even though He be sinless, 
as Isaiah declares in words to the effect that 
even in regard to His very language He com- 
mitted no sin (for He committed no iniquity or 
guile with His mouth), how do you or others 
who expect to be saved without this hope, sup- 
pose that you are not deceiving yourselves? ’ 


CHAP; a ye PHARISEES ARE THE BULLS: THE 
ROARING LION IS HEROD OR THE DEVIL. 


‘ “Then what is next said in the Psalm — ‘ For 
trouble is near, for there is none to help me. 
Many calves have compassed me ; fat bulls have 
beset me round. They opened their mouth 
upon me as a ravening and roaring lion. All 
my bones are poured out and dispersed like 
water,’ — was likewise a prediction of the events 
which happened to Him. For on that night 
when some of your nation, who had been sent 
by the Pharisees and Scribes, and _ teachers,5 
came upon Him from the Mount® of Olives, 
those whom Scripture called butting and prema- 
turely destructive calves surrounded Him. And 
the expression, ‘ Fat bulls have beset me round,’ 
He spoke beforehand of those who acted simi- 
larly te the calves, when He was led before your 
teachers. And the Scripture described them as 
bulls, since we know that bulls are authors of 
calves’ existence. As therefore the bulls are the 
begetters of the calves, so your teachers were the 
cause why their children went out to the Mount 
of Olives to take Him and bring Him to them. 
And the expression, ‘ For there is none to help,’ 
is also indicative of what took place. For there 
was not even a single man to assist Him as an 
innocent person. And the expression, ‘They 
opened their mouth upon me like a roaring lion,’ 


3 Isay 1. 4. 

4 Not found in mss. , ¥ 

5 kai tov didacKdAwy,:. adopted instead of cara Thy didackeAiav, 
“according to their instructions.” 

6 awd rod dpovs. Justin seems to have supposed that the Jews 
came on Christ from some point of the hill wile 16 Wek in the valley 
below. ‘Emi rod dpous and «wi 7d Gpos have been suggested. 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





251 





designates him who was then king of the Jews, 
and was called Herod, a successor’of the Herod 
who, when Christ was born, slew all the infants 
in Bethlehem born about the same time, because 
he imagined that amongst them He would as- 
suredly be of whom the Magi from Arabia had 
spoken ; for he was ignorant of the will of Him 
that is stronger than all, how He had commanded 
Joseph and Mary to take the Child and depart 
into Egypt, and there to remain until a revelation 
should again be made to them to return into 
their own country. And there they did remain 
until Herod, who slew the infants in Bethlehem, 
was dead, and Archelaus had succeeded him. 
And he died before Christ came to the dispensa- 
tion on the cross which was given Him by His 
Father. And when Herod succeeded Archelaus, 
having received the authority which had been 
allotted to him, Pilate sent to him by way of 
compliment Jesus bound ; and God foreknowing 
that this would happen, had thus spoken: ‘ And 
they brought Him to the Assyrian, a present to 
the king.’* Or He meant the devil by the lion 
roaring against Him: whom Moses calls the ser- 
pent, but in Job and Zechariah he is called the 
devil, and by Jesus is addressed as Satan, show- 
ing that a compounded name was acquired by 
him from the deeds which he performed. For 
‘Sata’ in the Jewish and Syrian tongue means 
apostate ; and ‘ Nas’ is the word from which he 
is called by interpretation the serfenz, i.e., accord- 
ing to the interpretation of the Hebrew term, 
from both of which there arises the single word 
Satanas. For this devil, when [Jesus] went up 
from the river Jordan, at the time when the voice 
spake to Him, ‘Thou art my Son: this day have 
I begotten Thee,’ ? is recorded in the memoirs 
_of the apostles to have come to Him and tempted 
Him, even so far as to say to Him, ‘ Worship 
me ;’ and Christ answered him, ‘Get thee be- 
hind me, Satan: thou shalt worship the Lord 
thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.’3 For 
as he had deceived Adam, so he hoped‘ that 
he might contrive some mischief against Christ 
also. Moreover, the statement, ‘ All my bones 
are poured out5 and dispersed like water; my 
heart has become like wax, melting in the midst 
of my belly,’ was a prediction of that which 
happened to Him on that night when men came 
out against Him to the Mount of Olives to seize 
Him. For in the memoirs which I say were 
drawn up by His apostles and those who followed 
them, [it is recorded] that His sweat fell down 
like drops of blood while He was praying, and 


saying, ‘If it be possible, let this cup pass: ne 
I OD 


1 Hos. x. 6, if 

2 Ps. ii. 7; comp. Matt. iit. 17- 

3 Be Me 9 pe 

4 Literally, “ said.” aoe es 

5 aavance says it is hardly to be doubted that Justin read, “ Iain 
poured out like water,” etc. 

6 Luke xxii. 44, 42. 








His heart and also His bones trembling ; His 
heart being like wax melting in His belly: 7 in 
order that we may perceive that the Father 
wished His Son really * to undergo such suffer- 
ings for our sakes, and may not say that He, 
being the Son of God, did not feel what was 
happening to Him and inflicted on Him. 
Further, the expression, ‘ My strength is dried 
up like a potsherd, and my tongue has cleaved 
to. my throat,’ was a prediction, as I previously 
remarked, of that silence, when He who con- 
victed all your teachers of being unwise returned 
no answer at all. 


CHAP. CIV.— CIRCUMSTANCES OF CHRIST’S DEATH 
ARE PREDICTED IN THIS PSALM. 


“‘ And the statement, ‘Thou hast brought me 
into the dust of death ; for many dogs have sur- 
rounded me: the assembly of the wicked have 
beset me round. They pierced my hands and 
my feet. They did tell all my bones. They did 
look and stare upon me. They parted my gar- 
ments among them, and cast lots upon my ves- 
ture,’ — was a prediction, as I said before, of the 
death to which the synagogue of the wicked 
would condemn Him, whom He calls both dogs 
and hunters, declaring that those who hunted 
Him were both gathered together and assiduously 
striving to condemn Him. And this is recorded 
to have happened in the memoirs of His apos- 
tles. And I have shown that, after His-crucifix- 
ion, they who crucified Him parted His garments 
among them. 


CHAP. CV.—THE PSALM ALSO PREDICTS THE: CRU- 
CIFIXION AND THE SUBJECT OF THE LAST PRAYERS 
OF CHRIST ON EARTH. 


“«‘ And what follows of the Psalm, — ‘ But Thou, 
Lord, do not remove Thine assistance from me ; 
give heed to help me. Deliver my soul from 
the sword, and my? only-begotten from the hand 
of the dog; save me from the lion’s mouth, and 
my humility from the horns of the unicorns,’ — 
was also information and prediction of the events 
which should befall Him. For I have already 
proved that He was the only-begotten of the 
Father of all things, being begotten in a peculiar 
manner Word and Power by Him, and having 
afterwards become man through the Virgin, as 
we have learned from the memoirs. Moreover, 
it is similarly foretold that He would die by cru- 
cifixion. For the passage, ‘Deliver my soul 
from the sword, and my’? only-begotten from the _ 
hand ofthe dog ; save me from the lion’s mouth, ~ 
and my humility from the horns of the unicorns,’ 
is indicative of the suffering by which He should 





of the nobler depagier 
ered 


7 [Breast, rather. The (xoiAn) cavi' x 
8 ocetes, that Christ s 


ustin refers to the opinion of the 
in appearance merely, and not in reality. 
9 See note on chap. xcvilil. 
to [bid. 


AED 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


cette RUSS 





die, ie., by crucifixion. For the ‘horns of the 
unicorns,’ I have already explained to you, are 
the figure of the cross only. And the prayer 
that His soul should be saved from the sword, 
and lion’s mouth, and hand of the dog, was a 
prayer that no one should take possession of 
His soul: so that, when we arrive at the end of 
life, we may ask the same petition from God, who 
is able to turn away every shameless evil angel 
from taking our souls. And that the souls sur- 
vive, I have shown‘ to you from the fact that 
the soul of Samuel was called up by the witch, 
as Saul demanded. And it appears also, that 
all the souls of similiar righteous men and proph- 
ets fell under the dominion of such powers, as is 
indeed to be inferred from the very facts in the 
case of that witch. Hence also God by His Son 
teaches? us for whose sake these things seem to 
have been done, always to strive earnestly, and 
at death to pray that our souls may not fall into 
the hands of any such power. For when Christ 
was giving up His spirit on the cross, He said, 
‘Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,’ 3 
as I have learned also from the memoirs. For 
He exhorted His disciples to surpass the phari- 
saic way of living, with the warning, that if they 
did not, they might be sure they could not be 
saved; and these words are recorded in the 
memoirs: ‘Unless your righteousness exceed 
that of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall not 
enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ 4 


CHAP. CVI. — CHRIST’S RESURRECTION IS FORE- 
TOLD IN THE CONCLUSION OF THE PSALM. 


“The remainder of the Psalm makes it mani- 
fest that He knew His Father would grant to 
Him all things which He asked, and would raise 
Him from the dead ; and that He urged all who 
fear God to praise Him because He had compas- 
sion on all races of believing men, through the 
mystery of Him who was crucified ; and that He 
stood in the midst of His brethren the apostles 
(who repented of their flight from Him when He 
was crucified, after He rose from the dead, and 
after they were persuaded by Himself that, before 
His passion He had mentioned to them that He 
must suffer these things, and that they were an- 
nounced beforehand by the prophets), and when 
living with them sang praises to God, as is made 
evident in the memoirs of the apostles. .The 
words are the following: ‘I will declare Thy 
name to my brethren ; in the midst of the Church 
will I praise Thee. Ye that fear the Lord, praise 
Him; all ye, the seed of Jacob, glorify Him. 





1 This demonstration is not given. [It could not be, The woman 
was herself frightened by the direct interposition of God. 1. Sam. 
xxviii, 12, 13.] 

2 Sylburg proposed Stxatous yivec@ar for di ovs yiv, “to strive 
earnestly to become righteous, and at death to pray.” 

3 Luke xxiii. 46. 

4 Matt. v. 20. 











Let all the seed of Israel fear Him.’ And when 
it is said that He changed the name of one of 
the apostles to Peter; and when it is written in 
the memoirs of Him that this so happened, as 
well as that He changed the names of other two 
brothers, the sons of Zebedee, to Boanerges, 
which means sons of thunder; this was an an- 
nouncement of the fact that it was He by whom 
Jacob was called Israel, and Oshea called Jesus 
(Joshua), under whose name the people who 
survived of those that came from Egypt were 
conducted into the land promised to the patri- 
archs. And that He should arise like a star 
from the seed of Abraham, Moses showed before- 
hand when he thus said, ‘A star shall arise from 
Jacob, and a leader from Israel ;’5 and another 
Scripture says, ‘Behold a man; the East is His 
name.’® Accordingly, when a star rose in heaven 
at the time of His birth, as is recorded in the 
memoirs of His apostles, the Magi from Arabia, 
recognising the sign by this, came and wor- 
shipped Him. 


CHAP. CVII.— THE SAME IS TAUGHT FROM THE 
HISTORY OF JONAH. 


“ And that He would rise again on the third 


day after the crucifixion, it is written? in the 


memoirs that some of your nation, questioning 
Him, said, ‘Show us a sign ;’ and He replied to 
them, ‘ An evil and adulterous generation seeketh 
after a sign; and no sign shall be given them, 
save the sign of Jonah.’ And since He spoke 
this obscurely, it was to be understood by the 
audience that after His crucifixion He should rise 
again on the third day. And He showed that 
your generation was more wicked and more adul- 
terous than the city of Nineveh ; for the latter, 
when Jonah preached to them, after he had been 
cast up on the third day from the belly of the 
great fish, that after three (in other versions, 
forty) ® days they should all perish, proclaimed a 
fast of ep” creatures, men and beasts, with sack- 
cloth, and with earnest lamentation, with true 
repentance from the heart, and turning away 
from unrighteousness, in the belief that God is 
merciful and kind to all who turn from wicked- 
ness ; so that the king of that city himself, with 
his nobles also, put on sackcloth and remained 
fasting and praying, and obtained their request 
that the city should not be overthrown. But when 
Jonah was grieved that on the (fortieth) third 
day, as he proclaimed, the city was not over- 
thrown, by the dispensation of a gourd 9 springing 
up from the earth for him, under which he sat 





5 Num. xxiv. 17, 

6 [Or, “ Dayspring.”] Zech, vi. 12 (according to LXX.). 

7 Matt. xii. 38 f. 

8 In the LXX, only three days are recorded, though in the He- 
brew and other versions forty. The parenthetic clause is probably 
the work of a transcriber. 

9 Read xexv@va for ocvera. 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 253 





and was shaded from the heat (now the gourd 
had sprung up suddenly, and Jonah had neither 
planted nor watered it, but it had come up all at 
once to afford him shade), and by the other dis- 
pensation of its withering away, for which Jonah 
grieved, [God] convicted him of being unjustly 
displeased because the city of Nineveh had not 
been overthrown, and said, ‘Thou hast had pity on 
the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, 
neither madest it grow; which came up in a 
night, and perished in a night. And shall I not 
spare Nineveh, the great city, wherein dwell 
more than six score thousand persons that can- 
not discern between their right hand and their 
left hand ; and also much cattle ?’?! 


from Jerusalem, and which they learned 3 through 
them, suffer me to show you by quoting a short 
statement from the prophecy of Micah, one of 
the twelve [minor prophets]. This is as follows : 
‘And in the last days the mountain of the Lord 
shall be manifest, established on the top of the 
mountains ; it shall be exalted above the hills, 
and people shall flow unto it* And many na- 
tions shall go, and say, Come, let us go up to 
the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of 
the God of Jacob; and they shall enlighten us 
in His way, and we shall walk in His paths: for 
out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word 
of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall 
judge among many peoples, and shall rebuke 
strong nations afar off ; and they shall beat their 
swords into ploughshares, and their spears into 
sickles : nation shall not lift up a sword against 
nation, neither shall they learn war any more. 
And each man shall sit under his vine and under 
his fig tree ; and there shall be none to terrify : 
for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken 
it. For all people will walk in the name of 
their gods; but we will walk in the name of the 
Lord our God for ever. And it shall come to 
pass in that day, that I will assemble her that is 
afflicted, and gather her that is driven out, and 
whom I had plagued ; and I shall make her that 
is afflicted a remnant, and her that is oppressed 
a strong nation. And the Lord shall reign over 
them in Mount Zion from henceforth, and even 
for ever.’”’5 


CHAP» “CVI, — THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST DID 
NOT_CONVERT THE JEWS. BUT THROUGH THE 
WHOLE WORLD THEY HAVE SENT MEN TO AC- 
CUSE CHRIST. 


“ And though all the men of your nation knew 
the incidents in the life of Jonah, and though 
Christ said amongst you that He would give 
the sign of Jonah, exhorting you to repent of 
your wicked deeds at least after He rose again 
from the dead, and to mourn before God as did 
the Ninevites, in order that your nation and city 
might not be taken and destroyed, as they have 
been destroyed ; yet you not only have not re- 
pented, after you learned that He rose from 
the dead, but, as I said before,? you have sent 
chosen and ordained men throughout all the 
world to proclaim that a godless and lawless 
heresy had sprung from one Jesus, a Galilzean 
deceiver, whom we crucified, but his disciples 
stole him by night from the tomb, where he was 
laid when unfastened from the cross, and now 
deceive men by asserting that he has risen from 
the dead and ascended to heaven. Moreover, 
you accuse Him of having taught those godless, 
lawless, and unholy doctrines which you mention 
to the condemnation of those who confess Him 
to be Christ, and a Teacher from and Son of 
God. Besides this, even when your city is cap- 
tured, and your land ravaged, you do not repent, 
but dare to utter imprecations on Him and all 
who believe in Him. Yet we do not hate you 
or those who, by your means, have conceived 
such prejudices against us; but we pray that 
even now all of you may repent and obtain mercy 
from God, the compassionate and long-suffering 
Father of all. 


CHAP. CIX.— THE CONVERSION OF THE GENTILES 
HAS BEEN PREDICTED BY MICAH. 


“But that the Gentiles would repent of the 


evil in which they led erring lives, when they 
heard the doctrine preached by His apostles 


CHAP. CX.—A PORTION OF THE PROPHECY AL- 
READY FULFILLED IN THE CHRISTIANS: THE 
REST SHALL BE FULFILLED AT THE SECOND 
ADVENT. 


And when I had finished these words, I con- 
tinued : “ Now I am aware that your teachers, 
sirs, admit the whole of the words of this pas- 
sage to refer to Christ ; and I am likewise aware 
that they maintain He has not yet come; or if 
they say that He has come, they assert that it 
is not known who He is; but when He shall 
become manifest and glorious, then it shall be 
known who He is. And then, they say, the 
events mentioned in this passage shall happen, 
just as if there was no fruit as yet from the words 
of the prophecy. O unreasoning men! under- 
standing not what has been proved by all these 
passages, that two advents of Christ have been 
announced ; the one, in which He is set forth as 
suffering, inglorious, dishonoured, and crucified ; 
but the other, in which He shall come from 
heaven with glory, when the man of apostasy,° 
who speaks strange things against the Most 
NE TE AL a an 


3 Read padovra for ra8dvra. eats 

4 Literally, ‘“ people shall place a river in it.” 
5 Mic. iv. 1 ff, a 

6 2 Thess. ii, 3; and see chap, xxxil, 





3 Jonah iv. ro f. 
2 Chap. xvii. 


254 


st DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


High, shall venture to do unlawful deeds on the 
earth against us the Christians, who, having 
learned the true worship of God from the law, 
and the word which went forth from Jerusalem 
by means of the apostles of Jesus, have fled for 
safety to the God of Jacob and God of Israel ; 
and we who were filled with war, and mutual 
slaughter, and every wickedness, have each 
through,.the whole earth changed our warlike 
weapons, — our swords into ploughshares, and 
our spears into implements of tillage, — and we 
cultivate piety, righteousness, philanthropy, faith, 
and hope, which we have from the Father Him- 
self through Him who was crucified:; and sitting 
each under his vine, i.e., each man possessing 
his own married wife. For you are aware that 
the prophetic word says, ‘ And his wife shall be 
like a fruitful vine.’' Now it is evident that no 
one can terrify or subdue us who have believed 
in Jesus over all the world. For it is plain that, 
though beheaded, and crucified, and thrown to 
wild beasts, and chains, and fire, and all other 
kinds of torture, we do not give up our confes- 
sion ; but the more such things happen, the more 
do others and in larger numbers become faith- 
ful, and worshippers of God through the name 
of Jesus. For just as if one should cut away the 
fruit-bearing parts of a vine, it grows up again, 
and yields other branches flourishing and fruit- 
ful; even so the same thing happens with us. 
For the vine planted by God and Christ the 
Saviour is His people. But the rest of the proph- 
ecy shall be fulfilled at His second coming. 
For the expression, ‘He that is afflicted [and 
driven out],’i.e., from the world, [implies] that, 
so far as you and all other men have it in your 
power, each Christian has been driven out not 
only from his own property, but even from the 
whole world ; for you permit no Christian to live. 
But you say that the same fate has befallen your 
own nation. Now, if you have been cast out 
after defeat in battle, you have suffered such 
treatment justly indeed, as all the Scriptures 
bear witness; but we, though we have done 
no such [evil acts] after we knew the truth of 
God, are testified to by God, that, together with 
the most righteous, and only spotless and sinless 
Christ, we are taken away out of the earth. For 
Isaiah cries, ‘Behold how the righteous perishes, 
and no man lays it to heart; and righteous men 
are taken away, and no man considers it.’ 


CHAP. CXI.— THE TWO ADVENTS WERE SIGNIFIED 
BY THE TWO GOATS. OTHER FIGURES OF THE 
FIRST ADVENT, IN WHICH THE GENTILES ARE 
FREED BY THE BLOOD OF CHRIST. 


“And that it was declared by symbol, even in 
the time of Moses, that there would be two ad- 





I Ps, cxxviii. 3. 
2 Isa. lvii. 1, 











e 


vents of this Christ, as I have mentioned pre- 
viously, [is manifest] from the symbol of the 
goats presented for sacrifice during the fast. 
And again, by what Moses and Joshua did, the 
same thing was symbolically announced and told 
beforehand. For the one of them, stretching 
out his hands, remained till evening on the hill, 
his hands being supported ; and this reveals a 
type of no other thing than of the cross: and 
the other, whose name was altered to Jesus 
(Joshua), led the fight, and Israel conquered. 
Now this took place in the case of both those 
holy men and prophets of God, that you may 
perceive how one of them could not bear up 
both the mysteries: I mean, the type of the 
cross and the type of the name. For this is, 
was, and shall be the strength of Him alone, 
whose name every power dreads, being very 
much tormented because they shall be destroyed 
by Him. Therefore our suffering and crucified 
Christ was not cursed by the law, but made it 
manifest that He alone would save those who 
do not depart from His faith. And the blood 
of the passover, sprinkled on each man’s door- 
posts and lintel, delivered those who were saved 
in Egypt, when the first-born of the Egyptians 
were destroyed. For the passover was Christ, 
who was afterwards sacrificed, as also Isaiah 
said, ‘ He was led as a sheep to the slaughter.’ 3 
And it is written, that on the day of the pass- 
over you seized Him, and that also during the 
passover you crucified Him. And as the blood 
of the passover saved those who were in Egypt, 
so also the blood of Christ will deliver from 
death those who have believed. Would God, 
then, have been deceived if this sign had not 
been above the doors? I do not say that; 
but I affirm that He announced beforehand 
the future salvation for the human race through 
the blood of Christ. For the sign of the scar- 
let thread, which the spies, sent to Jericho by 
Joshua, son of Nave (Nun), gave to Rahab the 
harlot, telling her to bind it to the window 
through which she let them down to escape 
from their enemies, also manifested the symbol 
of the blood of Christ, by which those who were 
at one time harlots and unrighteous persons out 
of all nations are saved, receiving remission of 
sins, and cong no longer in sin. 


CHAP. /CXII} — THE JEWS EXPOUND THESE SIGNS 
JEJUNELY AND FEEBLY, AND TAKE UP THEIR 
ATTENTION ONLY WITH INSIGNIFICANT MATTERS. 


“But you, expounding these things in a low 
[and earthly] manner, impute much weakness 
to God, if you thus listen to them merely, and 
do not investigate the force of the words spoken. 
Since even Moses would in this way be con- 





3 Isa. hii. 7. 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 





255 





sidered a transgressor: for he enjoined that no 
likeness of anything in heaven, or on earth, or 
in the sea, be made ; and then he himself made 
a brazen serpent and set it on a standard, and 
bade those who were bitten look at it: and they 
were saved when they looked at it. Will the 
serpent, then, which (I have already said) God 
had in the beginning cursed and cut off by the 
great sword, as Isaiah says,’ be understood as 
having preserved at that time the people? and 
shall we receive these things in the foolish ac- 
ceptation of your teachers, and [regard] them 
not as signs? And shall we not rather refer the 
standard to the resemblance of the crucified 


Jesus, since also Moses by his outstretched. 


hands, together with him who was named Jesus 
(Joshua), achieved a victory for your people? 
For in this way we shall cease to be at a loss 
about the things which the lawgiver did, when 
he, without forsaking God, persuaded the people 
to hope in a beast through which transgression 
and disobedience had their origin. And this 
was done and said by the blessed prophet with 
much intelligence and mystery; and there is 
nothing said or done by any one of the prophets, 
without exception, which one can justly repre- 


hend, i possess the knowledge which is in 
them. | But if your teachers only expound to 
you why female camels are spoken of in this 


passage, and are not in that; or why so many 
measures of fine flour and so many measures of 
oil [are used] in the offerings; and do so ina 
low and sordid manner, while they never ven- 
ture either to speak of or to expound the points 
which are great and worthy of investigation, or 
command you to give no audience to us while 
we expound them; and to come not into con- 
versation with us >: brill they not deserve to hear 
what our Lord Jesus Christ said to them: 
‘Whited sepulchres, which appear beautiful 
outward, and within are full of dead men’s 
bones ; which pay tithe of mint, and swallow 
a camel: ye blind guides!’ ? [1 then, you will 
not despise the doctrines of those who exalt 
themselves and wish to be called Rabbi, Rabbi, 
and come with such earnestness and intelligence 
to the words of prophecy as to suffer the same 
inflictions from your own people which the 
prophets themselves did, you cannot receive 
any advantage whatsoever from the prophetic 
writings. | 
CHAP. ex. — JOSHUA WAS A FIGURE OF CHRIST. 
“What I mean is this. Jesus (Joshua), as I 
have now frequently remarked, who was called 


Oshea, when he was sent to spy out the land of 
Canaan, was named by Moses Jesus (Joshua). 





I Isa, xxvii. 1. Z 

2 Matt. xxiii. 27, 23, 24. [Note the examples he gives of the 
rabbinical expositions, He consents to their principle, but gives 
pobler analogies. ] a eS 








Why he did this you neither ask, nor are ata 
loss about it, nor make strict inquiries. There- 
fore Christ has escaped your notice ; and though 
you read, you understand not; and even now, 
though you hear that Jesus is our Christ, you 
consider not that the name was bestowed on 
Him not purposelessly nor by chance. But you 
make a theological discussion as to why one ‘a’ 
was added to Abraham’s first name; and as to 
why one ‘p’ was added to Sarah’s name, you 
use similar high-sounding disputations. But 
why do you not similarly investigate the reason 
why the name of Oshea the son of Nave (Nun), 
which his father gave him, was changed to Jesus 
(Joshua)? But since not only was his name 
altered, but he was also appointed successor to 
Moses, being the only one of his contemporaries 
who came out from Egypt, he led the surviving 
people into the Holy Land; and as he, not 
Moses, led the people into the Holy Land, and 
as he distributed it by lot to those who entered 
along with him, so also Jesus the Christ will 
turn again the dispersion of the people, and will 
distribute the good land to each one, though 
not in the same manner. For the former gave 
them a temporary inheritance, seeing he was 
neither Christ who is God, nor the Son of God ; 
but the latter, after the holy resurrection,‘ shall 
give us the eternal possession. The former, after 
he had been named Jesus (Joshua), and after 
he had received strength from His Spirit, 
caused the sun to stand still, For I have 
proved that it was Jesus who appeared to and 
conversed with Moses, and Abraham, and all 
the other patriarchs without exception, minister- 
ing to the will of the Father; who also, I say, 
came to be born man by the Virgin Mary, and 
lives for ever. For the latter is He after 5 whom 
and by whom the Father will renew both the 
heaven and the earth ; this is He who shall shine 
an eternal light in Jerusalem; this is he who 
is the king of Salem after the order of Melchize- 
dek, and the eternal Priest of the Most High. 
The former is said to have circumcised the 
people a second time with knives of stone 
(which was a sign of this circumcision with 
which Jesus Christ Himself has circumcised us 
from the idols made of stone and of other mate- 
rials), and to have collected together those who 
were circumcised from the uncircumcision, i.e., 
from the error of the world, in every place by 
the knives of stone, to wit, the words of our 
Lord Jesus. For I have shown that Christ was 
proclaimed by the prophets in parables a Stone 
and a Rock. Accordingly, the knives of stone 
we shall take to mean His words, by means of 


3 According to the LXX., Zdpa was altered to Zappa, and “Afpou 
to ’ABpadu. : Vey 

4 Or, “ resurrection of the saints. 

5 Justin seems to mean that the renewal of heaven and earth dates 
from the incarnation of Christ. [St. Matt, xix. 28.] 


256 


which so many who were in error have been 
circumcised from uncircumcision with the cir- 
cumcision of the heart, with which God by 
Jesus commanded those from that time to be 
circumcised who derived their ‘circumcision 
from Abraham, saying that Jesus (Joshua) would 
circumcise a second time with knives of stone 
those who entered into that holy land. 


CHAP. CXIV. — SOME RULES FOR DISCERNING 
WHAT IS SAID ABOUT CHRIST. THE CIRCUMCIS- 
ION OF THE JEWS IS VERY DIFFERENT FROM 
THAT WHICH CHRISTIANS RECEIVE. 

“For the Holy Spirit sometimes brought 


about that something, which was the type of 
the future, should be done clearly ; sometimes 


He uttered words about what was to take place, |. 


as if it was then taking place, or had taken 
place. And unless those who read perceive this 
art, they will not be able to follow the words of 
the prophets as they ought. For example’s 
sake, I shall repeat some prophetic passages, 
that you may understand what I say. When He 
speaks by Isaiah, ‘ He was led as a sheep to the 
slaughter, and like a lamb before the shearer,’ * 
He speaks as if the suffering had already taken 
place. And when He says again, ‘I have 
stretched out my hands to a disobedient and 
gainsaying people ;’? and when He says, Lord, 
who hath believed our report?’3— the words 
are spoken as if announcing events which had 
already come to pass. For I have shown that 
Christ is oftentimes called a Stone in parable, 
and in figurative speech Jacob and Israel. And 
again, when He says, ‘I shall behold the 
heavens, the works of Thy fingers,’ 4 unless I 
understand His method of using words, I shall 
not understand intelligently, but just as your 
teachers suppose, fancying that the Father of all, 
the unbegotten God, has hands and feet, and 
fingers, and a soul, like a composite being ; and 
they for this reason teach that it was the Father 
Himself who appeared to Abraham and to 
Jacob. Blessed therefore are we who have 
been circumcised the second time with knives 
of stone. For your first circumcision was and 
is performed by iron instruments, for you remain 
hard-hearted ; but our circumcision, which is 
the second, having been instituted after yours, 
circumcises us from idolatry and from absolutely 
every kind of wickedness by sharp stones, i.e., 
by the words [preached] by the apostles of the 
corner-stone cut out without hands. And our 
hearts are thus circumcised from evil, so that we 





T Isa. liii, 7. 
2 Isa. Ixv. 2. 
3 Isa, liii. x. 
4 Ps. viii. 3. 


ya Literally, “the operation of His words.” Editors have changed 
ray Adywy into Tov Adyor or Tov Adyou: but there is no need of 
change. 











DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


a 


are happy to die for the name of the good Rock, 
which causes living water to burst forth for 
the hearts of those who by Him have loved the 
Father of all, and which gives those who are 
willing to drink of the water of life. But you do 
not comprehend me when I speak these things ; 
for you have not understood what it has been 
prophesied that Christ would do, and you do not 
believe us who draw your attention to what has 
been written. For Jeremiah thus cries: ‘Woe 
unto you! because you have forsaken the living 
fountain, and have digged for yourselves broken 
cisterns that can hold no water. Shall there be 
a wilderness where Mount Zion is, because I gave 
Jerusalem a bill of divorce in your sight ?’°® 


CHAP. CXV.— PREDICTION ABOUT THE CHRISTIANS 
IN ZECHARIAH. THE MALIGNANT WAY WHICH 
THE JEWS HAVE IN DISPUTATIONS. 


“But you ought to believe Zechariah when 
he shows in parable the mystery of Christ, and 
announces it obscurely. The following are his 
words : ‘Rejoice, and be glad, O daughter of 
Zion : for, lo, I come, and I shall dwell in the 
midst of thee, saith the Lord. And many na- 
tions shall be added to the Lord in that day. 
And they shall be my people, and I will dwell in 
the midst of thee ; and they shall know that the 
Lord of hosts hath sent me unto thee. And 
the Lord shall inherit Judah his portion in the 
holy land, and He shall choose Jerusalem again. 
Let all flesh fear before the Lord, for He is raised 
up out of His holy clouds. And He showed me 
Jesus (Joshua) the high priest standing before 
the angel [of the Lord7] ; and the devil stood at 
his right hand to resist him. And the Lord said 
to the devil, The Lord who hath chosen Jerusa- 
lem rebuke thee. Behold, is not this a brand 
plucked out of the fire?’’’§ 

As Trypho was about to reply and contradict 
me, I said, “ Wait and hear what I say first: for 
I am not to give the explanation which you sup- 
pose, as if there had been no priest of the name 
of Joshua (Jesus) in the land of Babylon, where 
your nation were prisoners. But even if I did, I 
have shown that if there? was a priest named 
Joshua (Jesus) in your nation, yet the prophet 
had not seen him in his revelation, just as he had 
not seen either the devil or the angel of the Lord 
by eyesight, and in his waking condition, but ina 
trance, at the time when the revelation was made 
to him.?° But I now say, that as [Scripture] said 
that the Son of Nave (Nun) by the name Jesus 
(Joshua) wrought powerful works and exploits 
which proclaimed beforehand what would be per- 
formed by our Lord; so I proceed now to show 





6 Jer. ii, 3. 

7 Omitted by Justin in this place. 

8 Zech. ii. 10-13, ili. 1, 2. 

9 The reading suggested by Maranus, ¢i ev fy. 
10 [Noteworthy as to prophetic vision. ’ 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


that the revelation made among your people in 
Babylon in the days of Jesus (Joshua) the priest, 
was an announcement of the things to be accom- 
plished by our Priest; who is God, and Christ the 
Son of God the Father of all. 

“Indeed, I wondered,” continued I, “why a 
little ago you kept silence while I was speaking, 
and why you did not interrupt me when I said 
that the son of Nave (Nun) was the only one 
of contemporaries who came out of Egypt that 
entered the Holy Land along with the men de- 
scribed as younger than that generation. For you 
swarm and light on sores like flies. For though 
- one should speak ten thousand words well, if there 
happen to be one little word displeasing to you, 
because not sufficiently intelligible or accurate, 
you make no account of the many good words, 
but lay hold of the little word, and are very zealous 
in setting it up as something impious and guilty ; 
in order that, when you are judged with the very 
same judgment by God, you may have a much 
heavier account to render for your great audaci- 
ties, whether evil actions, or bad interpretations 
which you obtain by falsifying the truth. For 
with what judgment you judge, it is righteous 
that you be judged withal. 


CHAP. CXVI.—IT IS SHOWN HOW THIS PROPHECY 
SUITS THE CHRISTIANS. 


“« But to give you the account of the revelation 
of the holy Jesus Christ, I take up again my dis- 
course, and I assert that even that revelation was 
made for us who believe on Christ the High 
Priest, namely this crucified One; and though 
we lived in fornication and all kinds of filthy con- 
versation, we have by the grace of our Jesus, ac- 
cording to His Father’s will, stripped ourselves 
of all those filthy wickednesses with which we 
were imbued. And though the devil is ever at 
hand to resist us, and anxious to seduce all to 
himself, yet the Angel of God, i.e., the Power 
of God sent to us through Jesus Christ, rebukes 
him, and he departs from us. And we are just 
as if drawn out from the fire, when purified from 
our former sins, and [rescued] from the affliction 
and the fiery trial by which the devil and all his 
coadjutors try us ; out of which Jesus the Son of 
God has promised again to deliver us,’ and invest 
us with prepared garments, if we do His com- 
mandments ; and has undertaken to provide an 
eternal kingdom [for us]. For just as that Jesus 
(Joshua), called by the prophet a priest, evi- 
dently had on filthy garments because he is said 
to have taken a harlot for a wife,? and is called a 





1 Maranus changed among into amoomay, an emendation adopted 
in our translation. Otto retains the ge Aad the Ms., “out of which 
Jesus the Son of God again snatches us. He promised that He would 
clothe us with,” etc. ’ 

2 Justin either confuses Joshua son. of Josedech with Hosea 
the prophet, or he refers to the Jewish tradition that ‘ filthy garments 
signified either an illicit marriage, or sins of the people, or the squalor 
of captivity. ie ‘ 











: 257 


brand plucked out of the fire, because he had 
received remission of sins when the devil that re- 
sisted him was rebuked ; even so we, who through 
the name of Jesus have believed as one man in 
God the Maker of all, have been stripped, through 
the name of His first-begotten Son, of the filthy 
garments, i.e., of our sins ; and being vehemently 
inflamed by the word of His calling, we are the 
true high priestly race of God, as even God 
Himself bears witness, saying that in every place 
among the Gentiles sacrifices are presented to 
Him well-pleasing and pure. Now God receives 
sacrifices from no one, except through His 
priests.3 


CHAP, CXVII.— MALACHIS PROPHECY CONCERNING 
THE SACRIFICES OF THE CHRISTIANS. IT CANNOT 
BE TAKEN AS REFERRING TO THE PRAYERS OF 
JEWS OF THE DISPERSION. 


“ Accordingly, God, anticipating all the sacri- 
fices which we offer through this name, and 
which Jesus the Christ enjoined us to offer, i.e., 
in the Eucharist of the bread and the cup, and 
which are presented by Christians in all places 
throughout the world, bears witness that they are 
well-pleasing to Him. But He utterly rejects 
those presented by you and by those priests of 
yours, saying, ‘And I will not accept your sacri- 
fices at your hands ; for from the rising of the 
sun to its setting my name is glorified among 
the Gentiles (He says) ; but ye profaneit.’* Yet 
even now, in your love of contention, you assert 
that God does not accept the sacrifices of those 
who dwelt then in Jerusalem, and were called 
Israelites ; but says that He is pleased with the 
prayers of the individuals of that nation then dis- 
persed, and calls their prayers sacrifices. Now, 
that prayers and giving of thanks, when offered 
by worthy men, are the only perfect and well- 
pleasing sacrifices to God, I also admit. For 
such alone Christians have undertaken to offer, 
and in the remembrance effected by their solid 
and liquid food, whereby the suffering of the Son 
of God 5 which He endured is brought to mind, 
whose name the high priests of your nation and 
your teachers have caused to be profaned and 
blasphemed over all the earth. But these filthy 
garments, which have been put by you on all who 
have become Christians by the name of Jesus, 
God shows shall be taken away from us, when He 
shall raise all men from the dead, and appoint 
some to be incorruptible, immortal, and free from 
sorrow in the everlasting and imperishable king- 
dom; but shall send others away to the ever- 
lasting punishment of fire. But as to you and 
your teachers deceiving yourselves when you in- 
terpret what the Scripture says as referring to 
SR A A A a SIE ESS 7 SN 


3 [Isaiah Ixvi. 21; Rom. xv. 15, 16, 17 (Greek); 1 Pet. ii, 9.] 
4 Mal, i. 10-12. - 


5 Or, “ God of God,” 


258 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


eer o_o ee eee 


those of your nation then in dispersion, and 
maintain that their prayers and sacrifices offered 
in every place are pure and well-pleasing, learn 
that you are speaking falsely, and trying by all 
means to cheat yourselves: for, first of all, not 
even now does your nation extend from the rising 
to the setting of the sun, but there are nations 
among which none of your race ever dwelt. 
For there is not one single race of men, whether 
barbarians, or Greeks, or whatever they may be 
called, nomads, or vagrants, or herdsmen living 
in tents, among whom prayers and giving of 
thanks are not offered through the name of the 
crucified Jesus." And then,? as the Scriptures 
show, at the time when Malachi wrote this, your 
dispersion over all the earth, which now exists, 
had not taken place. 


CHAP. CXVIII.— HE EXHORTS TO REPENTANCE BE- 
FORE--CHRIST COMES; IN WHOM CHRISTIANS, 
SINCE THEY BELIEVE, ARE FAR MORE RELIGIOUS 
THAN JEWS. 


“So that you ought rather to desist from the 
love of strife, and repent before the great day 
of judgment come, wherein all those of your 
tribes who have pierced this Christ shall mourn, 
as I have shown has been declared by the Scrip- 
tures. And I have explained that the Lord 
swore, ‘after the order of Melchizedek,’3 and 
what this prediction means; and the prophecy 
of Isaiah which says, ‘ His burial is taken away 
from the midst,’4 I have already said, referred to 
the future burying and rising again of Christ ; 
and I have frequently remarked that this very 
Christ is the Judge of all the living and the dead. 
And Nathan likewise, speaking to David about 
Him, thus continued : ‘I will be His Father, and 
He shall be my Son; and my mercy shall I not 
take away from Him, as I did from them that 
went before Him; and I will establish Him in 
my house, and in His kingdom for ever.’5 And 
Ezekiel says, ‘There shall be no other prince in 
the house but He.’® For He is the chosen 
Priest and eternal King, the Christ, inasmuch as 
He is the Son of God; and do not suppose that 
Isaiah or the other prophets speak of sacrifices 
of blood or libations being presented at the altar 
on His second advent, but of true and spiritual 
praises and giving of thanks. And we have not 
in vain believed in Him, and have not been led 
astray by those who taught us such doctrines ; 
but this has come to pass through the wonderful 
foreknowledge of God, in order that we, through 
the calling of the new and eternal covenant, that 





1 [Note this epee ae the catholicity of the Church in the 
second century. And see Kaye (compare with Gibbon), cap. vi. 112.] 
2 elra 6é for eiddres. 
3 Ps. cx. 4. 
4 sa. lin. 8. 
S 2 Sam. vii. 14 f, 
© Ezek. xliv. 3. 








is, of Christ, might be found more intelligent.and 
God-fearing than yourselves, who are considered 
to be lovers of God and men of understanding, 
but are not. Isaiah, filled with admiration of 
this, said: ‘And kings shall shut their mouths: 
for those to whom no announcement has been 
made in regard to Him? shall see ; and those 
who heard not shall understand. Lord, who 
hath believed our report? and to whom is the 
arm of the Lord revealed ?’*® 

“ And in repeating this,? Trypho,”’ I continued, 
“as far as is allowable, I endeavour to do so for 
the sake of those who came with you to-day, yet 
briefly and concisely.” 

Then he replied, “ You do well; and though 
you repeat the same things at considerable length, 
be assured that I and my companions listen with 
pleasure.” 


CHAP. CXIX.— CHRISTIANS ARE THE HOLY PEOPLE 
PROMISED TO ABRAHAM. THEY. HAVE BEEN 
CALLED LIKE ABRAHAM. 


Then I said again, “Would you suppose, sirs, 
that we could ever have understood these matters 
in the Scriptures, if we had not received grace 
to discern by the will of Him whose pleasure it 
was? in order that the saying of Moses '° might 
come to pass, ‘They provoked me with strange 
[gods], they provoked me to anger with their 
abominations. They sacrificed to demons whom 
they knew not; new gods that came newly up, 
whom their fathers knew not. Thou hast for- 
saken God that begat thee, and forgotten God 
that brought thee up. And the Lord saw, and 
was jealous, and was provoked to anger by reason 
of the rage of His sons and daughters: and He 
said, I will turn My face away from them, and I 
will show what shall come on them at the last; 
for it is a very froward generation, children in 
whom is no faith. They have moved Me to 
jealousy with that which is not God, they have 
provoked Me to anger with their idols; and I 
will move them to jealousy with that which is 
not a nation, I will provoke them to anger with 
a foolish people. For a fire is kindled from 
Mine anger, and it shall burn to Hades. It shall 
consume the earth and her increase, and set on 
fire the foundations of the mountains; I will 
heap mischief on them.’'? And after that Right- 
eous One was put to death, we flourished as 
another people, and shot forth as new and pros- 
perous corn; as the prophets said, ‘And many 
nations shall betake themselves to the Lord in 
that day for a people: and they shall dwell in 
the midst of all the earth.’'* But we are not 








7 The mss, read “‘ them.” Otto has changed it to “‘ Him.” 
8 Isa. lii. 15, iii. x. 

9 pict this apology be noted. 

Io Literally, ‘‘ in the time of Moses,” - - 

11 Deut, xxxii, 16-23. ‘ 


12 Zech. ii, 11, 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


—_ 


259 





only a pecple, but also a holy people, as we have 
shown already.'. ‘And they shall call them the 
holy people, redeemed by the Lord.’? There- 
fore we are not a people to be despised, nor a 
barbarous race, nor such as the Carian and 
Phrygian nations ; but God has even chosen us, 
and He has become manifest to those who asked 
not after Him. ‘Behold, I am God,’ He says, 
“to the nation which called not on My name.’ 
For this is that nation which God of old prom- 
ised to Abraham, when He declared that He 
would make him a father of many nations ; not 
meaning, however, the Arabians, or Egyptians, 
or Idumeans, since Ishmael became the father 
of a mighty nation, and so did Esau ; and there 
is now a great multitude of Ammonites. Noah, 
moreover, was the father of Abraham, and in fact 
of all men; and others were the progenitors of 
others. What larger measure of grace, then, did 
Christ bestow on Abraham? This, namely, that 
He.called him with His voice by the like calling, 
telling him to quit the land wherein he dwelt. 
And He has called all of us by that voice, and 
we have left already the way of living in which 
we used to spend our days, passing our time in 
evil after the fashions of the other inhabitants of 
the earth; and along with Abraham we shall 
inherit the holy land, when we shall receive the 
inheritance for an endless eternity, being children 
of Abraham through the like faith. For as he 
believed the voice of God, and it was imputed 
to him for righteousness, in like manner we, 
having believed God’s voice spoken by the apos- 
tles of Christ, and promulgated to us by the 
prophets, have renounced even to death all the 
things of the world. Accordingly, He promises 
to him a nation of similar faith, God-fearing, 
righteous, and delighting the Father; but it is 
not you, ‘in whom is no faith.’ 


“CHAP. CXX.— CHRISTIANS WERE PROMISED TO 
ISAAC, JACOB, AND JUDAH. 


“ Observe, too, how the same promises are 
made to Isaac and to Jacob. For thus He 
speaks to Isaac: ‘And in thy seed shall all the 
nations of the earth-be blessed.’* And to Jacob: 
‘ And in thee and in thy seed shall all families of 
the earth be blessed.’5 He says that neither to 
Esau nor to Reuben, nor to any other ; only to 
those of whom the Christ should arise, accord- 
ing to the dispensation, through the Virgin Mary. 
But if you would consider the blessing of Judah, 
you would perceive what I say. For the seed 
is divided from Jacob, and comes down through 
Judah, and Phares, and Jesse, and David. And 
this was-a symbol of the fact that some of your 


a ESS SS Se 
1 See chap. cx. 
2 Isa, Ixii. 12. 
3 Isa, Ixv. 1. 
4 Gen, xxvi. 4. 
5 Gen, xxviii. 14. 











nation would be found children of Abraham, and 
found, too, in the lot of Christ ; but that others, 
who are indeed children of Abraham, would be 
like the sand on the sea-shore, barren and fruit- 
less, much in quantity, and without number in- 
deed, but bearing no fruit whatever, and only 


drinking the water of the sea. And a vast mul- 
titude in your nation are convicted of being of 
this kind, imbibing doctrines of bitterness and 
godlessness, but spurning the word of God. He 
speaks therefore in the passage relating to Judah : 
“A prince shall not fail from Judah, nor a ruler 
from his thighs, till that which is laid up for him 
come; and He shall be the expectation of the 
nations.’® And it is plain that this was spoken 
not of Judah, but of Christ. For all we out of 
all nations do expect not Judah, but Jesus, who 
led your fathers out of Egypt. For the prophecy 
referred even to the advent of Christ: ‘Till He 
come for whom this is laid up, and He shall be 
the expectation of nations.’ Jesus came, there- 
fore, as we have shown at length, and is expected 
again to appear above the clouds ; whose name 
you profane, and labour hard to get it profaned 
over all the earth. It were possible for me, sirs,” 
I continued, “to contend against you about the 
reading which you so interpret, saying it is writ- 
ten, ‘Till the things laid up for Him come ;’ 
though the Seventy have not so explained it, but 
thus, ‘ Till He comes for whom this is laid up.’ 
But since what follows indicates that the refer- 
ence is to Christ (for it is, ‘and He shall be the 
expectation of nations’), I do not proceed to 
have a mere verbal controversy with you, as I 
have not attempted to establish proof about 
Christ from the passages of Scripture which are 
not admitted by you,” which I quoted from the 
words of Jeremiah the prophet, and Esdras, and 
David; but from those which are even now 
admitted by you, which had your teachers com- 
prehended, be well assured they would have de- 
leted them, as they did those about the death of 
Isaiah, whom you sawed asunder with a wooden 
saw. And this was a mysterious type of Christ 
being about to cut your nation in two, and to 
raise those worthy of the honour to the everlast- 
ing kingdom along with the holy patriarchs and 
prophets; but He has said that He will send 
others to the condemnation of the unquenchable 
fire along with similar disobedient and impeni- 
tent men from all the nations. ‘ For they shall 
come,’ He said, ‘from the west and from the 
east, and shall sit down with Abraham, and 
Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven ; but 
the children of the kingdom shall be cast out 
into outer darkness.’® And I have mentioned 


aL oe Se ee ee 


6 Gen. xlix. 10. , 

7 {Note this important point. He forbears to cite the New Testa- 
ment. ra 
8 Matt. viii. rz f, 


260 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


en oe eer ar nn en ee a a ea ee 


these things, taking nothing whatever into con- 
sideration, except the speaking of the truth, and 
refusing to be coerced by any one, even though 
I should be forthwith torn in pieces by you. 
For I gave no thought to any of my people, that 
is, the Samaritans, when I had a communication 
in writing with Cesar," but stated that they were 
wrong in trusting to the magician Simon of their 
own nation, who, they say, is God above all 
power, and authority, and might.” 


CHAP. CXXI.— FROM THE FACT THAT THE GEN- 
TILES BELIEVE IN JESUS, IT IS EVIDENT THAT 
HE IS CHRIST. 


And as they kept silence, I went on: “ [The 
Scripture], speaking by David about this Christ, 
my friends, said no longer that ‘in His seed’ the 
nations should be blessed, but ‘in Him.’ So it 
is here: ‘His name shall rise up for ever above 
the sun ; and in Him shall all nations be blessed.’? 
But if all nations are blessed in Christ, and we 
of all nations believe in Him, then He is indeed 
the Christ, and we are those blessed by Him. 
God formerly gave the sun as an object of wor- 
ship,3 as it is written, but no one ever was seen 
to endure death on account of his faith in the 
sun ; but for the name of Jesus you may see men 
of every nation who have endured and do endure 
all sufferings, rather than deny Him. For the 
word of His truth and wisdom is more ardent 
and more light-giving than the rays of the sun, 
and sinks down into the depths of heart and 
mind. Hence also the Scripture said, ‘ His name 
shall rise up above the sun.’ And again, Zecha- 
riah says, ‘ His name is the East.’ And speak- 
ing of the same, he says that ‘each tribe shall 
mourn.’5 But if He so shone forth and was so 
mighty in His first advent (which was without 
honour and comeliness, and very contemptible), 
that in no nation He is unknown, and everywhere 
men have repented of the old wickedness in each 
nation’s way of living, so that even demons were 
subject to His name, and all powers and king- 
doms feared His name more than they feared all 
the dead, shall He not on His glorious advent 
destroy by all means all those who hated Him, 
and who unrighteously departed from Him, but 
give rest to His own, rewarding them with all 
they have looked for? To us, therefore, it has 
been granted to hear, and to understand, and to 
be saved by this Christ, and to recognise all the 
[truths revealed] by the Father. Wherefore He 
said to Him: ‘It is a great thing for Thee to be 
called my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, 





and turn again the dispersed of Israel. I have 
1 The AZology, i. chap. xxvi.; ii. chap. xv. 
2 Ps. Ixxii. 17. 


3 So Justin concludes from Deut. iv. 19; comp. chap. ly. ['The ex- 
seca is not very difficult (see Rom. 1. 28), but the language of 
ustin is unguarded. 
4 Zech. vi. 12. 
$ Zech, xii, 12. 








appointed Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that 
Thou mayest be their salvation unto the end of 
the earth.’ ° 


CHAP. CXXII.—THE JEWS UNDERSTAND THIS CF 
THE PROSELYTES WITHOUT REASON. 


“You think that these words refer to the 
stranger? and the proselytes, but in fact they 
refer to us who have been illumined by Jesus. 
For Christ would have borne witness even to 
them; but now you are become twofold more 
the children of hell, as He said Himself. There- 
fore what was written by the prophets was spoken 
not of those persons, but of us, concerning whom 
the Scripture speaks: ‘I will lead the blind by a 
way which they knew not ; and they shall walk in 
paths which they have not known. And I am 
witness, saith the Lord God, and my servant 
whom I have chosen.’? To whom, then, does 
Christ bear witness? Manifestly to those who 
have believed. But the proselytes not only do 
not believe, but twofold more than yourselves 
blaspheme His name, and wish to torture and 
put to death us who believe in Him ; for in all 
points they strive to be like you. And again in 
other words He cries: ‘I the Lord have called 
Thee in righteousness, and will hold Thine hand, 
and will strengthen Thee, and will give Thee for 
a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gen- 
tiles, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out 
the prisoners from their bonds.’ '° These words, 
indeed, sirs, refer also to Christ, and concern the 
enlightened nations ; or will you say again, He 
speaks to them of the law and the proselytes?”’ 

Then some of those who had come on the 
second day cried out as if they had been in a 
theatre, “ But what ? does He not refer to the law, 
and to those illumined by it? Now these are 
proselytes.”” 

“No,” I said, looking towards Trypho, “ since, 
if the law were able to enlighten the nations and 
those who possess it, what need is there of a new 
covenant? But since God announced before- 
hand that He would send a new covenant, and 
an everlasting law and commandment, we will 
not understand this of the old law and its prose- 
lytes, but of Christ and His proselytes, namely 
us Gentiles, whom He has illumined, as He says 
somewhere : ‘ Thus saith the Lord, In an accept- 
able time have I heard Thee, and in a day of 
salvation have I helped Thee, and I have given 
Thee for a covenant of the people, to establish 
the earth, and to inherit the deserted.’ '' What, 
then, is Christ’s inheritance? Is it not the na- 
tions? What is the covenant of God? Is it not 


6 Tsa, xlix. 6. 

7 Tnépa or Tecépa. Found in LXX., Ex. xii. rg and Isa, xiv. 1 
8 Matt. xxiii. 15. 

9 Isa, xlii. 16, xliii. 10. 

10 Isa. xlii. 6. 


1 Isa. xlex. 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


Christ? As He says in another place: ‘Thou 
art my Son; this day have I begotten Thee. 
Ask of Me, and I shall give Thee the nations 
for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of 
the earth for Thy possession.’ 


CHAP. “ 
THE JE 


XXII. — RIDICULOUS INTERPRETATIONS OF 
- CHRISTIANS ARE THE TRUE ISRAEL. 


“ As; therefore, all these latter prophecies refer 
to Christ and the nations, you should believe 
that the former refer to Him and them in like 
manner. For the proselytes have no need of a 
covenant, if, since there is one and the same law 
imposed on all that are circumcised, the Scrip- 
ture speaks about them thus: ‘ And the stranger 
shall also be joined with them, and shall be 
joined to the house of Jacob ;’? and because the 
proselyte, who is circumcised that he may have 
access to the people, becomes like one of them- 
selves,3 while we who have been deemed worthy to 
be called a people are yet Gentiles, because we 
have not been circumcised. Besides, it is ridicu- 
lous for you to imagine that the eyes of the prose- 
lytes are to be opened while your own are not, and 
that you be understood as blind and deaf while 
they are enlightened. And it will be still more 
ridiculous for you, if you say that the law has 
been given to the nations, but you have not 
known it. For you would have stood in awe of 
God’s wrath, and would not have been lawless, 
wandering sons; being much afraid of hearing 
God always say, ‘Children in whom is no faith. 
And who are blind, but my servants? and deaf, 
but they that rule over them? And the servants 
of God have been made blind. You see often, 


but have not observed; your ears have been | 


opened, and you have not heard.’* Is God’s 
commendation of you honourable? and is God’s 
testimony seemly for His servants? You are not 
ashamed though you often hear these words. 
You do not tremble at God’s threats, for you are 
a people foolish and hard-hearted. ‘Therefore, 
behold, I will proceed to remove this people,’ 
saith the Lord ; ‘and I will remove them, and de- 
stroy the wisdom of the wise, and hide the under- 
standing of the prudent.’5 Deservedly too: for 
you are neither wise nor prudent, but crafty and 
unscrupulous ; wise only to do evil, but utterly in- 
competent to know the hidden counsel of God, 
or the faithful covenant of the Lord, or to find 
out the everlasting paths. ‘Therefore, saith the 
Lord, I will raise up to Israel and to Judah the 
seed of men and the seed of beasts.’° And by 
Isaiah He speaks thus concerning another Israel : 
‘In that day shall there be a third Israel among 





I Ps. ii. 7 f. 

2 Isa. xiv. 1. 

3 Literally, “‘ a native of the lamd.” 
4 Deut. xxxii. 20; Isa. xlii. 1p f. 

S Isa. xxix. 14. | 

6 Jer. xxxi. 27. 





261 


the Assyrians and the Egyptians, blessed in the 
land which the Lord of Sabaoth hath blessed, 
saying, blessed shall my people in Egypt and in 
Assyria be, and Israel mine inheritance.’? Since 
then God blesses this people, and calls them Israel, 
and declares them to be His inheritance, how is 
it that you repent not of the deception you prac- 
tise on yourselves, as if you alone were the Israel, 
and of execrating. the people whom God has 
blessed? For when He speaks to Jerusalem and 
its environs, He thus added: ‘And I will beget 
men upon you, even my people Israel ; and they 
shall inherit you, and you shall be a possession 
for them ; and you shall be no longer bereaved of 
them,’ ’’® 

“What, then?” says Trypho ; “are you Israel ? 
and speaks He such things of you?” 

“Tf, indeed,” I replied to him, “we had not 
entered into a lengthy ° discussion on these top- 
ies, I might have doubted whether you ask this. 
question in ignorance ; but since we have brought. 
the matter to a conclusion by demonstration and 
with your assent, I do not believe that you are 
ignorant of what I have just said, or desire again 
mere contention, but that you are urging me to. 
exhibit the same proof to these men.” And in 
compliance with the assent expressed in his eyes, 
I continued: “ Again in Isaiah, if you have ears 
to hear it, God, speaking of Christ in parable, 
calls Him Jacob and Israel. He speaks thus: 
‘Jacob is my servant, I will uphold Him ; Israel 
is mine elect, I will put my Spirit upon Him, 
and He shall bring forth judgment to the Gen- 
tiles. He shall not strive, nor cry, neither shall 
any one hear His voice in the street: a bruised 
reed He shall not break, and smoking flax He 
shall not quench ; but He shall bring forth judg- 
ment to truth: He shall shine,’° and shall not be 
broken till He have set judgment on the earth. 
And in His name shall the Gentiles trust.’"" As 
therefore from the one man Jacob, who was sur- 
named Israel, all your nation has been called 
Jacob and Israel ; so we from Christ, who begat 
us unto God, like Jacob, and Israel, and Judah, 
and Joseph, and David, are called and are the 
true sons of God, and keep the commandments . 
of Christ.” See 


CHAP. CXXIV.— CHRISTIANS ARE THE SONS OF GOD. 


And when I saw that they were perturbed 
because I said that we are the sons of God, I 
anticipated their questioning, and said, “ Listen, 
sirs, how the Holy Ghost speaks of this people, 
saying that they are all sons of the Highest ; and 
how this very Christ will be present in their as- 
sembly, rendering judgment to all men. The 





7 Isa. xix. 24 f. - 

8 Ezek. xxxvi. 12. i Se : 

9 [I cannot forbear to note this ‘‘ Americanism ” in the text.] ia 
io LXX. avadduyet, asabove. The reading of the textisavadnwet. 
M4 Iga. xlii. 1-4. 


262 






words are spoken by David, and are, according 
to your version of them, thus: ‘God standeth 
in the congregation of gods ; He judgeth among 
the gods. How long do ye judge unjustly, and 
accept the persons of the wicked? Judge for 
the orphan and the poor, and do justice to the 
humble and needy. Deliver the needy, and save 
the poor out of the hand of the wicked. ‘They 
know not, neither have they understood ; they 
walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the 
earth shall be shaken. I said, Ye are gods, and 
are all children of the Most High. But ye die 
like men, and fall like one of the princes. 
Arise, O God! judge the earth, for Thou shalt 
inherit all nations.’* But in the version of the 
Seventy it is written, ‘Behold, ye die like men, 
and fall like one of the princes,’? in order to 
manifest the disobedience of men,—I mean of 
Adam and Eve,—and the fall of one of the 
princes, i.e., of him who was called the serpent, 
who fell with a great overthrow, because he de- 
ceived Eve. But as my discourse is not intended 
to touch on this point, but to prove to you that 
the Holy Ghost reproaches men because they 
were made like God, free from suffering and 
death, provided that they kept His command- 
ments, and were deemed deserving of the name’ 
of His sons, and yet they, becoming like Adam 
and Eve, work out death for themselves ; let the 
interpretation of the Psalm be held just as you 
wish, yet thereby it is demonstrated that all men 
are deemed worthy of becoming “ gods,” and of 
having power to become sons of the Highest ; 
and shall be each by himself judged and con- 
demned like Adam and Eve. Now I have proved 
at length that Christ is called God. 


CHAP. CXXV.— HE EXPLAINS WHAT FORCE THE 
WORD ISRAEL HAS, AND HOW IT SUITS CHRIST. 


“T wish, sirs,” I said, “to learn from you what 
is the force of the name Israel.” And as they 
were silent, I continued: “TI shall tell you what 
I know: for I do not think it right, when I know, 
not to speak ; or, suspecting that you do know, 
and yet from envy or from voluntary ignorance 
deceive yourselves,3 to be continually solicitous ; 
but I speak all things simply and candidly, as my 
Lord said : ‘ A sower went forth to sow the seed ; 
and some fell by the wayside, and some among 
thorns, and some on stony ground, and some on 
good ground.’* I must speak, then, in the hope 
of finding good ground somewhere ; since that 
Lord of mine, as One strong and powerful, comes 
to demand back His own from all, and will not 





TPs, Ixxxii, 

2 In the text there is certainly no distinction given. But if we 
read &s avOpwros (DIN), ‘‘as a man,” in the first quotation we 
shall be able to follow Justin’s argument. 

3 The reading here is émicrauat avrds, which is generally aban- 
doned for anaray cavtovs. 

4 Matt. xiii. 3, 





DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


condemn His steward if He recognises that he, 
by the knowledge that the Lord is powerful and 
has come to demand His own, has given it to 
every bank, and has not digged for any cause 
whatsoever. Accordingly the name Israel signi- 
fies this, A man who overcomes power ; for /sra 
is a man overcoming, and Z/ is power And 
that Christ would act so when He became man 
was foretold by the mystery of Jacob’s wrestling 
with Him who appeared to him, in that He min- 
istered to the will of the Father, yet nevertheless 
is God, in that He is the first-begotten of all 
creatures. For when He became man, as I pre- 
viously remarked, the devil came to Him —i.e., 
that power which is called the serpent and Sa- 
tan — tempting Him, and striving to effect His 
downfall by asking Him to worship him. But 
He destroyed and overthrew ‘the devil, having 
proved him to be wicked, in that he asked to be 
worshipped as God, contrary to the Scripture ; 
who is an apostate from the will of God. For 
He answers him, ‘It is written, Thou shalt wor- 
ship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou 
serve.’© Then, overcome and convicted, the 
devil departed at that time. But since our 
Christ was to be numbed, i.e., by pain and ex- 
perience of suffering, He made a previous 
intimation of this by touching Jacob’s thigh, and 
causing it to shrink. But Israel was His name 
from the beginning, to which He altered the 
name of the blessed Jacob when He blessed him 
with His own name, proclaiming thereby that 
all who through Him have fled for refuge to the 
Father, constitute the blessed Israel. But you, 
having understood none of this, and not being 
prepared to understand, since you are the chil- 
dren of Jacob after the fleshly seed, expect that 
you shall be assuredly saved. But that you de- 
ceive yourselves in such matters, J have proved 
by many words. 


CHAP. CXXVI.— THE VARIOUS NAMES OF CHRIST 
ACCORDING TO BOTH NATURES. IT IS SHOWN 
THAT HE IS GOD, AND APPEARED TO THE Pa- 
TRIARCHS. 


“But if you knew, Trypho,’’ continued I, 
“who He is that is called at one time the Angel 
of great counsel,? and a Man by Ezekiel, and 
like the Son of man by Daniel, and a Child by 
Isaiah, and Christ and God to be worshipped 
by David, and Christ and a Stone by many, and 
Wisdom by Solomon, and Joseph and Judah and 
a Star by Moses, and the East by Zechariah, 
and the Suffering One and Jacob and Israel by 
Isaiah again, and a Rod, and Flower, and Cor- 
ner-Stone, and Son of God, you would not have 
blasphemed Him who has now come, and feen 





5 [On Justin’s Hebrew, see Kaye, p. 19. 
© Mate iv. 1 : eae 


oO. 
7 [By Isaiah. “Counsellor” in English version.] 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


263 


a a a 


born, and suffered, and ascended to heaven; 
who shall also come again, and then your twelve 
tribes shall mourn. For if you had understood 
what has been written by the prophets, you would 
not have denied that He was God, Son of the 
only, unbegotten, unutterable God. For Moses 
says somewhere in Exodus the following: ‘The 
Lord spake to Moses, and said to him, I am the 
Lord, and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and 
to Jacob, being their God ; and my name I re- 
vealed not to them, and I established my cove- 
nant with them.’ And thus again he says, ‘A 
man wrestled with Jacob,’? and asserts it was 
God ; narrating that Jacob said, ‘I have seen 
God face to face, and my life is preserved.’ And 
it is recorded that he called the place where He 
wrestled with him, appeared to and blessed him, 
the Face of God (Peniel). And Moses says 
that God appeared also to Abraham near the 
oak in Mamre, when he was sitting at the door 
of his tent at mid-day. Then he goes on to say: 
‘And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, be- 
hold, three men stood before him; and when 
he saw them, he ran to meet them.’3 After a 
little, one of them promises a son to Abraham : 
‘Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of 
a surety bear a child, and I am old? Is any- 
thing impossible with God? At the time ap- 
pointed I will return, according to the time of 
life, and Sarah shall have a son. And they went 
away from Abraham.’* Again he speaks of them 
thus: ‘And the men rose up from thence, and 
looked toward Sodom.’5 Then to Abraham He 
who was and is again speaks: ‘I will not hide 
from Abraham, my servant, what I intend to 
do.’”® And what follows in the writings of 
Moses I quoted and explained ; “ from which I 
have demonstrated,” I said, “that He who is 
described as God appeared to Abraham, to 
Isaac, and to Jacob, and the other patriarchs, 
was appointed under the authority of the Father 
and Lord, and ministers to His will.” Then I 
went on to say what I had not said before: “And 
so, when the people desired to eat flesh, and 
Moses had lost faith in Him, who also there is 
called the Angel, and who promised that God 
would give them to satiety, He who is both God 
and the Angel, sent by the Father, is described 
as saying and doing these things. or thus the 
Scripture says: ‘And the Lord said to Moses, 
Will the Lord’s hand not be sufficient? thou 
shalt know now whether my word shall conceal 
thee or not.’7 And again, in other words, it 
thus says: ‘But the Lord spake unto me, Thou 
shalt not go over this Jordan: the Lord thy God, 





1 Ex. vi. 2 ff, 

2 Gen. xxxii. 24, 30. 
3 Gen. xviii. 2. 

4 Gen. xviii. 13 f. 

5 Gen. xviii. 16. 

6 Gen. xviii. 17. 

7 Num. xi. 23. 








who goeth before thy face, He shall cut off the 
nations.’ § 


CHAP, CXXVII.— THESE PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE 
DO NOT APPLY TO THE FATHER, BUT TO THE 
WORD. 


“These and other such sayings are recorded 
by the lawgiver and by the prophets ; and I sup- 
pose that I have stated sufficiently, that wher- 
ever 9 God says, ‘God went up from Abraham,’ 
or, ‘The Lord spake to Moses,’ '' and ‘The Lord 
came down to behold the tower which the sons 
of men had built,’ ** or when ‘God shut Noah 
into the ark,’'3 you must not imagine that the 
unbegotten God Himself came down or went up 
from any place. For the ineffable Father and 
Lord of all neither has come to any place, nor 
walks, nor sleeps, nor rises up, but remains in 
His own place, wherever that is, quick to behold 
and quick to hear, having neither eyes nor ears, 
but being of indescribable might ; and He sees 
all things, and knows all things, and none of us 
escapes His observation ; and He is not moved 
or confined to a spot in the whole world, for He 
existed before the world was made. How, then, 
could He talk with any one, or be seen by any 
one, or appear on the smallest portion of the 
earth, when the people at Sinai were not able to 
look even on the glory of Him who was sent 
from Him; and Moses himself could not enter 
into the tabernacle which he had erected, when 
it was filled with the glory of God; and the 
priest could not endure to stand before the tem- 
ple when Solomon conveyed the ark into the 
house in Jerusalem which he had built for it? 
Therefore neither Abraham, nor Isaac, nor Jacob, 
nor any other man, saw the Father and ineffable 
Lord of all, and also of Christ, but [saw] Him 
who was according to His will His Son, being 
God, and the Angel because He ministered to 
His will ; whom also it pleased Him to be born 
man by the Virgin; who also was fire when He 
conversed with Moses from the bush. Since, 
unless we thus comprehend the Scriptures, it 
must follow that the-Father and Lord of all had 
not been in heaven when what Moses wrote took 
place: ‘And the Lord rained upon Sodom fire 
and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven ;’"™ 
and again, when it is thus said by David: ‘ Lift 
up your gates, ye rulers; and be ye lift up, ye 
everlasting gates; and the King of glory shall 
enter ;’ ‘5 and again, when He says: ‘The Lord 
says to my Lord, Sit at My right hand, till I 
make Thine enemies Thy footstool.’ 








8 Deut. xxxi. 2 f. 

9 6rav mov instead of Srav pev. 
10 Gen, xviii. 22. 

Ir Ex, vi. 29. 

12 Gen. xi. 5. 

13 Gen. vii. 16. 

14 Gen. xix. 24. 

15 Ps, xxiv. 7. 

16 Ps. cx. 1. 


264 


CHAP. CXXVIII.— THE WORD IS SENT NOT AS AN 
INANIMATE POWER, BUT AS A PERSON BEGOTTEN 
OF THE FATHER’S SUBSTANCE. 


«And that Christ being Lord, and God the 
Son of God, and appearing formerly in power as 
Man, and Angel, and in the glory of fire as at 
the bush, so also was manifested at the judgment 
executed on Sodom, has been demonstrated fully 
by what has been said.” Then I repeated once 
more all that I had previously quoted from Exo- 
dus, about the vision in the bush, and the nam- 
ing of Joshua (Jesus), and continued: “ And do 
not suppose, sirs, that I am speaking superflu- 
ously when I repeat these words frequently : but 
it is because I know that some wish to antici- 
pate these remarks, and to say that the power 
sent from the Father of all which appeared to 
Moses, or to Abraham, or to Jacob, is called an 
Angel because He came to men (for by Him 
the commands of the Father have been pro- 
claimed to men) ; is called Glory, because He 
appears in a vision sometimes that cannot be 
borne; is called a Man, and a human being, 
because He appears arrayed in such forms as 
the Father pleases ; and they call Him the Word, 
because He carries tidings from the Father to 
men; but maintain that this power is indivisible 
and inseparable from the Father, just as they 
say that the light of the sun on earth is indivisi- 
ble and inseparable from the sun in the heavens ; 
as when it sinks, the light sinks along with it; 
so the Father, when He chooses, say they, causes 
His power to spring forth, and when He chooses, 
He makes it return to Himself. In this way, 
they teach, He made the angels. But it is 
proved that there are angels who always exist, 
and are never reduced to that form out of which 
they sprang. And that this power which the 
prophetic word calls God, as has been also amply 
demonstrated, and Angel, is not numbered [as 
different] in name only like the light of the sun, 
but is indeed something numerically distinct, I 
have discussed briefly in what has gone before ; 
when I asserted that this power was begotten 
from the Father, by His power and will, but not 
by abscission, as if the essence of the Father 
were divided ; as all other things partitioned and 
divided are not the same after as before they 
were divided: and, for the sake of example, I 
took the case of fires kindled from a fire, which 
we see to be distinct from it, and yet that from 
which many can be kindled is by no means made 
less, but remains the same. 


CHAP. CXXIX.—— THAT IS CONFIRMED FROM OTHER 
PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE. 


“ And now I shall again recite the words which 
I have spoken in proof of this point. When 
Scripture says, ‘The Lord rained fire from the 
4 














DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


Lord out of heaven,’ the prophetic word indi- 
cates that there were two in number: One upon 
the earth, who, it says, descended to behold the 
cry of Sodom; Another in heaven, who also is 
Lord of the Lord.on earth, as He is Father and 
God ; the cause of His power and of His being 
Lord and God. Again, when the Scripture 
records that God said in the beginning, ‘ Behold, 
Adam has become like one of Us,’? this phrase, 
‘like one of Us,’ is also indicative of number ; 
and the words do not admit of a figurative 
meaning, as the sophists endeavour to affix on 
them, who are able neither to tell nor to under- 
stand the truth. And it is written in the book 
of Wisdom: ‘If I should tell you. daily events, 
I would be mindful to enumerate them from 
the beginning. The Lord created me the be- 
ginning of His ways for His works, From 
everlasting He established me in the beginning, 
before He formed the earth, and before He 
made the depths, and before the springs of 
waters came forth, before the mountains were 
settled ; He begets me before all the hills.’” 
When I repeated these words, I added: “ You 
perceive, my hearers, if you bestow attention, 
that the Scripture has declared that this Off- 
spring was begotten by the Father before all 
things created ; and that that which is begotten 
is numerically distinct from that which begets, 
any one will admit.” 


CHAP, CXXX.—- HE RETURNS TO THE CONVERSION 
OF THE GENTILES, AND SHOWS THAT IT WAS 
FORETOLD. 


And when all had given assent, I said: “TI 
would now adduce some passages which I had 
not recounted before. They are recorded by 
the faithful servant Moses in parable, and are as 
follows: ‘Rejoice, O ye heavens, with Him, and 
let all the angels of God worship Him ;’”3 and 
I added what follows of the passage : “ ‘ Rejoice, 
O ye nations, with His people, and let all the 
angels of God be strengthened in Him: for 
the blood of His sons He avenges, and will 
avenge, and will recompense His enemies with 
vengeance, and will recompense those that hate 
Him; and the Lord will purify the land of His 
people.’ And by these words He declares that 
we, the nations, rejoice with His people, — to 
wit, Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the 
prophets, and, in short, all of that people who 
are well-pleasing to God, according to what 
has been already agreed on between us. But 
we will not receive it of all your nation; since 
we know from Isaiah* that the members of 
those who have transgressed shall be consumed 





1 Gen. iii. 22, 
2 Prov. viii, 22 ff. 
3 Deut. xxxii. 43. 
4 Isa. lxvi. 24. 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


by the worm and unquenchable fire, remaining 
immortal; so that they become a spectacle to 
all flesh. But in addition to these, I wish, sirs,”’ 
said I, “to add some other passages from the 
very words of Moses, from which you may 
understand that God has from of old dispersed 
all men according to their kindreds and tongues ; 
and out of all kindreds has taken to Himself 
your kindred, a useless, disobedient, and faith- 
less generation ; and has shown that those who 
were selected out of every nation have obeyed 
His will through Christ, —whom He calls also 
Jacob, and names Israel, —and these, then, as 
I mentioned fully previously, must be Jacob and 
Israel. For when He says, ‘Rejoice, O ye 
nations, with His people,’ He allots the same 
inheritance to them, and does not call them by 
the same name ;' but when He says that they 
as Gentiles rejoice with His people, He calls 
them Gentiles to reproach you. For even as 
you provoked Him to anger by your idolatry, so 
also He has deemed those who were idolaters 
worthy of knowing His will, and of inheriting 
His inheritance. 


CHAP. CXXXI.— HOW MUCH MORE FAITHFUL TO 
GOD THE GENTILES ARE WHO ARE CONVERTED 
TO CHRIST THAN THE JEWS. 


“ But I shall quote the passage by which it is 
made known that God divided all the nations. 
It is as follows: ‘Ask thy father, and he will 
show thee ; thine elders, and they will tell thee ; 
when the Most High divided the nations, as He 
dispersed the sons of Adam. He set the bounds 
of the nations according to the numbers of the 
children of Israel; and the Lord’s portion be- 
came His people Jacob, and Israel was the lot 
of His inheritance.’”’? And having said this, I 
added: “The Seventy have translated it, ‘He 
set the bounds of the nations according to the 
number of the angels of God.’ But because my 
argument is again in nowise weakened by this, 
I have adopted your exposition. And you 
yourselves, if you will confess the truth, must 
acknowledge that we, who have been called by 
God through the despised and shameful mystery 
of the cross (for the confession of which, and 
obedience to which, and for our piety, punish- 
ments even to death have been inflicted on us 
by demons, and by the host of the devil, through 
the aid ministered to them by you), and endure 
all torments rather than deny Christ even by 
word, through whom we are called to the salva- 
tion prepared beforehand by the Father, are 
more faithful to God than you, who were re- 
deemed from Egypt with a high hand and a visi- 





1 The reading is, “and calls them by the same name,” But the 
whole argument shows that the Jews and Gentiles are distinguished 
by name. [But that Gentiles are also called (Israel) by the same 
name is the point here.] 

2 Deut, xxxii. 7 ff. 


265 






tation of great glory, when the sea was parted 
for you, and a passage left dry, in which [God] 
slew those who pursued you with a very great 
equipment, and splendid chariots, bringing back 
upon them the sea which had been made a way 
for your sakes ; on whom also a pillar of light 
shone, in order that you, more than any other 
nation in the world, might possess a peculiar 
light, never-failing and never-setting ; for whom 
He rained manna as nourishment, fit for the 
heavenly angels, in order that you might have 
no need to prepare your food ; and the water at 
Marah was made sweet ; and a sign of Him that 
was to be crucified was made, both in the matter 
of the serpents which bit you, as I already men- 
tioned (God anticipating before the proper times 
these mysteries, in order to confer grace upon 
you, to whom you are always convicted of being 
thankless), as well as in the type of the extend- 
ing of the hands of Moses, and of Oshea being 
named Jesus (Joshua) ; when you fought against 
Amalek: concerning which God enjoined that 
the incident be recorded, and the name of Jesus 
laid up in your understandings ; saying that this 
is He who would blot out the memorial of Ama- 
lek from under heaven. Now it is clear that the 
memorial of Amalek remained after the son of 
Nave (Nun) : but He makes it manifest through 
Jesus, who was crucified, of whom also those 
symbols were fore-announcements of all that 
would happen to Him, the demons would be de- 
stroyed, and would dread His name, and that all 
principalities and kingdoms would fear Him ; and 
that they who believe in Him out of all nations 
would be shown as God-fearing and peaceful 
men ; and the facts already quoted by me, Try- 
pho, indicate this. Again, when you. desired 
flesh, so vast a quantity of quails was given you, 
that they could not be told; for whom also 
water gushed from the rock; and a cloud fol- 
lowed you for a shade from heat, and covering 
from cold, declaring the manner and significa- 
tion of another and new heaven; the latchets 
of your shoes did not break, and your shoes 
waxed not old, and your garments wore not 
away, but even those of the children grew along 
with them. 











CHAP. CXXXII.— HOW GREAT THE POWER WAS OF 
THE NAME OF JESUS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


“Yet after this you made a calf, and were 
very zealous in committing fornication with the 
daughters of strangers, and in serving idols. 
And again, when the land was given up to you 
with so great a display of power, that you wit- 
nessed 3 the sun stand still in the heavens by 
the order of that man whose name was Jesus 
(Joshua), and not go down for thirty-six hours, 











3 [Another Americanism. Greek, Oedoacdai.] 






‘as well as all the other miracles which were 
wrought for you as time served ;* and of these 
it seems good to me now to speak of another, 
for it conduces to your hereby knowing Jesus, 
whom we also know to have been Christ the 
Son of God, who was crucified, and rose again, 
and ascended to heaven, and will come again to 
judge all men, even up to Adam himself. You 
are aware, then,” I continued, “that when the 
ark of the testimony was seized by the enemies 
of Ashdod, and a terrible and incurable malady 
had broken out among them, they resolved to 
place it on a cart to which they yoked cows 
that had recently calved, for the purpose of 
ascertaining by trial whether or not they had 
been plagued by God’s power on account of the 
ark, and if God wished it to be taken back to 
the place from which it had been carried away. 
And when they had done this, the cows, led by 
no man, went not to the place whence the ark 
had been taken, but to the fields of a certain 
man whose name was Oshea, the same as his 
whose name was altered to Jesus (Joshua), as 
has been previously mentioned, who also led the 
people into the land and meted it out to them: 
and when the cows had come into these fields 
they remained there, showing to you thereby 
that they were guided by the name of power ;3 
just as formerly the people who survived of 
those that came out of Egypt, were guided into 
the land by him who had received the name 
Jesus (Joshua), who before was called Oshea. 


CHAP. XXXII) — THE HARD-HEARTEDNESS OF THE 
JEWS, FOR WHOM THE CHRISTIANS PRAY. 


“‘ Now, although these and all other such un- 
expected and marvellous works were wrought 
amongst and seen by you at different times, yet 
you are convicted by the prophets of having 
gone to such a length as offering your own chil- 
dren to demons ; and besides all this, of having 
dared to do such things against Christ ; and you 
still dare to do them: for all which may it be 
granted to you to obtain mercy and salvation 
from God and His Christ. For God, knowing 
before that you would do such things, pronounced 
this curse upon you by the prophet Isaiah : ‘Woe 
unto their soul! they have devised evil counsel 
against themselves, saying, Let us bind the right- 
eous man, for he is distasteful to us. Therefore 
they shall eat the fruit of their own doings. Woe 
to the wicked ! evil, according to the works of 
his hands, shall befall him. O my people, your 
exactors glean you, and those who extort from 
you shall rule over you. O my people, they who 
call you blessed cause you to err, and disorder 


1 The anacolouthon is in the original. 
; pee I en v. 
r, “by the power of the name.” [2 Sam. vi. 14. i 
Engin rea po ec.” [2Sam. vi. 14. Joshua in 








DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


the way of your paths. But now the Lord shall 
sist His people to judgment, and He shall enter 
into judgment with the elders of the people and 
the princes thereof. But why have you burnt 
up my vineyard? and why is the spoil of the 
poor found in your houses? Why do you wrong 
my people, and put to shame the countenance 
of the humble?’4 Again, in other words, the 
same prophet spake to the same effect: ‘Woe 
unto them that draw their iniquity as with a long 
cord, and their transgressions as with the harness 
of an heifer’s yoke: who say, Let His speed 
come near, and let the counsel of the Holy One 
of Israel come, that we may know it. Woe unto 
them that call evil good, and good evil ! that put 
light for darkness, and darkness for light! that 
put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe 
unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and 
prudent in their own sight! Woe unto those 
that are mighty among you, who drink wine, who 
are men of strength, who mingle strong drink ! 
who justify the wicked for a reward, and take 
away justice from the righteous! ‘Therefore, 
as the stubble shall be burnt by the coal of 
fire, and utterly consumed by the burning flame, 
their root shall be as wool, and their flower shall 
go up like dust. For they would not have the 
law of the Lord of Sabaoth, but despised 5 the 
word of the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. And 
the Lord of Sabaoth was very angry, and laid His 
hands upon them, and smote them; and He 
was provoked against the mountains, and their 
carcases were in the midst like dung on the 
road. And for all this they have not repented,° 
but their hand is still high.’7 For verily your 
hand is high to commit evil, because ye slew the 
Christ, and do not repent of it; but so far from 
that, ye hate and murder us who have believed 
through Him in the God and Father of all, as 
often as ye can; and ye curse Him without ceas- 
ing, as well as those who side with Him; while 
all of us pray for you, and for all men, as our 
Christ and Lord taught us to do, when He en- 
joined us to pray even for our enemies, and to 
love them that hate us, and to bless them that 
curse us. 


CHAP. CXXXIV.— THE MARRIAGES OF JACOB ARE 
A FIGURE OF THE CHURCH. 


“Tf, then, the teaching of the prophets and of 
Himself moves you, it is better for you to follow 
God than your imprudent and blind masters, who 
even till this time permit each man to have four 
or five wives; and if any one see a beautiful 
woman and desire to have her, they quote the 
doings of Jacob [called] Israel, and of the other 


4 Isa. iii. 9-15. 

5 Literally, ‘‘ provoked.” 

6 Literally, “‘ turned away.” 
7 Ysa, v. 18-25. 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 267 


ee ee 


patriarchs, and maintain that it is not wrong to | He shall not cry, and His voice shall not be heard 
do such things ; for they are miserably ignorant | without. The bruised reed He shall not break. 
in this matter. For, as I before said, certain| and the smoking flax He shall not quench, until 
dispensations of weighty mysteries were accom- | He shall bring forth judgment to victory. He 
plished in each act of this sort. For in the| shall shine, and shall not be broken, until He set 
marriages of Jacob I shall mention what dispen- | judgment on the earth. And in His name shall 
sation and prophecy were accomplished, in order | the Gentiles trust.’ Then is it Jacob the patri- 
that you may thereby know that your teachers|arch in whom the Gentiles and yourselves shall 
never looked at the divine motive which prompted | trust? or is it not Christ? As, therefore, Christ 
each act, but only at the grovelling and corrupt-|is the Israel and the Jacob, even so we, who 
ing passions. Attend therefore to what I say. | have been quarried out from the bowels of Christ, 
The marriages of Jacob were types of that which | are the true Israelitic race. But let us attend 
Christ was about to accomplish. For it was not] rather to the very word: ‘ And I will bring forth,’ 
lawful for Jacob to marry two sisters at once.| He says, ‘the seed out of Jacob, and out of 
And he serves Laban for [one of] the daughters ;| Judah: and it shall inherit My holy mountain ; 
and being deceived in [the obtaining of] the|/and Mine Elect and My servants shall possess 
younger, he again served seven years. Now Leah | the inheritance, and shall dwell there ; and there 
is your people and synagogue; but Rachel is|shall be folds of flocks in the thicket, and the 
our Church. And for these, and for the ser-| valley of Achor shall be a resting-place of cattle 
vants in both, Christ even now serves. For while | for the people who have sought Me. But as for 
Noah gave to the two sons the seed of the third | you, who forsake Me, and forget My holy moun- 
as servants, now on the other hand Christ has | tain, and prepare a table for demons, and fill out 
come to restore both the free sons and the ser-| drink for the demon, I shall give you to the 
vants amongst them, conferring the same honour|sword. You shall all fall with a slaughter ; for 
on all of them who keep His commandments ;|I called you, and you hearkened not, and did 
even as the children.of the free women and the| evil before me, and did choose that wherein I 
children of the bond women born to Jacob were | delighted not.’3 Such are the words of Scrip- 
all sons, and equal in dignity. And it was fore-| ture ; understand, therefore, that the seed of 
told what each should be according to rank and | Jacob now referred to is something else, and 
and according to fore-knowledge. Jacob served | not, as may be supposed, spoken of your people. 
Laban for speckled and many-spotted sheep ;| For it is not possible for the seed of Jacob to 
and Christ served, even to the slavery of the| leave an entrance for the descendants of Jacob, © 
cross, for the various and many-formed races of|or for [God] to have accepted the very same 
mankind, acquiring them by the blood and mys- | persons whom He had reproached with unfitness 
tery of the cross. Leah was weak-eyed ; for the | for the inheritance, and promise it to them again ; 
eyes of your souls are excessively weak. Rachel | but as there the prophet says, ‘ And now, O house 
stole the gods of Laban, and has hid them to|of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of 
this day; and we have lost our paternal and|the Lord; for He has sent away His people, the 
material gods. Jacob was hated for all time by | house of Jacob, because their land was full, as at 
his brother ; and we now, and our Lord Himself, | the first, of soothsayers and divinations ;’+ even 
are hated by you and by all men, though we are | so it is necessary for us here to observe that there 
brothers by nature. Jacob was called Israel ;|are two seeds of Judah, and two races, as there 
and Israel has been demonstrated to be the|are two houses of Jacob: the one begotten by 
Christ, who is, and is called, Jesus. blood and flesh,.the other by faith and the Spirit. 
















































CHAP. CXXXV. CHRIST IS KING OF ISRAEL, AND 
\CHRISTIANS ARE THE ISRAELITIC RACE. 4 


“And when Scripture says, ‘I am the Lord || 
God, the Holy One of Israel, who have made 
known Israel your King,’! will you not under- 
stand that truly Christ is the everlasting King? 
For you are aware that Jacob the son of Isaac 
was never aking. And therefore Scripture again, 
explaining to us, says what king is meant by Jacob 
and Israel: ‘Jacob is my Servant, I will uphold 
Him ; and Israel is mine Elect, ‘my soul shall 
receive Him. I have given Him my Spirit ; and 
He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. 


CHAP.” CXXXVI. — THE JEWS, IN REJECTING CHRIST, 
_——== REJECTED GOD WHO SENT HIM. 


“ For you see how He now addresses the peo- 
ple, saying a little before : ‘As the grape shall be 
found in the cluster, and they will say, Destroy 
it not, for a blessing is in it ; so will I do for My 
servant’s sake: for His sake I will not destroy 
them all.’5 And thereafter He adds: ‘And I 
shall bring forth the seed out of Jacob, and out 
of Judah.’ It is plain then that if He thus be 
angry with them, and threaten to leave very few 





2 Isa. xlii. 1-4. 
3 Isa. Ixv. ep 
4 Isa. ii. 5 f. 

5 Isa. Ixv, 8 f. 





1 Isa, xliii. 15. 


268 







of them, He promises to bring forth certain 
others, who shall dwell in His mountain. But 
these are the persons whom He said He would 
sow and beget. For you, neither suffer Him 
when He calls you, nor hear Him when He 
speaks to you, but have done evil in the presence 
of the Lord. But the highest pitch of your 
wickedness lies in this, that you hate the Right- 
eous One, and slew Him; and so treat those 
who have received from Him all that they are 
and have, and who are pious, righteous, and 
humane. ‘Therefore ‘woe unto their soul,’ says 
the Lord,! ‘ for they have devised an evil counsel 
against themselves, saying, Let us take away the 
righteous, for he is distasteful to us.’ For in- 
deed you are not in the habit of sacrificing to 
Baal, as were your fathers, or of placing cakes in 
groves and on high places for the host of heaven : 
but you have not accepted God’s Christ. For 
he who knows not Him, knows not the will of 
God ; and he who insults and hates Him, insults 
and hates Him that sent Him. And whoever 
believes not in Him, believes not the declarations 
of the prophets, who preached and proclaimed 
Him to all. 








CHAP. CXXXVII. — HE EXHORTS THE JEWS TO 
\ CONVERTED. 


“Say no evil thing, my brothers, against Hi 
that was crucified, and treat not scornfully the 
stripes wherewith all may be healed, even as we 
are healed. For it will be well if, persuaded b 
the Scriptures, you are circumcised from hard- 
heartedness: not that circumcision which you 
have from the tenets that are put into you ; for that 
was given for a sign, and not for a work of right- 
eousness, as the Scriptures compel you [to ad- 
mit), [Assent therefore, and pour no ridicule 
on the Son of God; obey not the Pharisaic 
teachers, and scoff not at the King of Israel, as 
the rulers of your synagogues teach you to do 
after your prayers: for if he that touches those 
who are not pleasing? to God, is as one that 
touches the apple of God’s eye, how much more 
so is he that touches His beloved! And that 
this is He, has been sufficiently demonstrated.” 

And as they kept silence, I continued :“*My 
friends, I now refer to the Scriptures as the 
Seventy have interpreted them; for when I 
quoted them formerly as you possess them, I 
made proof of you [to ascertain] how you were 
disposed. For, mentioning the Scripture which 
says, ‘Woe unto them! for they have devised 
evil counsel against themselves, saying* (as the 
Seventy have translated, I continued) : ‘ Let us 





1 Isa. iii. 9. 

2 Zech. ii. 8, 

3 [Justin’s varied quotations of the same text seem to have been 
of porene: But consult Kaye’s most useful note as to the text of the 
LXX., in answer to objections of Wetstein, p. 20. ff.] 

4 Isa. iii. 9. 


| For Christ, being the first-born of every creatu 









DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


take away the righteous, for he is distasteful to 
us ;’ whereas at the commencement of the dis- 
cussion I added what your version has: ‘ Let us 
bind the righteous, for he is distasteful to us.’ 
But you had been busy about some other mat- 
ter, and seem to have listened to the words with- 
out attending to them. But now, since the day 
is drawing to a close, for the sun is about to set, 
I shall add one remark to what I have said, and 
conclude. I have indeed made the very same 
remark already, but I think it would be right to 
bestow some consideration on it again. 


CHAP. CXXXVIII.—NOAH IS A FIGURE OF CHRIST, 
WHO HAS REGENERATED US BY WATER, AND 
FAITH, AND Woop: [i.e., he Cross.] 


“You know, then, sirs,” I said, “that God 
has said in Isaiah to Jerusalem: ‘I saved thee 
in the deluge of Noah.’5 By this which God said 
was meant that the mystery of saved men ap- 
peared in the deluge. For righteous Noah, 
along with the other mortals at the deluge, i.e., 
with his own wife, his three sons and their wives, 
being eight in number, were a symbol of the 
eighth day, wherein Christ appeared when\He 
rose from the dead, for ever the first in power. 






Became again the chief of another race r 
generated by Himself through water, and. fait 
and wood, containing the mystery of the cross/; 
even as Noah was saved by wood when he rofle 
over the waters with his household. Accordingly, 
hen the prophet says, ‘I saved thee in the fimes 
oO h,’as I have already remarked, Me ad- 
dresses the people who are equally faithful to 
God, and possess the same signs. For when 
Moses had the rod in his hands, he led your 
nation through the sea. And you believe that 
this was spoken to your nation only, or to the 
land. But the whole earth, as the Scripture says, 
was inundated, and the water rose in height fif- 
teen cubits above all the mountains; so that it is 
evident this was not spoken to the land, but to 
the people who obeyed Him: for whom also He 
had before prepared a resting-place in Jerusalem, 
as was previously demonstrated by all the symbols 
of the deluge ; I mean, that by water, faith, and 
wood, those who are afore-prepared, and who 
repent of the sins which they have committed, shall 
escape from the impending judgment of God. 








CHAP. CXXXIX.— THE BLESSINGS, AND ALSO THE 
CURSE, PRONOUNCED BY NOAH WERE PROPHECIES 
OF THE FUTURE. 


“For another mystery was accomplished and 
predicted in the days of Noah, of which you are 


5 Isa. liv. 9 comes nearer to these words than any other passage; 
but still the exact quotation is not in Isaiah, or in any other part of 
Scripture. [It is quite probable that Isa. liv. 9 was thus misundee- 
stood by the Jews, as Trypho seems to acquiesce. ] 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 


269 





not aware. It is this: in the blessings wherewith 
Noah blessed his two sons, and in the curse pro- 
nounced on his son’s son. For the Spirit of 
prophecy would not curse the son that had been 
by God blessed along with [his brothers]. But 
since the punishment of the sin would cleave to 
the whole descent of the son that mocked at his 
father’s nakedness, he made the curse originate 
with zs son.t Now, in what he said, he fore- 
told that the descendants of Shem would keep in 
retention the property and dwellings of Canaan: 
and again, that the descendants of Japheth would 
take possession of the property of which Shem’s 
descendants had dispossessed Canaan’s descend- 
ants; and spoil the descendants of Shem, even 
as they plundered the sons of Canaan. And 
listen to the way in which it has so come to 
pass. For you, who have derived your lineage 
from Shem, invaded the territory of the sons 
of Canaan by the will of God; and you pos- 
sessed it. And it is manifest that the sons 
of Japheth, having invaded you in turn by the 
judgment of God, have taken your land from 
you, and have possessed it. Thus it is written: 
‘And Noah awoke from the wine, and knew 
what his younger son had done unto him; and 
he said, Cursed be Canaan, the servant ; a ser- 
vant shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, 
Blessed be the Lord God of Shem ; and Canaan 
shall be his servant. May the Lord enlarge 
Japheth, and let him dwell in the houses of 
Shem ; and let Canaan be his servant.’ Accord- 
ingly, as two peoples were blessed, — those from 
Shem, and those from Japheth,— and as the 
offspring of Shem were decreed first to possess 
the dwellings of Canaan, and the offspring of 
Japheth were predicted as in turn receiving the 
same possessions, and to the two peoples there 
was the one people of Canaan handed over for 
servants ; so Christ has come according to the 
power given Him from the Almighty Father, and 
summoning men to friendship, and blessing, and 
repentance, and dwelling together, has promised, 
as has already been proved, that there shail be a 
future possession for all the saints in this same 
land. And hence all men everywhere, whether 
bond or free, who believe in Christ, and recog- 
nise the truth in His own words and those of 
His prophets, know that they shall be with Him 
in that land, and inherit everlasting and incor- 
ruptible good. 


CHAP, CXL.—IN CHRIST ALL ARE FREE. THE 
JEWS HOPE FOR SALVATION IN VAIN BECAUSE 
THEY ARE SONS OF ABRAHAM. 


“Hence also Jacob, as I remarked before, 





2 [But Justin goes on to show that it was prophetic foresight only: 
the curse cleaves only to wicked descendants, the authors of idolatry. 
It was removed by St. Matt. xv. 22-28. ] 

. 1X, 24-27. 


rist. 


being himself a type of Christ, had married the 
two handmaids of his two free wives, and of 
them begat sons, for the purpose of indicating 
beforehand that Christ would receive even all 
those who amongst Japheth’s race are descend- 
ants of Canaan, equally with the free, and would 
have the children fellow-heirs. And we are 
such ; but you cannot comprehend this, because 
you cannot drink of the living fountain of God, 
but of broken cisterns which can hold no water, 
as the Scripture says.3 But they are cisterns 
broken, and holding no water, which your own 
teachers have digged, as the Scripture also ex- 
pressly asserts, ‘ teaching for doctrines the com- 
mandments of men.’* And besides, they beguile 
themselves and you, supposing that the ever- 
lasting kingdom will be assuredly given to those 
of the dispersion who are of Abraham after the 
flesh, although they be sinners, and faithless, and 
disobedient towards God, which the Scriptures 
have proved is not the case. For if so, Isaiah 
would never have said this: ‘And unless the 
Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would 
have been like Sodom and Gomorrah.’ And 
Ezekiel: ‘ Even if Noah, and Jacob, and Daniel 
were to pray for sons or daughters, their request 
should not be granted.’® But neither shall the 
father perish for the son, nor the son for the 
father ; but every one for his own sin, and each 
shall be saved for his own righteousness.? And 
again Isaiah says: ‘They shall look on the car- 
cases® of them that have transgressed: their 
worm shall not cease, and their fire shall not be 
quenched ; and they shall be a spectacle to all 
flesh.’9 And our Lord, according to the will of 
Him that sent Him, who is the Father and Lord 
of all, would not have said, ‘They shall come 
from the east, and from the west, and shall sit 
down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in 
the kingdom of heaven. But the children of 
the kingdom shall be cast out into outer dark- 
ness.’?° Furthermore, I have proved in what 
has preceded,! that those who were foreknown 
to be unrighteous, whether men or angels, are 
not made wicked by God’s fault, but each man 
by his own fault is what he will appear to be. 


CHAP. CXLI. —- FREE-WILL IN MEN AND ANGELS. 


“But that you may not have a pretext for 
saying that Christ must have been crucified, and 
that those who transgressed must have been 
among your nation, and that the matter could 
not have been otherwise, I said briefly by antici- 


a 


3 thes ii, 13. 

4 Isa, xxix. 13. 

5 Isa. i. 9. 

6 Ezek. xiv. 18, 20. 
7 Ezek. xviii. 20. 

8 Literally, ‘‘ limbs.” 
9 Isa. Ixvi. 24. 

10 Matt, viii. rx f. 


270 
pation, that God, wishing men and angels to 
follow His will, resolved to create them free to 
do righteousness ; possessing reason, that they 
may know by whom they are created, and 
through whom they, not existing formerly, do 
now exist; and with a law that they should be 
judged by Him, if they do anything contrary to 
right reason: and of ourselves we, men and 
angels, shall be convicted of having acted sin- 
fully, unless we repent beforehand. But if the 
word of God foretells that some angels and men 
shall be certainly punished, it did so because 
it foreknew that they would be unchangeably 
[wicked], but not because God had created 
them so. So that if they repent, all who wish 
for it can obtain mercy from God: and the 
Scripture foretells that they shall be blessed, 
saying, ‘ Blessed is the man to whom the Lord 
imputeth not sin ;’! that is, having repented of 
his sins, that he may receive remission of them 
from God; and not as you deceive yourselves, 
and some others who resemble you in this, who 
say, that even though they be sinners, but know 
God, the Lord will not impute sin to them. 
We have as proof of this the one fall of David, 
which happened through his boasting, which 
was forgiven then when he so mourned and 
wept, as it is written. But if even to such a 
man no remission was granted before repent- 
ance,,and only when this great king, and anointed 
one, and prophet, mourned and conducted him- 
self so, how can the impure and utterly aban- 
doned, if they weep not, and mourn not, and 
repent not, entertain the hope that the Lord will 
not impute to them sin? And this one fall of 
David, in the matter of Uriah’s wife, proves, 
sirs,” I said, “that the patriarchs had many 
wives, not to commit fornication, but that a 
certain dispensation and all mysteries might be 
accomplished by them ; since, if it were allow- 
able to take any wife, or as many wives as one 
chooses, and how he chooses, which the men of 
your nation do over all the earth, wherever they 





3 Ps, xxxii. 2. 


DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO. 














sojourn, or wherever they have been sent, taking 
women under the name of marriage, much more 
would David have been permitted to do this.” 

When I had said this, dearest Marcus Pompe- 
ius, I came to an end. 


CHAP. CXLII.— THE JEWS RETURN THANKS, AND 
LEAVE JUSTIN. 


Then Trypho, after a little delay, said, “ You 
see that it was not intentionally that we came 
to discuss these points. And I confess that I 
have been particularly pleased with the confer- 
ence; and I think that these are of quite the 
same opinion as myself. For we have found 
more than we expected, and more ‘than it was 
possible to have expected. And if we could do 
this more frequently, we should be much helped 
in the searching of the Scriptures themselves. 
But since,” he said, “ you are on the eve of de- 
parture, and expect daily to set sail, do not 
hesitate to remember us as friends when you 
are gone.” 

“For my part,” I replied, “if I had remained, 
I would have wished to do the same thing daily. 
But now, since I expect, with God’s will and 
aid, to set sail, I exhort you to give all diligence 
in this very great struggle for your own salvation, 
and to be earnest in setting a higher value on 
the Christ of the Almighty God than on your 
own teachers.” 

After this they left me, wishing me safety in 
my voyage, and from every misfortune. And I, 
praying for them, said, “I can wish no better 
thing for you, sirs, than this, that, recognising in 
this way that intelligence is given to every man, 
you may be of the same opinion as ourselves, 
and believe that Jesus is the Christ of God.” ? 


2 The last sentence is very dubious, For ravi avOpwmvov vovv 
read ravtt avOpwmw Tov vodv, For roujonre read morevonte, And 
lastly, for To yudy read tov “Inoovr. 

PBut there is no doubt about the touching beauty of this close; 
and truly Trypho seems “ not far from the kingdom of God.” Note 
the marvellous knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures, which 
Justin had acquired, and which he could use in conversation. His 
BL ston from the Psalms, memoriter, are more accurate than others 

Kaye, p. 141.] 


THE DISCOURSE TO THE GREEKS. 


{TRANSLATED BY THE REV M. DODS, M.A] 


CHAP. I.— JUSTIN JUSTIFIES HIS DEPARTURE FROM 
GREEK CUSTOMS. 


Do not suppose, ye Greeks, that my separa- 
tion from your customs is unreasonable and un- 
thinking ; for I found in them nothing that is holy 
or acceptable to God. For the very composi- 
tions of your poets are monuments of madness 
and intemperance. For any one who becomes 
the scholar of your most eminent instructor, is 
more beset by difficulties than all men besides. 
For first they say that Agamemnon, abetting the 
extravagant lust of his brother, and his madness 
and unrestrained desire, readily gave even his 
daughter to be sacrificed, and troubled all Greece 
that he might rescue Helen, who had been rav- 
ished by the leprous' shepherd. But when in the 
course of the war they took captives, Agamem- 
non was himself taken captive by Chryseis, and for 
Briseis’ sake kindled a feud with the son of Thetis. 
And Pelides himself, who crossed the river,” over- 
threw Troy, and subdued Hector, this your hero 
became the slave of Polyxena, and was conquered 
by a dead Amazon; and putting off the god- 
fabricated armour, and donning the hymeneal 
robe, he became a sacrifice of love in the temple 
of Apollo. And the Ithacan Ulysses made a vir- 
tue of a vices And indeed his sailing past the 
Sirens+ gave evidence that he was destitute of 
worthy prudence, because he could not depend 
on his prudence for stopping his ears. Ajax, 
son of Telamon, who bore the shield of seven- 
fold ox-hide, went mad when he was defeated in 
the contest with Ulysses for the armour. Such 
things I have no desire to be instructed in. Of 
such virtue I am not covetous, that I should be- 
lieve the myths of Homer. For the whole rhap- 
sody, the beginning and end both of the Iliad 
and the Odyssey is — a woman. 


OR a 


I Potter would here read Acwapod, “elegant” [ironically for 
effeminate]; but the above reading is defended by Sylburg, on the 
round that shepherds were so greatly despised, that this is not too 
ard an epithet to apply to Paris. ; 
2 Of the many attempts to amend this clause, there seems to be 
none satisfactory. P ’ 
3 Or, won the reputation of the virtue of wisdom by the vice of 
deceit. : 
4 That is, the manner in which he did it, stopping his companions’ 
ears with wax, and having himself bound to the mast of his ship. 








CHAP. Il. — THE GREEK THEOGONY EXPOSED. 


But since, next to Homer, Hesiod wrote his 
Works and Days, who will believe his drivelling 
theogony? For they say that Chronos, the son 
of Ouranos,5 in the beginning slew his father, 
and possessed himself of his rule; and that, be- 
ing seized with a panic lest he should himself 
suffer in the same way, he preferred devouring 
his children ; but that, by the craft of the Curetes, 
Jupiter was conveyed away and kept in secret, 
and afterwards bound his father with chains, and 
divided the empire; Jupiter receiving, as the 
story goes, the air, and Neptune the deep, and 
Pluto the portion of Hades. But Pluto ravished 
Proserpine ; and Ceres sought her child wander- 
ing through the deserts. And this myth was 
celebrated in the Eleusinian fire.° Again, Nep- 
tune ravished Melanippe when she was drawing 
water, besides abusing a host of Nereids not a 
few, whose names, were we to recount them, 
would cost us a multitude of words. And as for 
Jupiter, he was a various adulterer, with Antiope 
as a satyr, with Danaé as gold, and with Europa 
as a bull; with Leda, moreover, he assumed 
wings. For the love of Semele proved both his 
unchastity and the jealousy of Semele. And 
they say that he carried off the Phrygian Gany- 
mede to be his cup-bearer. These, then, are the 
exploits of the sons of Saturn. And your illus- 
trious son of Latona [Apollo], who professed 
soothsaying, convicted himself of lying. He 
pursued Daphne, but did not gain possession of 
her; and to Hyacinthus,” who loved him, he did 
not foretell his death. And I say nothing of the 
masculine character of Minerva, nor of the femi- 
nine nature of Bacchus, nor of the fornicating dis- 
position of Venus. Read to Jupiter, ye Greeks, 
the law against parricides, and the penalty of 
adultery, and the ignominy of pederasty. Teach 
Minerva and Diana the works of women, and 
Bacchus the works of men. What seemliness is 





5 Or, Saturn son of Heaven, : 
6 In the mysteries of Eleusis, the return of Proserpine from the 


lower world was celebrated. ; ea 
7 Apollo accidentally killed Hyacinthus by striking him on the 


head with a quoit. 
271 


472 


THE DISCOURSE TO THE GREEKS. 








; 


there in a woman’s girding herself with armour, 
or in a man’s decorating himself with cymbals, 
and garlands, and female attire, and accompanied 
by a herd of bacchanalian women? 


CHAP. III], — FOLLIES OF THE GREEK MYTHOLOGY, 


For Hercules, celebrated by his three nights,’ 
sung by the poets for his successful labours, the 
son of Jupiter, who slew the lion and destroyed 
the many-headed hydra ; who put to death the 
fierce and mighty boar, and was able to kill the 
fleet man-eating birds, and brought up from 
Hades the three-headed dog; who effectually 
cleansed the huge Augean building from its dung, 
and killed the bulls and the stag whose nostrils 
breathed fire, and plucked the golden fruit from 
the tree, and slew the poisonous serpent (and for 
some reason, which it is not lawful to utter, killed 
Achelous, and the guest-slaying Busiris), and 
crossed the mountains that he might get water 
which gave forth an articulate speech, as the story 
goes: he who was able to do so many and such 
like and so great deeds as these, how childishly 
he was delighted to be stunned by the cymbals 
of the satyrs, and to be conquered by the love 





subtle flutes which provoke to lustful movements, 
and useless and luxurious anointings, and crown- 
ing with garlands. With such a mass of evils do 
you banish shame ; and ye fill your minds with 
them, and are carried away by intemperance, 
and indulge as a common practice in wicked and 
insane fornication. And this further I would say 
to you, why are you, being a Greek, indignant at 
your son when he imitates Jupiter, and rises 
against you and defrauds you of your own wife? 
Why do you count him your enemy, and yet 
worship one that is like him? And why do you 
blame your wife for living in unchastity, and yet 
honour Venus with shrines? If indeed these 
things had been related by others, they would 
have seemed to be mere slanderous accusations, 
and not truth. But now your own poets sing these 
things, and your histories noisily publish them. 


CHAP. V.— CLOSING APPEAL. 


Henceforth, ye Greeks, come and partake of 
incomparable wisdom, and be instructed by the 
Divine Word, and acquaint yourselves with the 
King immortal ; and do not recognise those men 
as heroes who slaughter whole nations. For gur 


of woman, and to be struck on the hips by the eee the Divine Word, who even now 


laughing Lyda! And at last, not being able to 
put off the tunic of Nessus, himself kindling hj 
own funeral pile, so he died. Let Vulcan |, 
aside his envy, and not be jealous if he is hated 
because he is old and club-footed, and Mars 
loved, because young and beautiful. Sirce, 
therefore, ye Greeks, your gods are convicted of 
intemperance, and your heroes are effeminate, 
as the histories on which your dramas are founded 
have declared, such as the curse of Atreus, the 
bed of Thyestes,? and the taint in the house ‘ef 
Pelops, and Danaus murdering through hatre 
and making A®gyptus childless in the intoxica- 
tion of his rage, and the Thyestean banquet 
spread by the Furies.3 And Procne is to this 
day flitting about, lamenting; and her sister of 
Athens shrills with her tongue cut out. For 
what need is there of speaking of the goad‘ of 
CEdipus, and the murder of Laius, and the 
marrying his mother, and the mutual slaughter 
of those who were at once his brothers and his 
sons? 










CHAP. IV.—SHAMELESS PRACTICES OF THE GREEKS. 


' And your public assemblies I have come to 
_hate. For there are excessive banquetings, and 





1 Tptéomepov, so called, as some think, [from his origin: “ex 
concubitu trium noctium,” 

2 Thyestes seduced the wife of his brother Atreus, whence the 
tragic career of the family. 

3 There is no apodosis in the Greek. 

4 Not, as the editors dispute, either the tongue of the buckle with 
which he put out his eyes, nor the awl with which his. heels were 
bored through, but the goad with which he killed his father. 


aids us, does not desire strength of \ 
body and beauty of feature, nor yet the high 


spirit of earth’s nobility, but a pure soul, fortified 
by holiness, and the watchwords of our King, 
holy actions, for through the Word power passes 
into the soul. O trumpet of peace to the soul 
that is at war! O weapon that puttest to flight 
terrible passions! O instruction that quenchgé 
the innate fire of the soul! The Word exercjges 
an influence which does not make poets: it does 
not equip philosophers nor skilled orators, but 
by its instruction it makes mortals immortal, mor- 
tals gods ; and from the earth transports them 
to the realms above Olympus. Come, be taught ; 
become as I am, for I, too, was as ye are.© These 
have conquered me—the divinity of the instruc- 
tion, and the power of the Word : foras a skilled 
serpent-charmer lures the terrible reptile from 
his den and causes it to flee, so the Word drives 
the fearful passions of our sensual nature from 
the very recesses of the soul; first driving forth 
lust, through which every ill is begotten — 
hatreds, strife, envy, emulations, anger, and such 
like. Lust being once banished, the soul be- 
comes calm and serene. And being set free 
from the ills in which it was sunk up to the neck, 
it returns to Him who made it. For it is fit 
that it be restored to that state whence it de- 
parted, whence every soul was or is. 





5 Avros yap nuav. 
He seems to quote Gal. iv. r2.] 
[N. B. — It should be stated that modern critics consider this work 
as not improbably by another author. ]} 







JUSTIN'S HORTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS. 


{TRANSLATED BY THE REV. M. DODS, M.A.] 





CHAP. I.— REASONS FOR ADDRESSING THE GREEKS. 


As I begin this hortatory address to you, ye 
men of Greece, I pray God that I may know what 
I ought to say to you, and that you, shaking off 
your habitual ' love of disputing, and being de- 
livered from the error of your fathers, may now 
choose what is profitable ; not fancying that you 
commit any offence against your forefathers, 
though the things which you formerly considered 
by no means salutary should now seem useful to 
you. For accurate investigation of matters, put- 
ting truth to the question with a more searching 
Scrutiny, often reveals that things which have 
passed for excellent are of quite another sort. 
Since, then, we propose to discourse of the true 
religion (than which, I think, there is nothing 
which is counted more valuable by those who 
desire to pass through life without danger, on 
acount of the judgment which is to be after the 
t:rmination of this life, and which is announced 
nt only by our forefathers according to God, to 
wit the prophets and lawgivers, but also by those 
among yourselves who have been esteemed wise, 
not poets alone, but also philosophers, who pro- 
fessed among you that they had attained the 
true and divine knowledge), I think it well first 
of all to examine the teachers of religion, both 
our own and yours, who they were, and how 
great, and in what times they lived; in order 
that those who have formerly received from their 
fathers the false religion, may now, when they 
perceive this, be extricated from that inveterate 
error; and that we may clearly and manifestly 
show that we ourselves follow the religion of our 
forefathers according to God. 


ll. —THE POETS ARE UNFIT TO BE RELI- 
GIOUS TEACHERS. 


Whom, then, ye men of Greece, do ye call 
your teachers of religion? The poets? It will 
do your ‘cause no good to say so to men who 
know the poets ; for they know how very ridicu- 


CHAP. 





I Literally, ‘ former.” 


lous a theogony they have composed, — as we 
can learn from Homer, your most distinguished 
and prince of poets. For he says, first, that the 
gods were in the beginning generated from 
water ; for he has written thus : ? — 

“ Both ocean, the origin of the gods, and their 

mother Tethys.” 
And then we must also remind you of what he 
further says of him whom ye consider the first 
of the gods, and whom he often calls “ the father 
of gods and men ;”’ for he said : 3 — 

“ Zeus, who is the dispenser of war to men.” 
Indeed, he says that he was not only the dis- 
penser of war to the army, but also the cause of 
perjury to the Trojans, by means of his daugh- 
ter;+ and Homer introduces him in love, and 
bitterly complaining, and bewailing himself, and 
plotted against by the other gods, and at one time 
exclaiming concerning his own son : 5 — 


“ Alas! he falls, my most beloved of men! 
Sarpedon, vanquished by Patroclus, falls. 
So will the fates.” 

And at another time concerning Hector : ° — 


“Ah! I behold a warrior dear to me 

Around the walls of Ilium driven, and grieve 

For Hector.” 
And what he says of the conspiracy of the other 
gods against Zeus, they know who read these 
words: 7 “When the other Olympians — Juno, 
and Neptune, and Minerva—wished to bind 
him.” And unless the blessed gods had feared 
him whom gods call Briareus, Zeus would have 
been bound by them. And what Homer says 
of his intemperate loves, we must remind you in 
the very words he used. For he said that Zeus 
spake thus to Juno : §— 





2 Iliad, xiv. 302. 

3 Iliad, xix. 224. 

4 That is, Venus, who, after Paris had sworn that the war should 
be decided by single combat between himself and Menelaus, carried 
him off, and induced him, though defeated, to refuse performance of 
the articles agreed upon. 

5 I1tad, xvi. 433. Sarpedon was a son of Zeus. 

6 Tizad, xxii, 168. 

7 Iitad, i. 399, etc. , ; : 

8 iad, xiv. 31 i: (The passage is here given in full from Cow- 
per’s translation. In Justin’s quotation one or two lines are omitted.) 


273 


27a JUSTIN’S HORTATORY ADDRESS, TO THE GREEKS. 













teachers, or how do you say that they them- 
selves3 have learned this religion of yours? 
For it is impossible that any should know mat- 
ters so great and divine, who have not them- 
selves learned them first from the initiated. 
You will no doubt say, “ The sages and philoso- 
phers.” For to them, as ‘to a fortified wall, you 
are wont to flee, when any one quotes the 
opinions of your poets about the gods. There- 
fore, since it is fit that we commence with the 
ancients and the earliest, beginning thence I will 
produce the opinion of each, much more ridicu- 
lous as it is than the theology of the poets, 
For Thales of Miletus, who took the lead in the 
study of natural philosophy, declared that water 
was the first principle of all things; for from 
water he says that all things are, and that into 
water all are resolved. And after him Anaxi- 
mander, who came from the same Miletus, said 
that the infinite was the first principle of all 
things ; for that from this indeed all things are 
produced, and into this do all decay. Thirdly, 
Anaximenes—and he too was from Miletus— 
says that air is the first principle of all things ; 
for he says that from this all things are pro- 
duced, and into this all are resolved. Heraclitus 
and Hippasus, from Metapontus, say that fire is 
the first principle of all things; for from fire all 
things proceed, and in fire do all things termi- 
nate. Anaxagoras of Clazomenz said that the 
homogeneous parts are the first principles of all 
things. Archelaus, the son of Apollodorus, an 
Athenian, says that the infinite air and its density 
and rarity are the first principle of all things. 
All these, forming a succession from Thales, 
followed the philosophy called by themselves 
physical. 


“For never goddess pour’d, nor woman yet, 
So full a tide of love into my breast; 

I never loved Ixion’s consort thus, 

Nor sweet Acrisian Danaé, from whom 
Sprang Perseus, noblest of the race of man; 
Nor Pheenix’ daughter fair, of whom were born 
Minos, unmatch’d but by the powers above, 
And Rhadamanthus; nor yet Semele, 

Nor yet Alcmene, who in Thebes produced 
The valiant Hercules; and though my son 

By Sentele were Bacchus, joy of man; 

Nor Ceres golden-hair’d, nor high-enthron’d 
Latona in the skies ; no —nor thyself 

As now I love thee, and my soul perceive 
O’erwhelm'd with sweetness of intense desire.” 


It is fit that we now mention what one can 
learn from the work of Homer of the other gods, 
and what they suffered at the hands of men. 
For he says that Mars and Venus were wounded 
by Diomed, and of many others of the gods he 
relates the sufferings. For thus we can gather 
from the case of Dione consoling her daughter ; 
for she said to her : '— 


“Have patience, dearest child; though much enforc’d 
Restrain thine anger: we, in heav’n who dwell, 

Have much to bear from mortals; and ourselves 

Too oft upon each other suff’rings lay : 

Mars had his suff’rings; by Aldeus’ sons, 

Otus and Ephialtes, strongly bound, 

He thirteen months in brazen fetters lay: 

Juno, too, suffer’d, when Amphitryon’s son 

Thro’ her right breast a three-barb’d arrow sent: 
Dire, and unheard of, were the pangs she bore, 

Great Pluto’s self the stinging arrow felt, 

When that same son of A‘gis-bearing Jove 

Assail’d him in the very gates of hell, 

And wrought him keenest anguish; pierced with pain, 
To high Olympus, to the courts of Jove, 

Groaning, he came; the bitter shaft remain‘d 

Deep in his shoulder fix’d, and griev’d his soul.” 


But if it is right to remind you of the battle of 

the gods, opposed to one another, your own 

poet himself will recount it, saying : 7 — 

CHAP. IV.— OPINIONS OF PYTHAGORAS AND EPICU- 
RUS. 


“Such was the shock when gods in battle met; 

For there to royal Neptune stood oppos’d 

Pheebus Apollo with his arrows keen; 

The blue-eyed Pallas to the god of war; 

To Juno, Dian, heav’nly archeress, 

Sister of Phoebus, golden-shafted queen. 

Stout Hermes, helpful god, Latona fac’d.” 
These and such like things did Homer teach 
you; and not Homer only, but also Hesiod. 
So that if you believe your most distinguished 
poets, who have given the genealogies of your 
gods, you must of necessity either suppose that 
the gods are such beings as these, or believe 
that there are no gods at all. 


Then, in regular succession from another 
starting-point, Pythagoras the Samian, son of 
Mnesarchus, calls numbers, with their propor- 
tions and harmonies, and the elements composed 
of both, the first principles ; and he includes also 
unity and the indefinite binary.s Epicurus, an 
Athenian, the son of Neocles, says that the first 
principles of the things that exist are bodies 
perceptible by reason, admitting no vacuity,° 
unbegotten, indestructible, which can neither be 
broken, nor admit of any formation of their 
parts, nor alteration, and are therefore percep- 


CHAP. III. — OPINIONS OF THE SCHOOL OF THALES. | ¢. : 
tible by reason. Empedocles of Agrigentum, 


And if you decline citing the poets, because 
you say it is allowable for them to frame myths, 
and to relate in a mythical way many things 
about the gods which are far from true, do you 
suppose you have some others for your religious 





3 i.e., these teachers. 

4 Literally, “‘ those who knew.” 

5 povdda Kat thy adptarov dvada. One, or unity, was considered 
by Pythagoras as the essence of number, and also as God. Two, or 
the indefinite binary, was the equivalent of evil. So Plutarch, De 
plactt. philosoph.,c. 7; from which treatise the above opinions of the 
various sects are quoted, generally verdazim. 

© auéroxa Kevov: the void being that in which these bodies move; 
while they themselves are of a different nature from it. 





! Iliad, v. 382 (from Lord Derby’s translation). 
2 Iliad, xx. 66 (from Lord Derby’s translation). 


JUSTIN’S HORTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS. 






son of Meton, maintained that there were four 
elements — fire, air, water, earth; and two ele- 
mentary powers — love and hate,: of which the 
former is a power of union, the latter of separa- 
tion... You see, then, the confusion of those 
who are considered by you to have been wise 
men, whom you assert to be your teachers of 
religion: some of them declaring that water is 
the first principle of all things; others, air; 
others, fire; and others, some other of these 
fore-mentioned elements ; and all of them em- 
ploying persuasive arguments for the establish- 
ment of their own errors, and attempting to 
prove their own peculiar dogma to be the most 
valuable. These things were said by them. 
How then, ye men of Greece, can it be safe for 
those who desire to be saved, to fancy that they 
can learn the true religion from these philoso- 
phers, who were neither able so to convince 
themselves as to prevent sectarian wrangling 
with one another, and not to appear definitely 
opposed to one another’s opinions ? 


CHAP. V.— OPINIONS OF PLATO AND ARISTOTLE. 


But possibly those who are unwilling to give 
up the ancient and inveterate error, maintain 
that they have received the doctrine of their 
religion not from those who have now been 
mentioned, but from those who are esteemed 
among them as the most renowned and finished 
philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. For these, 
they say, have learned the perfect and true 
religion. But I would be glad to ask, first of 
all, from those who say so, from whom they say 
that these men have learned this knowledge ; 
for it is impossible that men who have not 
learned these so great and divine matters from 
some who knew them, should either themselves 
know them, or be able correctly to teach others ; 
and, in the second place, I think we ought to 
examine the opinions even of these sages. For 
we shall see whether each of these does not 
manifestly contradict the other. But if we find 
that even they do not agree with each other, I 
think it is easy to see clearly that they too are 
ignorant. For Plato, with the air of one that 
has descended from above, and has accurately 
ascertained and seen all that is in heaven, says 
that the most high God exists in a fiery sub- 
stance.2 But Aristotle, in a book addressed to 
Alexander of Macedon, giving a compendious 
explanation of his own philosophy, clearly and 
manifestly overthrows the opinion of Plato, 
saying that God does not exist in a fiery sub- 
stance: but inventing, as a fifth substance, 
some kind of xtherial and unchangeable body, 
says that God exists in it. Thus, at least, he 
wrote: “‘ Not, as some of those who have erred 





I Or, accord and discord, attraction and repulsion. 
2 Or, “‘ is of a fiery nature,” 





275 





regarding the Deity say, that God exists in a 
fiery substance.” ‘Then, as if he were not satis- 
fied with this blasphemy against Plato, he fur- 
ther, for the sake of proving what he says about 
the etherial body, cites as a witness him whom 
Plato had banished from his republic as a liar, 
and as being an imitator of the images of truth 
at three removes,3 for so Plato calls Homer ; for 
he wrote: “Thus at least did Homer speak,‘ 
‘And Zeus obtained the wide heaven in the air 
and the clouds,’” wishing to make his own opin- 
ion appear more worthy of credit by the testi- 
mony of Homer; not being aware that if he 
used Homer as a witness to prove that he spoke 
truth, many of his tenets would be proved un- 
true. For Thales of Miletus, who was the 
founder of philosophy among them, taking 
occasion from him,’ will contradict his first 
opinions about first principles. For Aristotle 
himself, having said that God and matter are 
the first principles of all things, Thales, the 
eldest of all their sages, says that water is the 
first principle of the things that exist; for he 
says that all things are from water, and that all 
things are resolved into water. And he con- 
jectures this, first, from the fact that the seed of 
all living creatures, which is their first principle, 
is moist ; and secondly, because all plants grow 
and bear fruit in moisture, but when deprived 
of moisture, wither. ‘Then, as if not satisfied 
with his conjectures, he cites Homer as a most 
trustworthy testimony, who speaks thus : — 


“Ocean, who is the origin of all.” ® 


May not Thales, then, very fairly say to him, 
“What is the reason, Aristotle, why you give 
heed to Homer, as if he spoke truth, when you 
wish to demolish the opinions of Plato; but 
when you promulgate an opinion contrary to 
ours, you think Homer untruthful?” 


CHAP. VI.— FURTHER DISAGREEMENTS BETWEEN 
PLATO AND ARISTOTLE. 


And that these very wonderful sages of yours 
do not even agree in other respects, can be 
easily learned from this. For while Plato says 
that there are three first principles of all things, 
God, and matter, and form,— God, the maker 
of all; and matter, which is the subject of the 
first production of all that is produced, and af- 
fords to God opportunity for His workmanship ; 
and form, which is the type of each of the things 





3 See the Republic, x. 2. By the Platonic doctrine, the ideas of 
things in the mind of God were the realities; the things themselves, as 
seen by us, were the images of these realities; and poetry, therefore, 
describing the images of realities, was only at the third remove from 
nature. As Plato puts it briefly in this same passage, “‘ the painter, 
the bed-maker, God —these three are the masters of three species of 
beds.” 


4 Iliad, xv. 192. , : 

S i.e., from Homer; using Homer’s words as suggestive and 
confirmatory of his doctrine. 

6 Iliad, xiv. 246. 


276 


produced, — Aristotle makes no mention at all 
of form as a first principle, but says that there 
are two, God and matter. And again, while 
Plato says that the highest God and the ideas 
exist in the first place of the highest heavens, 
and in fixed sphere, Aristotle says that, next to 
the most high God, there are, not ideas, but cer- 
tain gods, who can be perceived by the mind. 
Thus, then, do they differ concerning things 
heavenly. So that one can see that they not 
only are unable to understand our earthly mat- 
ters, but also, being at variance among themselves 
regarding these things, they will appear unworthy 
of credit when they treat of things heavenly. 
And that even their doctrine regarding the human 
soul as it now is does not harmonize, is manifest 
from what has been said by each of them con- 
cerning it. For Plato says that it is of three 
parts, having the faculty of reason, of affection, 
and of appetite.' But Aristotle says that the soul 
is not so comprehensive as to include also cor- 
ruptible parts, but onlyreason. And Plato loudly 
maintains that “the whole soul is immortal.” 
But Aristotle, naming it “the actuality,” ? would 
have it to be mortal, not immortal. And the 
former says it is always in motion; but Aristotle 
says that it is immoveable, since it must itself 
precede all motion. 


CHAP. VII. — INCONSISTENCIES OF PLATO’S DOC- 
TRINE. 


But in these things they are convicted of think- 
ing in contradiction to each other. And if any 
one will accurately criticise their writings, they 
have chosen to abide in harmony not even with 
their own opinions. Plato, at any rate, at one 
time says that there are three first principles of 
the universe — God, and matter, and form ; but at 
another time four, for he adds the universal soul. 
And again, when he has already said that matter 
is eternal,’ he afterwards says that it is produced ; 
and when he has first given to form its peculiar 
rank as a first principle, and has asserted for its 
self-subsistence, he afterwards says that this same 
thing is among the things perceived by the un- 
derstanding. Moreover, having first declared 
that everything that is made is mortal,+ he after- 
wards states that some of the things that are made 
are indestructible and immortal. What, then, is 
the cause why those who have been esteemed wise 
among you disagree not only with one another, 
but also with themselves? Manifestly, their un- 
willingness to learn from those who know, and 
their desire to attain accurate knowledge of things 
heavenly-by their own human excess of wisdom ; 





I ro Aoyixdy, Td OumcKov, To émLOvunTLKdy, — corresponding to 
what we roughly speak of as reason, the heart, and the appetites. 

2 évTeA€xeta, —the completion or actuality to which each thing, 
by virtue of its peculiar nature (or potentiality, dvvayts), can arrive. 

3 Literally, ‘‘ unbegotten.” 

4 Or, ‘‘ liable to destruction.” 








JUSTIN’S HORTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS. 


though they were able to understand not even 
earthly matters. Certainly some of your philos- 
ophers say that the human soul is in us; others, 
that it is around us. For not even in this did 
they choose to agree with one another, but, dis- 
tributing, as it were, ignorance in various ways 
among themselves, they thought fit to wrangle 
and dispute with one another even about the 
soul. For some of them say that the soul is 
fire, and some that it is the air; and others, the 
mind ; and others, motion ; and others, an exhala- 
tion; and certain others say that it is a power 
flowing from the stars ; and others, number capa- 
ble of motion; and others, a generating water. 
And a wholly confused and inharmonious opinion 
has prevailed among them, which only in this 
one respect appears praiseworthy to those who 
can form a right judgment, that they have been 
anxious to convict one another of error and false- 
hood. 


CHAP. VIII.— ANTIQUITY, INSPIRATION, AND HAR- 
MONY OF CHRISTIAN TEACHERS. 


Since therefore it is impossible to learn any- 
thing true concerning religion from your teachers, 
who by their mutual disagreement have furnished 
you with sufficient proof of their own ignorance, 
I consider it reasonable to recur to our progeni- 
tors, who both in point of time have by a great 
way the precedence of your teachers, and who 
have taught us nothing from their own private 
fancy, nor differed with one another, nor attempted 
to overturn one another’s positions, but without 
wrangling and contention received from God the 
knowledge which also they taught to us. For 
neither by nature nor by human conception is it 
possible for men to know things so great and 
divine, but by the gift which then descended 
from above upon the holy men, who had no need 
of rhetorical art,5 nor of uttering anything in a 
contentious or quarrelsome manner, but to pre- 
sent themselves pure © to the energy of the Divine 
Spirit, in order that the divine plectrum itself, 
descending from heaven, and using righteous 
men as an instrument like a harp or lyre, might 
reveal to us the knowledge of things divine and 
heavenly. Wherefore, as if with one mouth and 
One tongue, they have in succession, and in har- 
mony with one another, taught us both concern- 
ing God, and the creation of the world, and the 
formation of man, and concerning the immortal- 
ity of the human soul, and the judgment which 
is to be after this life, and concerning all things 
which it is needful for us to know, and thus in 
divers times and places have afforded us the 
divine instruction.’ 





5 Literally, “‘ the art of words.” 

© Literaity, “clean,” free from other influences. 

7 [The diversities of Christian theology are to be regretted; but 
Justin here shows the harmony and order of truths, such as are every- 


where received by Christians, to be an inestimable advantage. ] 


JUSTIN'S HORTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS. 


277 


ee ey, 


CHAP, IX. —— THE ANTIQUITY OF MOSES PROVED BY 
GREEK WRITERS. 


I will begin, then, with our first prophet and 
lawgiver, Moses; first explaining the times in 
which he lived, on authorities which among you 
are worthy of all credit. For I do not propose 
to prove these things only from our-own divine 
histories, which as yet you are unwilling to credit 
on account of the inveterate error of your fore- 
fathers, but also from your own histories, and 
such, too, as have no reference to our worship, 
that you may know that, of all your teachers, 
whether sages, poets, historians, philosophers, or 
lawgivers, by far the oldest, as the Greek histo- 
ries show us, was Moses, who was our first reli- 
gious teacher.t' For in the times of Ogyges and 
Inachus, whom some of your poets suppose to 
have been earth-born,? Moses is mentioned as 
the leader and ruler of the Jewish nation. For 
in this way he is mentioned both by Polemon in 
the first book of his He//enics, and by Apion son 
of Posidonius in his book against the Jews, and 
in the fourth book of his history, where he says 
that during the reign of Inachus over Argos the 
Jews revolted from Amasis king of the Egyptians, 
and that Moses led them. And Ptolemzus the 
Mendesian, in relating the history of Egypt, con- 
curs in all this. And those who write the Athe- 
nian history, Hellanicus and Philochorus (the 
author of Zhe Attic History), Castor and Thallus, 
and Alexander Polyhistor, and also the very well 
informed writers on Jewish affairs, Philo and 
Josephus, have mentioned Moses as a very an- 
cient and time-honoured prince of the Jews. 
Josephus, certainly, desiring to signify even by 
the title of his work the antiquity and age of the 
history, wrote thus at the commencement of the 
history: “The Jewish antiquities 3 of Flavius Jo- 
sephus,” — signifying the oldness of the history 
by the word “antiquities.” And your most re- 
nowned historian Diodorus, who employed thirty 
whole years in epitomizing the libraries, and who, 
as he himself wrote, travelled over both Asia and 
Europe for the sake of great accuracy, and thus 
became an eye-witness of very many things, wrote 
forty entire books of his own history. And he 
in the first book, having said that he had learned 
from the Egyptian priests that Moses was an 
ancient lawgiver, and even the first, wrote of him 
in these very words: “For subsequent to the 
ancient manner of living in Egypt which gods 
and heroes are fabled to have regulated, they say 
that Moses‘ first persuaded the people to use 
written laws, and to live by them; and he is 





1 The incongrui' 

2 [Autochthones]. That is, sprung 
oldest inhabitants, ibe sporiginc’ 

3 Literally, archeology. 

4 Ciafostunately; Justin here mistook Menes for Moses. [But he 
may haye so read the name in his copy. See Grabe’s note on Diodo- 
rus, and the quotation following in another note. ] 


in this sentence leat 4 
i rom the soil; and hence the 





recorded to have been a man both great of soul 
and of great faculty in social matters.” Then, 
having proceeded a little further, and wishing 
to mention the ancient lawgivers, he mentions 
Moses first. For he spoke in these words: 
‘“‘ Among the Jews they say that Moses ascribed 
his laws5 to that God who.is called Jehovah, 
whether because they judged it a marvellous and 
quite divine conception which promised to bene- 
fit a multitude of men, or because they were of 
opinion that the people would be the more 
obedient when they contemplated the majesty 
and power of those who were said to have in- 
vented the laws. And they say that Sasunchis was 
the second Egyptian legislator, a man of excel- 
lent understanding. And the third, they say, was 
Sesonchosis the king, who not only. performed 
the most brilliant military exploits of any. in 
Egypt, but also consolidated that warlike race 
by legislation. And the fourth lawgiver, they 
say, was Bocchoris the king, a wise and _surpass- 
ingly skilful man. And after him it is said that 
Amasis the king acceded to the government, 
whom they relate to have regulated all that. per- 
tains to the rulers of provinces, and to the gen- 
eral administration of the government of Egypt. 
And they say that Darius, the father of Xerxes, 
was the sixth who legislated for the Egyptians.” 


CHAP. X.— TRAINING AND INSPIRATION OF MOSES, ° 


These things, ye men of Greece, have been 
recorded in writing concerning the antiquity of 
Moses by those who were not of our religion ; 
and they said that they learned all these things 
from the Egyptian priests, among whom Moses 
was not only born, but also was thought worthy 
of partaking of all the education of the Egyptians, 
on account of his being adopted by the king’s 
daughter as her son; and for the same reason 
was thought worthv of great attention, as the 
wisest of the historians relate, who have chosen 
to record his life and actions, and the rank of his 
descent, — I speak of Philo and Josephus. For 
these, in their narration of the history of the 
Jews, say that Moses was sprung from the race 
of the Chaldzeans, and that he was born in Egypt 
when his forefathers had migrated on account of 
famine from Phoenicia to that country ; and him 
God chose to honour on account of his exceed- 
ing virtue, and judged him worthy to become the 
leader and lawgiver of his own race, when He 
thought it right that the people of the Hebrews 
should return out of Egypt into their own land. 
To him first did God communicate that divine 
and prophetic gift which in those days descended 
upon the holy men, and him also did He first 





5 This sentence must be so completed from the context: in Diodo- 
rus, See the note of Maranus. | ; Ay 

6 [Consult the ponderous learning of Warburton’s Divine Lega- 
tion, passim. | ; 


278 


JUSTIN’S HORTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS. 


lowing. For Socrates was the teacher of Plato, 


furnish that he might be our teacher in religion, 
and then after him the rest of the prophets, who 
both obtained the same gift as he, and taught 
us the same doctrines concerning the same sub- 
jects. These we assert to have been our teachers, 
who taught us nothing from their own human 
conception, but from the gift vouchsafed to them 
by God from above. 


CHAP. XI.— HEATHEN ORACLES TESTIFY OF MOSES. 


But as you do not see the necessity of giving 
up the ancient error of your forefathers in obe- 
dience to these teachers [of ours], what teachers 
of your own do you maintain to have lived worthy 
of credit in the matter of religion? For, as I 
have frequently said, it is impossible that those 
who have not themselves learned these so great 
and divine things from such persons as are ac- 
quainted with them, should either themselves 
know them, or be able rightly to teach others. 
Since, therefore, it has been sufficiently proved 
that the opinions of your philosophers are obvi- 
ously full of all ignorance and deceit, having now 
perhaps wholly abandoned the philosophers as 
formerly you abandoned the poets, you will turn 
to the deceit of the oracles; for in this style I 
have heard some speaking. Therefore I think 
it fit to tell you at this step in our discourse what 
I formerly heard among you concerning their 
utterances. For when one inquired at your 
oracle —it is your own story —what religious 
men had at any time happened to live, you say 
that the oracle answered thus: ‘“ Only the Chal- 
dzeans have obtained wisdom, and the Hebrews, 
who worship God Himself, the self-begotten 
King.” 

Since, therefore, you think that the truth can 
be learned from your oracles, when you read the 
histories and what has been written regarding 
the life of Moses by those who do not belong to 
our religion, and when you know that Moses and 
the rest of the prophets were descended from 
the race of the Chaldzeans and Hebrews, do not 
think that anything incredible has taken place 
if a man sprung from a godly line, and who lived 
worthily of the godliness of his fathers, was 
chosen by God to be honoured with this great 
gift, and to be set forth as the first of all the 
prophets. 


CHAP. XII. — ANTIQUITY OF MOSES PROVED. 


And I think it necessary also to consider the 
times in which your philosophers lived, that you 
may see that the time which produced them for 
you is very recent, and also short. For thus you 
will be able easily to recognise also the antiquity 
of Moses. But lest, by a complete survey of the 
periods, and by the use of a greater number of 
proofs, I should seem to be prolix, I thing it 
may be sufficiently demonstrated from the fol- 








and Plato of Aristotle. Now these men flourished 
in the time of Philip and Alexander of Macedon, 
in which time also the Athenian orators flourished, 
as the Philippics of Demosthenes plainly show us. 
And those who have narrated the deeds of Alex- 
ander sufficiently prove that during his reign 
Aristotle associated with him. From all manner 
of proofs, then, it is easy to see that the history 
of Moses is by far more ancient than all profane * 
histories. And, besides, it is fit that you recog- 
nise this fact also, that nothing has been accu- 
rately recorded by Greeks before the era of the 
Olympiads, and that there is no ancient work 
which makes known any action of the Greeks or 
Barbarians. But before that period existed only 
the history of the prophet Moses, which he wrote 
in the Hebrew character by the divine inspira- 
tion. For the Greek character was not yet in 
use, as the teachers of language themselves prove, 
telling us that Cadmus first brought the letters 
from Phoenicia, and communicated them to the 
Greeks. And your first of philosophers, Plato, 
testifies that they were a recent discovery. For 
in the Zimc@us? he wrote that Solon, the wisest 
of the wise men, on his return from Egypt, said 


-to Critias that he had heard this from a very aged 


Egyptian priest, who said to him, “O Solon, 
Solon, you Greeks are ever children, and aged 
Greek there is none.” ‘Then again he said, “ You 
are all youths in soul, for you hold no ancient 
opinion derived through remote tradition, nor 
any system of instruction hoary with time ; but 
all these things escape your knowledge, because 
for many generations the posterity of these an- 
cient ages died mute, not having the use of let- 
ters.” It is fit, therefore, that you understand 
that it is the fact that every history has been 
written in these recently-discovered Greex let- 
ters ; and if any one would make mention of old 
poets, or legislators, or historians, or philosophers, 
or orators, he will find that they wrote their own 
works in the Greek character. 


* CHAP. XIII.— HISTORY OF THE SEPTUAGINT. 


But if any one says that the writings of Moses 
and of the rest of the prophets were also written 
in the Greek character, let him read profane his- 
tories, and know that Ptolemy, king of Egypt, 
when he had built the library in Alexandria, and 
by gathering books from every quarter had filled 
it, then learnt that very ancient histories written 
in Hebrew happened to be carefully preserved ; 
and wishing to know their contents, he sent for 
seventy wise men from Jerusalem, who were 
acquainted with both the Greek and Hebrew 
language, and appointed them to ‘translate the 
books ; and that in freedom from all disturb- 


— 





5 ela: ‘‘ without,” not belonging to the true faith, 
Ze 


JUSTIN’S HORTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS. 


ance they might the more speedily complete 
the translation, he ordered that there should 
be constructed, not in the city itself, but seven 
stadia off (where the Pharos was built), as 
many little cots as there were translators, so 
that each by himself might complete his own 
translation; and enjoined upon those officers 
who were appointed to this duty, to afford 
them all attendance, but to prevent communi- 
cation with one another, in order that the ac- 
curacy of the translation might be discernible 
even by their agreement. And when he ascer- 
tained that the seventy men had not only given 
the same meaning, but had employed the same 
words, and had failed in agreement with one 
another not even to the extent of one word, 
but had written the same things, and concerning 
the same things, he was struck with amazement, 
and believed that the translation had been written 
by divine power, and perceived that the men 
were worthy of all honour, as beloved of God ; 
and with many gifts ordered them to return to 
their own country. And having, as was natural, 
marvelled at the books, and concluded them to 
be divine, he consecrated them in that library. 
These things, ye men of Greece, are no fable, 
nor do we narrate fictions ; but we ourselves hav- 
ing been in Alexandria, saw the remains of the 
little cots at the Pharos still preserved, and hav- 
ing heard these things from the inhabitants, who 
had received them as part of their country’s tra- 
dition,t we now tell to you what you can also 
learn from others, and specially from those wise 
and esteemed men who have written of these 
things, Philo and Josephus, and many others. 
But if any of those who are wont to be forward 
in contradiction should say that these books do 
not belong to us, but to the Jews, and should 
assert that we in vain profess to have learnt our 
religion from them, let him know, as he may 
from those very things which are written in these 
books, that not to them, but to us, does the doc- 
trine of them refer. That the books relating to 
our religion are to this day preserved among the 
Jews, has been a work of Divine Providence on 
our behalf; for lest, by producing them out of 
the Church, we should give occasion to those 
who wish to slander us to charge us with fraud, 
we demand that they be produced from the 
synagogue of the Jews, that from the very 
books still preserved among them it might 
clearly and evidently appear, that the laws 
which were written by holy men for instruc- 
tion pertain to us. 


CHAP. XIV.—A WARNING APPEAL ‘TO THE GREEKS. 
It is therefore necessary, ye Greeks, that you 


QL Vee es ee ee ee ee 

1 [Doubtless Justin relates the tradition as he received it, Con- 
sult Dr, Selwyn’s full account of the fables concerning the LXX., in 
Smith's Dict. of the Bible, iii. p. 1203 ff.) 





279 





contemplate the things that are to be, and con- 
sider the judgment which is predicted by all, 
not only by the godly, but also by those who 
are irreligious, that ye do not without investiga- 
tion commit yourselves to the error of your 
fathers, nor suppose that if they themselves have 
been in error, and have transmitted it to you, 
that this which they have taught you is true ; but 
looking to the danger of so terrible a mistake, 
inquire and investigate carefully into those things 
which are, as you say, spoken of even by your 
own teachers. For even unwillingly they were 
on your account forced to say many things by 
the Divine regard for mankind, especially those 
of them who were in Egypt, and profited by the 
godliness of Moses and his ancestry. For I 
think that some of you, when you read even 
carelessly the history of Diodorus, and of those 
others who wrote of these things, cannot fail to 
see that both Orpheus, and Homer, and Solon, 
who wrote the laws of the Athenians, and Pythag- 
oras, and Plato, and some others, when they 
had been in Egypt, and had taken advantage of 
the history of Moses, afterwards published doc- 
trines concerning the gods quite contrary to 
those which formerly they had erroneously pro- 
mulgated. 


CHAP. XV.— TESTIMONY OF ORPHEUS TO MONO- 
THEISM. 


At all events, we must remind you what Or- 
pheus, who was, as one might say, your first 
teacher of polytheism, latterly addressed to his 
son Muszus, and to the other legitimate audit- 
ors, concerning the one and only God. And 
he-spoke thus: sorta 0) 0 \ Men 


“T speak to those who lawfully may hear: 

All others, ye profane, now close the doors, 
And, O Muszus! hearken thou to me, 

Who offspring art of the light-bringing moon 
The words I utter now are true indeed; 

And if thou former thoughts of mine hast seen, 
Let them not rob thee of the blessed life, 

But rather turn the depths of thine own heart 
Unto the place where light and knowledge dwell. 
Take thou the word divine to guide thy steps, 
And walking well in the straight certain path, 
Look to the one and universal King — 

One, self-begotten, and the only One, 

Of whom all things and we ourselves are sprung. 
All things are open to His piercing gaze, 

While He Himself is still invisible. 

Present in all His works, though still unseen, 
He gives to mortals evil out of good, 
Sending both chilling wars and tearful griefs ; 
And other than the great King there is none. 
The clouds for ever settle round His throne, 
And mortal eyeballs in mere mortal eyes 

Are weak, to see Jove reigning over all. 

He sits established in the brazen heavens 

Upon His golden throne; under His feet 

He treads the earth, and stretches His right hand 
To all the ends of ocean, and around 

Tremble the mountain ranges and the streams, 
The depths, too, of the blue and hoary sea.” 


“ia 


JUSTIN'S HORTATORY 


280 





And again, in some other place he says : — 


“There is one Zeus alone, one sun, one hell, 
One Bacchus; and in all things but one God; 
Nor of all these as diverse let me speak.” 


And when he swears he says : — 


“Now I adjure thee by the highest heaven, 
The work of the great God, the only wise; 
And I adjure thee by the Father’s voice, 
Which first He uttered when He stablished 
The whole world by His counsel.” 


What does he mean by “I adjure thee by the 
Father’s voice, which first He uttered?” It is 
the Word of God which he here names “the 
voice,” by whom heaven and earth and the whole 
creation were made, as the divine prophecies of 
the holy men teach us; and these he himself 
also paid some attention to in Egypt, and under- 
stood that all creation was made by the Word of 
God ; and therefore, after he says, “ I adjure thee 
by the Father’s voice, which first He uttered,” 
he adds this besides, “‘when by His counsel He 
established the whole world.” Here he calls the 
Word “voice,” for the sake of the poetical 
metre. And that this is so, is manifest from the 
fact, that a little further on, where the metre per- 
mits him, he names it “Word.” For he said : — 


“Take thou the Word divine to guide thy steps.” 


CHAP. XVI. — TESTIMONY OF THE SIBYL. 


We must also mention what the ancient and 
exceedingly remote Sibyl, whom Plato and Aris- 
tophanes, and others besides, mention as a 
prophetess, taught you in her oracular verses 
concerning one only God. And she speaks 
thus : — 

“There is one only unbegotten God, 


Omnipotent, invisible, most high, 
All-seeing, but Himself seen by no flesh.” 


Then elsewhere thus : — 


“ But we have strayed from the Immortal’s ways, 
And worship with a dull and senseless mind 
Idols, the workmanship of our own hands, 

And images and figures of dead men.” 


And again somewhere else : — 


“Blessed shall be those men upon the earth 

Who shall love the great God before all else, 
Blessing Him when they eat and when they drink; 
Trusting in this their piety alone. 

Who shall abjure all shrines which they may see, 
All altars and vain figures of dumb stones, 
Worthless and stained with blood of animals, 
And sacrifice of the four-footed tribes, 

Beholding the great glory of One God.” 


These are the Sibyl’s words. 


CHAP. XVII.— TESTIMONY OF HOMER. 


And the poet Homer, using the license of 
poetry, and rivalling the original opinion of Or- 
pheus regarding the plurality of the gods, men- 
tions, indeed, several gods in a mythical style, 





ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS. 






lest he should seem to sing in a different strain 
from the poem of Orpheus, which he so dis- 


| tinctly proposed to rival, that even in the first 


line of his poem he indicated the relation he held 
to him. For as Orpheus in the beginning of his 
poem had said, “O goddess, sing the wrath of 
Demeter, who brings the goodly fruit,” Homer 
began thus, “O goddess, sing the wrath of 
Achilles, son of Peleus,” preferring, as it seems 
to me, even to violate the poetical metre in his 
first line, than that he should seem not to have 
remembered before all else the names of the 
gods. But shortly after he also clearly and ex- 
plicitly presents his own opinion regarding one 
God only, somewhere ' saying to Achilles by the 
mouth of Phoenix, “ Not though God Himself 
were .to promise that He would peel off my old 
age, and give me the vigour of my youth,” where 
he indicates by the pronoun the real and true 
God. And somewhere? he makes Ulysses ad- 
dress the host of the Greeks thus: “The rule 
of many is not a good thing; let there be one 
ruler.” And that the rule of many is not a good 
thing, but on the contrary an evil, he proposed 
to evince by fact, recounting the wars which 
took place on account of the multitude of rulers, 
and the fights and factions, and their mutual 
counterplots. For monarchy 7s free from con- 
tention. So far the poet Homer. 


CHAP. XVIII.— TESTIMONY OF SOPHOCLES. 


And if it is needful that we add testimonies 
concerning one God, even from the dramatists, 
hear even Sophocles speaking thus : — 

“ There is one God, in truth there is but one, 

Who made the heavens and the broad earth beneath, 

The glancing waves of ocean and the winds 

But many of us mortals err in heart, 

And set up for a solace in our woes 

Images of the gods in stone and wood, 

Or figures carved in brass or ivory, 

And, furnishing for these our handiworks, 

Both sacrifice and rite magnificent, 

We think that thus we do a pious work.” 


Thus, then, Sophocles. 


CHAP. XIX. —— TESTIMONY OF PYTHAGORAS. 


And Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchus, who ex- 
pounded the doctrines of his own philosophy 
mystically by means of symbols, as those who 
have written his life show, himself seems to have 
entertained thoughts about the unity of God not 
unworthy of his foreign residence in Egypt. For 
when he says that unity is the first principle of 
all things, and that it is the cause of all good, he 
teaches by an allegory that God is one, and alone.3 
And that this is so, is evident from his saying that 


I [Iiad, ix. 445. 
2 Iliad, ii, 204. 


3 Has no fellow. 


JUSTIN’S HORTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS. 





unity and one differ widely from one another. 
For he says that unity belongs to the class of 
things perceived by the mind, but that one be- 
longs to numbers. And if you desire to see a 
clearer proof of the opinion of Pythagoras con- 
cerning one God, hear his own opinion, for he 
spoke as follows: “God is one; and He Him- 
self does not, as some suppose, exist outside the 
world, but in it, He being wholly present in the 
whole circle, and beholding all generations ; be- 
ing the regulating ingredient of all the ages, and 
the administrator of His own powers and works, 
the first principle of all things, the light of heaven, 
and Father of all, the intelligence and animating 
soul of the universe, the movement of all orbits.” 
Thus, then, Pythagoras. 


CHAP, XX.— TESTIMONY OF PLATO. 


But Plato, though he accepted, as is likely, 
the doctrine of Moses and the other prophets 
regarding one only God, which he learned while 
in Egypt, yet fearing, on account of what had 
befallen: Socrates, lest he also should raise up 
some Anytus or Meletus against himself, who 
should accuse him before the Athenians, and say, 
“ Plato is doing harm, and making himself mis- 
chievously busy, not acknowledging the gods 
recognised by the state ;”” in fear of the hemlock- 
juice, contrives an elaborate and ambiguous dis- 
course concerning the gods, furnishing by his 
_ treatise gods to those who wish them, and none 
for those who are differently disposed, as may 
readily be seen from his own statements. For 
when he has laid down that everything that is 
made is mortal, he afterwards says that the gods 
were made. If, then, he would have God and 
matter to be the origin of all things, manifestly 
it is inevitably necessary to say that the gods 
were made of matter; but if of matter, out of 
which he said that evil also had its origin, he 
leaves right-thinking persons to consider what 
kind of beings the gods should be thought who 
are produced out of matter. For, for this very 
reason did he say that matter was eternal,' that he 
might not seem to say that God is the creator 
of evil. And regarding the gods who were made 
by God, there is no doubt he said this: “Gods 
of gods, of whom I am the creator.” And he 
manifestly held the correct opinion concerning 
the really existing God. For having heard in 
Egypt that God had said to Moses, when. He 
was about to send him to the Hebrews, “I am 
that I am,’”2 he understood that God had not 
mentioned to him His own proper name. 


CHAP. XXI.— THE NAMELESSNESS OF GOD. 


For God cannot be called by any proper name, 
for names are given to mark out and distinguish 





% Or, “‘ uncreated.” 
2 6 Gv, “He who is; the Being.” 





281 


their subject-matters, because these are many 
and diverse ; but neither did any one exist before 
God who could give Him a name, nor did He 
Himself think it right to name Himself, seeing 
that He is one and unique, as He Himself also 
by His own prophets testifies, when He says, “I 
God am the first,’”’ and after this, “And beside 
me there is no other God.”3 On this account, 
then, as I before said, God did not, when He 
sent Moses to the Hebrews, mention any name, 
but by a participle He mystically teaches them 
that He is the one and only God. “ For,” says 
He, “I am the Being ;” manifestly contrasting 
Himself, “the Being,” with those who are not,* 
that those who had hitherto been deceived might 
see that they were attaching themselves, not to 
beings, but to those who had no being. Since, 
therefore, God knew that the first men remem- 
bered the old delusion of their forefathers, where- 
by the misanthropic demon contrived to deceive 
them when he said to them, “If ye obey me in 
transgressing the commandment of God, ye shall 
be as gods,” calling those gods which had no 
being, in order that men, supposing that there 
were other gods in existence, might believe that 
they themselves could become gods. On this 
account He said to Moses, “I am the Being,” 
that by the participle “being” He might teach 
the difference between God who is and those who 
are nots Men, therefore, having been duped 
by the deceiving demon, and having dared to 
disobey God, were cast out of Paradise, re- 
membering the name of gods, but no longer 
being taught by God that there are no other 
gods. For it was not just that they who did not 
keep the first commandment, which it was easy 
to keep, should any longer be taught, but should 
rather be driven to just punishment. Being 
therefore banished from Paradise, and thinking 
that they were expelled on account of their dis- 
obedience only, not knowing that it was also 
because they had believed in the existence of 
gods which did not exist, they gaye the name 
of gods even to the men who were afterwards 
born of themselves. This first false fancy, there- 
fore, concerning gods, had its origin with the 
father of lies. God, therefore, knowing that the 
false opinion about the plurality of gods was 
burdening the soul of man like some disease, 
and wishing to remove and eradicate it, appeared 
first to Moses, and said to him, “ Iam He who is.” 
For it was necessary, I think, that he who was to 
be the ruler and leader of the Hebrew people 
should first of all know the living God. Where- 
fore, having appeared to him first, as it was pos- 
sible for God to appear to a man, He said to 
him, “I am He who is;” then, being about to 





3 Isa. xliv. 6. * 


4 Literally, “ with the not-beings.” _ hax 
5 Literally, “ between the God being and not-beings,” 


282 





send him to the Hebrews, He further orders him 
to say, “‘ He who is hath sent me to you.” 


CHAP. XXII. — STUDIED AMBIGUITY OF PLATO. 


Plato accordingly having learned this in 
Egypt, and being greatly taken with what was 
said about one God, did indeed consider it un- 
safe to mention the name of Moses, on account 
of his teaching the doctrine of one only God, 
for he dreaded the Areopagus ; but what is very 
well expressed by him in his elaborate treatise, 
the Zimcus, he has written in exact correspond- 
ence with what Moses said regarding God, 
though he has done so, not as if he had learned 
it from him, but as if he were expressing his 
own opinion. For he said, “In my opinion, 
then, we must first define what that is which 
exists eternally, and has no generation,’ and 
what that is which is always being generated, 
but never really is.” Does not this, ye men of 
Greece, seem to those who are able to under- 
stand the matter to be one and the same thing, 
saving only the difference of the article? For 
Moses said, “ He who is,” and Plato, “That 
which is.’’ But either of the expressions seems 
to apply to the ever-existent God. For He is 
the only one who eternally exists, and has no 
generation. What, then, that other thing is 
which is contrasted with the ever-existent, and 
of which he said, “And what that is which is 
always being generated, but never really is,” we 
must attentively consider. For we shall find 
him clearly and evidently saying that He who is 
unbegotten is eternal, but that those that are 
begotten and made are generated and perish? — 
as he said of the same class, “gods of gods, of 
whom I am maker’ — for he speaks in the fol- 
lowing words: “In my opinion, then, we must 
first define what that is which is always existent 
and has no birth, and what that is which is 
always being generated but never really is. The 
former, indeed, which is apprehended by reflec- 
tion combined with reason, always exists in the 
same way ;3 while the latter, on the other hand, 
is conjectured by opinion formed by the percep- 
tion of the senses unaided by reason, since it 
never really is, but is coming into being and 
perishing.”” These expressions declare to those 
who can rightly understand them the death and 
destruction of the gods that have been brought 
into being. And I think it necessary to attend 
to this also, that Plato never names him the 
creator, but the fashioner ¢ of the gods, although, 
in the opinion of Plato, there is considerable 
difference between these two. For the creator 
creates the creature by his own capability and 





t That is, “is not produced or created; has no birth.” 

2 Or, “‘ are born and die.” 

3 ard travrd, “according to the same things,” i.e., in eternal 
immutability. i : i : 
_ 4 Or, “ demiurge or maker.” 





JUSTIN’S HORTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS. 


power, being in need of nothing else ; but the 
fashioner frames his production when he has 
received from matter the capability for his work. 


CHAP. XXIII. —PLATO’S SELF-CONTRADICTION. 


But, perhaps, some who are unwilling to aban- 
don the doctrines of polytheism, will say that 
to these fashioned gods the maker said, “Since 
ye have been produced, ye are not immortal, 
nor at all imperishable ; yet shall ye not perish 
nor succumb to the fatality of death, because 
you have obtained my will,’ which is a still 
greater and mightier bond.” Here Plato, 
through fear of the adherents of polytheism, 
introduces his “maker” uttering words which 
contradict himself. For having formerly stated 
that he said that everything which is produced 
is perishable, he now introduces him saying the 
very opposite; and he does not see that it is 
thus absolutely impossible for him to escape 
the charge of falsehood. For he either at first 
uttered what is false when he said that every- 
thing which is produced is perishable, or now, 
when he propounds the very opposite to what 
he had formerly said. For if, according to his 
former definition, it is absolutely necessary that 
every created thing be perishable, how can he 
consistently make that possible which is abso- 
lutely impossible? So that Plato seems to grant 
an empty and impossible prerogative to his 
“maker,” when he propounds that those who 
were once perishable because made from matter 
should again, by his intervention, become imper- 
ishable and enduring. For it is quite natural 
that the power of matter, which, according to 
Plato’s opinion, is uncreated, and contemporary 
and cozval with the maker, should resist his 
will. For he who has not created has no power, 
in respect of that which is uncreated, so that it 
is not possible that it (matter), being free, can 
be controlled by any external necessity. Where- 
fore Plato himself, in consideration of this, has 
written thus: “It is necessary to affirm that 
God cannot suffer violence.” 


CHAP. XXIV. — AGREEMENT OF PLATO AND HOMER. 


How, then, does Plato banish Homer from 
his republic, since, in the embassy to Achilles, 
he represents Phoenix as saying to Achilles, 
“Even the gods themselves are not inflexible,” © 
though Homer said this not of the king and 
Platonic maker of the gods, but of some of the 
multitude whom the Greeks esteem as gods, as 
one can gather from Plato’s saying, “gods of 
gods?” For Homer, by that golden chain,’ 
refers all power and might to the one highest 





5 That is, “my will to the contrary.” See Plato, Tim., p. 41, 
[cap rie 
Iliad, ix. 497. 
etd That is, by the challenge of the chain introduced— Jbad, 
vill, i 


JUSTIN’S HORTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS. 


283 


God. And the rest of the gods, he said, were|said the very opposite concerning the maker 


so far. distant from his divinity, that he thought 
fit to name them even along with men. At 
least he introduces Ulysses: saying of Hector to 
Achilles, “ He is raging terribly, trusting in Zeus, 
and values neither men nor gods.”' In this 
passage Homer seems to me without doubt to 
have learnt in Egypt, like Plato, concerning the 
one God, and plainly and openly to declare this, 
that he who trusts in the really existent God 
makes no account of those that do not exist. 
For thus the poet, in another passage, and em- 
ploying another but equivalent word, to wit, a 
pronoun, made use of the same participle em- 
ployed by Plato to designate the really existent 
God, concerning whom Plato said, “What that 
is which always exists, and has no birth.” For 
not without a double sense does this expression 
of Phoenix seem to have been used: “ Not even 
if God Himself were to promise me, that, hav- 
ing burnished off my old age, He should set 
me forth in the flower of youth.” For the pro- 
noun “ Himself” signifies the really existing 
God. For thus, too, the oracle which was given 
to you concerning the Chaldzeans and Hebrews 
signifies. For when some one inquired what 
men had ever lived godly, you say the answer 
was : — 


“Only the Chaldzeans and the Hebrews found wisdom, 
Worshipping God Himself, the unbegotten King.” 


CHAP. XXV.— PLATO’S KNOWLEDGE OF GOD’S 
ETERNITY. 


How, then, does Plato blame Homer for say- 
ing that the gods are not inflexible, although, as 
is obvious from the expressions used, Homer 
said this for a useful purpose? For it is the 
property of those who expect to obtain mercy 
by prayer and sacrifices, to cease from and re- 
pent of their sins. For those who think that the 
Deity is inflexible, are by no means moved to 
abandon their sins, since they suppose that they 
will derive no benefit from repentance. How, 
then, does Plato the philosopher condemn the 
poet Homer for saying, “ Even the gods them- 
selves are not inflexible,” and yet himself repre- 
sent the maker of the gods as so easily turned, 
that he sometimes declares the gods to be mor- 
tal, and at other times declares the same to be 
immortal? And not only concerning. them, but 
also concerning matter, from which, as he says, 
it is necessary that the created gods have been 
produced, he sometimes says that it is uncreated, 
and at other times that it is created; and yet 
he does not see that he himself, when he says 
that the maker of the gods is so easily turned, 
is convicted of having fallen into the very errors 
for which he blames Homer, though Homer 
eee 


8 [}iad, ix. 238. 





of the gods. 
himself : — 
“For ne’er my promise shall deceive, or fail, 
Or be recall’d, if with a nod confirm’d.” ? 

But Plato, as it seems, unwillingly entered 
into these strange dissertations concerning the 
gods, for he feared those who were attached to 
polytheism. And whatever he thinks fit to tell 
of all that he had learned from Moses and the 
prophets concerning one God, he preferred de- 
livering in a mystical style, so that those who 
desired to be worshippers of God might have an 
inkling of his own opinion. For being charmed 
with that saying of God to Moses, “I am the 
really existing,” and accepting with a great deal 
of thought the brief participial expression, he 
understood that God desired to signify to Moses 
His eternity, and therefore said, “I am the 
really existing ;” for this word “ existing” ex- 
presses not one time only, but the three — the 
past, the present, and the future. For when 
Plato says, “and which never really is,” he uses 
the verb “is” of time indefinite. For the word 
“never” is not spoken, as some suppose, of the 
past, but of the future time. And this has been 
accurately understood even by profane writers. 
And therefore, when Plato wished, as it were, to 
interpret to the uninitiated what had been mysti- 
cally expressed by the participle concerning the 
eternity of God, he employed the following lan- 

age: “God indeed, as the old tradition runs, 
includes the beginning, and end, and middle of 
all things.” In this sentence he plainly and 
obviously names the law of Moses “the old tra- 
dition,” fearing, through dread of the hemlock- 
cup, to mention the name of Moses; for he 
understood that the teaching of the man was 
hateful to the Greeks; and he clearly enough 
indicates Moses by the antiquity of the tradition. 
And we have sufficiently proved from Diodorus 
and the rest of the historians, in the foregoing 
chapters, that the law of Moses is not only old, 
but even the first. For Diodorus says that he 
was the first of all lawgivers; the letters which 
belong to the Greeks, and which they employed 
in the writing of their histories, having not yet 
been discovered. 


For he said that he spoke thus of 


CHAP. XXVI. — PLATO INDEBTED TO THE PROPHETS. 


And let no one wonder that Plato should 
believe Moses regarding the eternity of God. 
For you will find him mystically referring the 
true knowledge of realities to the prophets, next 
in order after the really existent God. For, 
discoursing in the Zimeus about certain first 
principles, he wrote thus: “This we lay down 
as the first principle of fire and the other bodies, 
eS ee 


8 Iliad, i. 526. 


584 





proceeding according to probability and neces- 
sity. But the first principles of these again God 
above knows, and whosoever among men is be- 
loved of Him.” And what men does he think 
beloved of God, but Moses and the rest of the 
prophets? For their prophecies he read, and, 
having learned from them the doctrine of the 
judgment, he thus proclaims it in the first book 
of the Republic: ‘When a man begins to think 
he is soon to die, fear invades him, and concern 
about things which had never before entered his 
head. And those stories about what goes on in 
Hades, which tell us that the man who has here 
been unjust must there be punished, though 
formerly ridiculed, now torment his soul with 
apprehensions that they may be true. And he, 
either through the feebleness of age, or even 
because he is now nearer to the things of the 
other world, views them more attentively. He 
becomes, therefore, full of apprehension and 
dread, and begins to call himself to account, 
and to consider whether he has done any one 
an injury. And that man who finds in his life 
many iniquities, and who continually starts from 
his sleep as children do, lives in terror, and with 
a forlorn prospect. But to him who is conscious 
of no wrong-doing, sweet hope is the constant 
companion and good nurse of old age, as’ Pindar 
says.2 For this, Socrates, he has elegantly ex- 
pressed, that ‘ whoever leads a life of holiness 
and justice, him sweet hope, the nurse of age, 
accompanies, cheering his heart, for she power- 
fully sways the changeful mind of mortals.’ ’”’3 
This Plato wrote in the first book of the Republic. 


CHAP. XXVII. — PLATO’S KNOWLEDGE OF THE 
JUDGMENT. 


And in the tenth book he plainly and mani- 
festly wrote what he had learned from the proph- 
ets about the judgment, not as if he had learned 
it-from them, but, on account of his fear of the 
Greeks, as if he had heard it from a man who 
had been slain in battle—for this story he 
thought fit to invent—and who, when he was 
about to be buried on the twelfth day, and was 
lying on the funeral pile, came to life again, and 
described the other world. The following are 
his very words : ¢ “ For he said that he was pres- 
ent when one was asked by another person where 
the great Ardizeus was. This Ardizeus had been 
prince in a certain city of Pamphylia, and had 
killed his aged father and his elder brother, and 
done many other unhallowed deeds, as was re- 
ported. He said, then, that the person who was 
asked said: He neither comes nor ever will 
come hither. For we saw, among other terrible 





1 Plato, 77m., p. 53 D, [cap. 20]. 

® Pind,, ¥r., 233, a fragment preserved in this place. 

3 Plato, ReZ., p. 330 D. 

4 Plato, Keg., p. 615, [lib. x. p. 325. Ed. Bipont, 1785.) 





JUSTIN’S HORTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS. 


PRES Veen gE 


sights, this also. When we were close to the 
mouth [of the pit], and were about to return to 
the upper air, and had suffered everything else, 
we suddenly beheld both him and others like- 
wise, most of whom were tyrants. But there 
were also some private sinners who had com- 
mitted great crimes. And these, when they 
thought they were to ascend, the mouth would 
not permit, but bellowed when any of those who 
were so incurably wicked attempted to ascend, 
unless they had paid the full penalty. Then 
fierce men, fiery to look at, stood close by, and 
hearing the din,5 took some and led them away ; 
but Ardizeus and the rest, having bound hand 
and foot, and striking their heads down, and 
flaying, they dragged to the road outside, tearing 
them with thorns, and signifying to those who 
were present the cause of their suffering these 
things, and that they were leading them away to 
cast them into Tartarus. Hence, he said, that 
amidst all their various fears, this one was the 
greatest, lest the mouth should bellow when they 
ascended, since if it were silent each one would 
most gladly ascend ; and that the punishments 
and torments were such as these, and that, on 
the other hand, the rewards were the reverse of 
these.”” Here Plato seems to me to have learnt 
from the prophets not only the doctrine of the 
judgment, but also of the resurrection, which 
the Greeks refuse to believe. For his saying that 
the soul is judged along with the body, proves 
nothing more clearly than that he believed 
the doctrine of the resurrection. Since how 
could Ardizeus and the rest have undergone such 
punishment in Hades, had they left on earth the 
body, with its head, hands, feet, and skin? For 
certainly they will never say that the soul has a 
head and hands, and feet and skin. But Plato, 
having fallen in with the testimonies of the 
prophets in Egypt, and having. accepted what 
they teach concerning the resurrection of the 
body, teaches that the soul is judged in company 
with the body. 


CHAP. XXVIII.— HOMER’S OBLIGATIONS TO THE 
SACRED WRITERS. 


And not only Plato, but Homer also, having 
received similar enlightenment in Egypt, said 
that Tityus was in like manner punished. For 
Ulysses speaks thus to Alcinous when he is re- 
es his divination by the shades of the 

ead :° — 


“There Tityus, large and long, in fetters bound, 
O’erspread nine acres of infernal ground; 
Two ravenous vultures, furious for their food, 
Scream o’er the fiend, and riot in his bload, 
Incessant gore the liver in his breast, 
Th’ immortal liver grows, and gives ‘th’ immortal 
feast.” 

ee eee eee STEN Sid NO te gt 
5 The bellowing of the mouth of the pit. 
§ Odyssey, xi. 576 (Pope's translation, line 709). 


JUSTIN'S HORTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS. 





For it is plain that it is not the soul, but the 
body, which has a liver. And in the same man- 
ner he has described both Sisyphus and Tantalus 
as enduring punishment with the body. And 
that Homer had been in Egypt, and introduced 
into his own poem much of what he there learnt, 
Diodorus, the most esteemed of historians, plainly 
enough teaches us. For he said that when he 
was in Egypt he had learnt that Helen, having 
received from Theon’s wife, Polydamna, a drug, 
“‘Julling all sorrow and melancholy, and causing 
forgetfulness of all ills,’! brought it to Sparta. 
And Homer said that by making use of that 
drug Helen put an end to the lamentation of 
Menelaus, caused by the presence of Tele- 
machus. And he also called Venus “ golden,” 
from what he had seen in Egypt. For he had 
seen the temple which in Egypt is called “the 
temple of golden Venus,” and the plain which 
is named “the plain of golden Venus.” And 
why do I now make mention of this? To show 
that the poet transferred to his own poem much 
of what is contained in the divine writings of 
the prophets. And first he transferred what 
Moses had related as the beginning of the crea- 
tion of the world. For Moses wrote thus: “In 
the beginning God created the heaven and the 
earth,” ? then the sun, and the moon, and the 
stars. For having learned this in Egypt, and 
having been much taken with what Moses had 
written in the Genesis of the world, he fabled 
that Vulcan had made in the shield of Achilles a 
kind of representation of the creation of the 
world. For he wrote thus :3 — 
“There he described the earth, the heaven, the sea, 
The sun that rests not, and the moon full-orb’d; 


There also, all the stars which round about, 
- As with a radiant frontlet, bind the skies.” 


And he contrived also that the garden of Alci- 
nous should preserve the likeness of Paradise, 
and through this likeness he represented it as 
ever-blooming and full of all fruits. For thus he 
WHOlG 


“Tall thriving trees confess’d the fruitful mould; 
The reddening apple ripens here to gold. 

Here the blue fig with luscious juice o’erflows, 
With deeper red the full pomegranate glows; 
The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear, 
And verdant olives flourish round the year. 

The balmy spirit of the western gale 7 
Eternal breathes on fruits, untaught to fail ; 
Each dropping pear a following pear supplies, 
On apples apples, figs on figs arise. 

The same mild season gives the blooms to blow, 
The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow. 
Here order’d vines in equal ranks appear, 

With all th’ united labours of the year. 

Some to unload the fertile branches run, 

Some dry the blackening clusters in the sun, 


ee ee ee 


I O.fyssey, iv. 221; [Milton’s Comus, line 675]. 
2 Gen. i. 1. 

3 [lrad, xviii, 483. , 2 

4 Odyssey, vii. 114 (Pope's translation, line 146). 





285 


Others to tread the liquid harvest join. 
The groaning presses foam with floods of wine. 
Here are the vines in early flower descry’d 
Here grapes discoloured on the sunny side, 
And there in autumn’s richest purple dy’d.” 
Do not these words present a manifest and clear 
imitation of what the first prophet Moses said 
about Paradise? And if any one wish to know 
something of the building of the tower by which 
the men of that day fancied they would obtain 
access to heaven, he will find a sufficiently exact 
allegorical imitation of this in what the poet has 
ascribed to Otus and Ephialtes. For of them 
he wrote thus : 5 — 
“Proud of their strength, and more than mortal size, 
The gods they challenge, and affect the skies, 
Heav’d on Olympus tottering Ossa stood; 
On Ossa, Pelion nods with all his wood.” 
And the same holds good regarding the enemy 
of mankind who was cast out of heaven, whom 
the Sacred Scriptures call the Devil,° a name 
which he obtained from his first devilry against 
man ; and if any one would attentively consider 
the matter, he would find that the poet, though 
he certainly never mentions the name of “the 
devil,” yet gives him a name from his wickedest 
action. For the poet, calling him Ate,’ says that 
he was hurled from heaven by their god, just as 
if he had a distinct remembrance of the ex- 
pressions which Isaiah the prophet had uttered 
regarding him. He wrote thus in his own 
poem :*— 
“ And, seizing by her glossy locks 
The goddess Ate, in his wrath he swore 
That never to the starry skies again, 
And the Olympian heights, he would permit 
The universal mischief to return. 
Then, whirling her around, he cast her down 


To earth. She, mingling with all works of men, 
Caused many a pang to Jove.” 


CHAP. XXIX.— ORIGIN OF PLATO’S DOCTRINE OF 
FORM. 


And Plato, too, when he says that form is the 
third original principle next to God and matter, 
has manifestly received this suggestion from no 
other source than from Moses, having learned, 
indeed, from the words of Moses the name of 
form, but not having at the same time been in- 
structed by the initiated, that without mystic 
insight it is impossible to have any distinct knowl- 
edge of the writings of Moses. For Moses wrote 
that God had spoken to him regarding the taber- 
nacle in the following words: ‘“ And thou shalt 
make for me according to all that I show thee 
in the mount, the pattern of the tabernacle.” 9 
And again: “And thou shalt erect the taber- 





5 Odyssey, xi. 312 (Pope’s translation, line 385). 

6 The false accuser; one who does injury by slanderous accusa- 
tions. 

7Arn, the goddess of mischief, from whom spring all rash, blind 
deeds and their results. 

8 Iiad, xix. 126. 

9 Ex, xxv. a. 


286 








nacle according to the pattern of all the instru- 
ments thereof, even so shalt thou make it.’’? 
And again, a little afterwards: “Thus then thou 
shalt make it according to the pattern which was 
showed to thee in the mount.’’? Plato, then, 
reading these passages, and not receiving what 
was written with the suitable insight, thought that 
form had some kind of separate existence before 
that which the senses perceive, and he often calls 
it the pattern of the things which are made, since 
the writing of Moses spoke thus of the taber- 
nacle : “ According to the form showed to thee 
in the mount, so shalt thou make it.” 


} cHAP. XXX.— HOMER’S KNOWLEDGE OF MAN’S 
ORIGIN. 


And he was obviously deceived in the same 
way regarding the earth and heaven and man; 
for he supposes that there are “ideas” of these. 
For as Moses wrote thus, “In the beginning God 
created the heaven and the earth,” and then sub- 
joins this sentence, “And the earth was invisible 
and unfashioned,” he thought that it was the pre- 
existent earth which was spoken of in the words, 
“The earth was,” because Moses said, “ And the 
earth was invisible and unfashioned ;” and he 
thought that the earth, concerning which he 
says, “God created the heaven and the earth,” 
was that earth which we perceive by the senses, 
and which God made according to the pre- 
existent form. And so also, of the heaven which 
was created, he thought that the heaven which 
was created — and which he also called the fir- 
mament — was that creation which the senses 
perceive ; and that the heaven which the intel- 
lect perceives is that other of which the prophet 
said, “The heaven of heavens is the Lord’s, but 
the earth hath He given to the children of 
men.” 3 And so also concerning man: Moses 
first mentions the name of man, and then after 
many other creations he makes mention of the 
formation of man, saying, “And God made man, 
taking dust from the earth.”+ He thought, ac- 
cordingly, that the man first so named existed 
before the man who was made, and that he who 
was formed of the earth was afterwards made 
according to the pre-existent form. And that 
man was formed of earth, Homer, too, having 
discovered from the ancient and divine history 
which says, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt 
thou return,”’5 calls the lifeless body of Hector 
dumb clay. For in condemnation of Achilles 
dragging the corpse of Hector after death, he 
says somewhere : ° — 


“On the dumb clay he cast indignity, 
Blinded with rage.” 
ne ese ae erate len Moen a A 
. XXIV. 
. XXV. 
» CXV. 


oe 


SSP FEF 


i 


KV. 16, 
. ti, 7. 
n. ili, x 


Ye 


JUSTIN’S HORTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS. 








‘winged chariot in heaven.” 





And again, somewhere else,” he introduces Mene- 
laus, thus addressing those who were not accept- 
ing Hector’s challenge to single combat with 
becoming alacrity, — 


“To earth and water may you all return,” — 


resolving them in his violent rage into their 
original and pristine formation from earth. 
These things Homer and Plato, having learned 
in Egypt from the ancient histories, wrote in 
their own words. 


CHAP. XXXI.— FURTHER PROOF OF PLATO’S AC- 
QUAINTANCE WITH SCRIPTURE. 


For from what other source, if not from his 
reading the writings of the prophets, could Plato 
have derived the information he gives us, that 
Jupiter drives a winged chariot in heaven? For 
he knew this from the following expressions of 
the prophet about the cherubim: “And the 
glory of the Lord went out from the house and 
rested on the cherubim ; and the cherubim lift 
up their wings, and the wheels beside them ; 
and the glory of the Lord God of Israel was 
over them above.”*® And borrowing this idea, 
the magniloquent Plato shouts aloud with vast 
assurance, “The great Jove, indeed, driving his 
For from what 
other source, if not from Moses and the proph- 
ets, did he learn this and so write? And whence 
did he receive the suggestion of his saying that 
God exists in a fiery substance? Was it not 
from the third book of the history of the Kings, 
where it is written, “The Lord was not in the 
wind ; and after the wind an earthquake, but the 
Lord was not in the earthquake; and after 
the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in 
the fire ; and after the fire a still small voice ?’’9 
But these things pious men must understand in 
a higher sense with profound and meditative 
insight. But Plato, not attending to the words 
with the suitable insight, said that God exists in 
a fiery substance. 


CHAP. XXXII.—PLATO’S DOCTRINE OF THE HEAV- 
ENLY GIFT, 


And if any one will attentively consider the 
gift that descends from God on the holy men, 
—which gift the sacred prophets call the Holy 
Ghost, — he shall find that this was announced 
under another name by Plato in the dialogue 
with Meno. For, fearing to name the gift of 
God “the Holy Ghost,” lest he should seem, by 
following the teaching of the prophets, to be an — 
enemy to the Greeks, he acknowledges, indeed, 
that it comes down from God, yet does not 
think fit to name it the Holy Ghost, but virtue. 





7 Iliad, vii. 99. 
® Ezek, xi. 22. 
9 1 Kings xix. rx, a0. 


JUSTIN’S HORTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS. 


287 


ee ee 


For so in the dialogue with Meno, concerning 
reminiscence, after he had put many questions 
regarding virtue, whether it could be taught or 
whether it could not be taught, but must be 
gained by practice, or whether it could be 
attained neither by practice nor by learning, 
but was a natural gift in men, or whether it 
comes in some other way, he makes this decla- 
ration in these very words : “ But if now through 
this whole dialogue we have conducted our 
inquiry and discussion aright, virtue must be 
neither a natural gift, nor what one can receive 
by teaching, but comes to those to whom it 
does come by divine destiny.” These things, I 
think, Plato having learned from the prophets 
regarding the Holy Ghost, he has manifestly 
transferred to what he calls virtue. For as the 
sacred prophets say that one and the same spirit 
is divided into seven spirits, so he also, naming 
it one and the same virtue, says this is divided 
into four virtues ; wishing by all means to avoid 
mention of the Holy Spirit, but clearly declar- 
ing in a kind of allegory what the prophets said 
of the Holy Spirit. For to this effect he spoke 
in the dialogue with Meno towards the close: 
“From this reasoning, Meno, it appears that 
virtue comes to those to whom it does come by 
a divine destiny. But we shall know clearly 
about this, in what kind of way virtue comes to 
men, when, as a first step, we shall have set 
ourselves to investigate, as an independent in- 
quiry, what virtue itself is.” You see how he 
calls only by the name of virtue, the gift that 
descends from above; and yet he counts it 
worthy of inquiry, whether it is right that this 
[gift] be called virtue or some other thing, fear- 
ing to name it openly the Holy Spirit, lest he 
should seem to be following the teaching of the 
prophets. 


CHAP. XXXIII. —PLATO’S IDEA OF THE BEGINNING 
OF TIME DRAWN FROM MOSES. 


And from what source did Plato draw the 
information that time was created along with 
the heavens? For he wrote thus: “Time, ac- 
cordingly, was created along with the heavens ; 
in order that, coming into being together, they 
might also be together dissolved, if ever their 
dissolution should take place.” Had he not 
learned this from the divine history of Moses? 
For he knew that the creation of time had re- 
ceived its original constitution from days and 
months and years. Since, then, the first day 
which was created along with the heavens con- 
stituted the beginning of all time (for thus 
Moses wrote, “In the beginning ‘God created 
the heavens and the earth,” and then imme- 
diately subjoins, “And one day was made,” as 
if he would designate the whole of time by one 
part of it), Plato names the day “ time,” lest, if 





he mentioned the “day,” he should seem to lay 
himself open to the accusation of the Athenians, 
that he was completely adopting the expressions 
of Moses. And from what source did he derive 
what he has written regarding the dissolution of 
the heavens? Had he not learned this, too, 
from the sacred prophets, and did he not think 
that this was their doctrine? 


CHAP. XXXIV.— WHENCE MEN ATTRIBUTED TO GOD 
HUMAN FORM. 


And if any person investigates the subject of 
images, and inquires on what ground those who 
first fashioned your gods conceived that they 
had the forms of men, he will find that this also 
was derived from the divine history. For seeing 
that Moses’ history, speaking in the person of 
God, says, “ Let Us make man in our image and 
likeness,” these persons, under the impression 
that this meant that men were like God in form, 
began thus to fashion their gods, supposing they 
would make a likeness from a likeness. But 
why, ye men of Greece, am I now induced to 
recount these things? That ye may know that 
it is not possible to learn the true religion from 
those who were unable, even on those subjects 
by which they won the admiration of the hea- 
then,’ to write anything original, but merely 
propounded by some allegorical device in their 
own writings what they had learned from Moses 
and the other prophets. 


CHAP. XXXV.—- APPEAL TO THE GREEKS. 


The time, then, ye men of Greece, is now 
come, that ye, having been persuaded by the 
secular histories that Moses and the rest of the 
prophets were far more ancient than any of 
those who have been esteemed sages among you, 
abandon the ancient delusion of your forefathers, 
and read the divine histories of the prophets, and 
ascertain from them the true religion; for they 
do not present to you artful discourses, nor speak 
speciously and plausibly — for this is the property 
of those who wish to rob you of the truth— 
but use with simplicity the words and expressions 
which offer themselves, and declare to you what- 
ever the Holy Ghost, who descended upon them, 
chose to teach through them to those who are 
desirous to learn the true religion. Having then 
laid aside all false shame, and the inveterate 
error of mankind, with all its bombastic parade 
and empty noise, though by means of it you 
fancy you are possessed of all advantages, do 
you give yourselves to the things that profit you. 
For neither will you commit any offence against 
your fathers, if you now show a desire to betake 
yourselves to that which is quite opposed to 
their error, since it is likely enough that they 
Pee 

¥ Literally, ‘‘ those without.” 


288 JUSTIN’S HORTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS. 


themselves are now lamenting in Hades, and 
repenting with a too late repentance ; and if it 
were possible for them to show you thence what 
had befallen them after the termination of this 
life, ye would know from what fearful ills they 
desired to deliver you. But now, since it is not 
possible in this present life that ye either learn 
from them, or from those who here profess to 
teach that philosophy which is falsely so called, it 
follows as the one thing that remains for you to 
do, that, renouncing the error of your fathers, ye 
read the prophecies of the sacred writers,’ not 
requiring from them unexceptionable diction (for 
the matters of our religion lie in works,? not in 
words), and learn from them what will give you 
life everlasting. For those who bootlessly dis- 
grace the name of philosophy are convicted of 
knowing nothing at all, as they are themselves 
forced, though unwillingly, to confess, since not 
only do they disagree with each other, but also 
expressed their own opinions sometimes in one 
way, sometimes in another. 


CHAP, XXXVI.— TRUE KNOWLEDGE NOT HELD BY 
THE PHILOSOPHERS, 


And if “the discovery of the truth” be given 
among them as one definition of philosophy, 
how are they who are not in possession of the 
true knowledge worthy of the name of philoso- 
phy? For if Socrates, the wisest of your wise 
men, to whom even your oracle, as you your- 
selves say, bears witness, saying, “Of all men, 
Socrates is the wisest” —if he confesses that he 
knows nothing, how did those who came after 
him profess to know even things heavenly? For 
Socrates said that he was on this account called 
wise, because, while other men pretended to 
know what they were ignorant of, he himself did 
not shrink from confessing that he knew nothing. 
For he said, “I seem to myself to be wisest by 
this little particular, that what I do not know, I 
do not suppose I know.” Let no one fancy that 
Socrates ironically feigned ignorance, because he 
often used to do so in his dialogues. For the 
last expression of his apology which he uttered 
as he was being led away to the prison, proves 
that in seriousness and truth he was confessing 
his ignorance: “ But now it is time to go away, 
I indeed to die, but you to live. And which 
of us goes to the better state, is hidden to all 
but God.” Socrates, indeed, having uttered this 
last sentence in the Areopagus, departed to the 
prison, ascribing to God alone the knowledge of 
those things which are hidden from us ; but those 
who came after him, though they are unable to 
comprehend even earthly things, profess to un- 
derstand things heavenly as if they had seen them. 
Aristotle at least—as if he had seen things 


1 Literally, ‘‘ sacred men.” 
2 [A noteworthy apology for early Christian writers.] 





heavenly with greater accuracy than Piato — de- 
clared that God did not exist, as Plato said, in 
the fiery substance (for this was Plato's doctrine) 
but in the fifth element, air. And while he de- 
manded that concerning these matters he should 
be believed on account of the excellence of his 
language, he yet departed this life because he 
was overwhelmed with the infamy and disgrace of 
being unable to discover even the nature of the 
Euripus in Chalcis.3 Let not any one, therefore, 
of sound judgment prefer the elegant diction of 
these men to his own salvation, but let him, ac- 
cording to that old story, stop his ears with wax, 
and flee the sweet hurt which these sirens would 
inflict upon him. For the above-mentioned men, 
presenting their elegant language as a kind of 
bait, have sought to seduce many from the right 
religion, in imitation of him who dared to teach 
the first men polytheism. Be not persuaded by 
these persons, I entreat you, but read the proph- 
ecies of the sacred writers. And if any sloth- 
fulness or old hereditary superstition prevents 
you from reading the prophecies of the holy men 
through which you can be instructed regarding 
the one only God, which is the first article of the 
true religion, yet believe him who, though at first 
he taught you polytheism, yet afterwards. pre- 
ferred to sing a useful and necessary recantation 
—JI mean Orpheus, who said what I quoted a 
little before ; and believe the others who wrote 
the same things concerning one God. For it 
was the work of Divine Providence on your be- 
half, that they, though unwillingly, bore testimony 
that what the prophets said regarding one God 
was true, in order that, the doctrine of a plural- 
ity of gods being rejected by all, occasion might 
be afforded you of knowing the truth. 


CHAP. XXXVII.— OF THE SIBYL.5 


And you may in part easily learn the right 
religion from the ancient Sibyl, who by some 
kind of potent inspiration teaches you, through 
her oracular predictions, truths which seem to be 
much akin to the teaching of the prophets. She, 
they say, was of Babylonian extraction, being the 
daughter of Berosus, who wrote the Chaldean 
History ; and when she had crossed over (how, 
I know not) into the region of Campania, she 
there uttered her oracular sayings in a city called 
Cume, six miles from Baie, where the hot springs 
of Campania are found. And being in that city, 
we saw also a certain place, in which we were 
shown a very large basilica ® cut out of one stone ; 
a vast affair, and worthy of all admiration. And 
they who had heard it from their fathers as part 
of their country’s tradition, told us that it was 





3 This is now supposed to be fable. 

4 Literally, “‘ sacred men.” 

5 [Jn Grabe’s edition consult notes of Lang and Kortholt, ii, p. 45.1 

6 [Travellers must recognise the agreement of Justin's story with 
tional cave still shown in this region. ] 


JUSTIN’S HORTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS. 


here she used to publish her oracles. And in 
the middle of the basilica they showed us three 
receptacles cut out of one stone, in which, when 
filled with water, they said that she washed, and 
having put on her robe again, retires into the in- 
most chamber of the basilica, which is still a part 
of the one stone; and sitting in the middle of 
the chamber on a high rostrum and throne, thus 
proclaims her oracles. And both by many other 
writers has the Sibyl been mentioned as a prophet- 
ess, and also by Plato in his Phedrus. And 
Plato seems to me to have counted prophets 
divinely inspired when he read her prophecies. 
For he saw that what she had long ago predicted 
was accomplished ; and on this account he ex- 
presses in the Dialogue with Meno his wonder 
at and admiration of prophets in the following 
terms; ‘Those whom we now call prophetic 
persons we should rightly name divine. And not 
least would we say that they are divine, and are 
raised to the prophetic ecstasy by the inspiration 
and possession of God, when they correctly speak 
of many and important matters, and yet know 
nothing of what they are saying,” — plainly and 
manifestly referring to the prophecies of the 
Sibyl. For, unlike the poets who, after their 
poems are penned, have power to correct and 
polish, specially in the way of increasing the ac- 
curacy of their verse, she was filled indeed with 
prophecy at the time of the inspiration, but as 
soon as the inspiration ceased, there ceased also 
the remembrance of all she had said. And this 
indeed was the cause why some only, and not all, 


the metres of the verses of the Sibyl were pre- | 


served. For we ourselves, when in that city, 
ascertained from our cicerone, who showed us the 
places in which she used to prophesy, that there 
was a certain coffer made of brass in which they 
said that her remains were preserved. And be- 
sides all else which they told us as they had heard 
it from their fathers, they said also that they who 
then took down her prophecies, being illiterate 
persons, often went quite cstray from the accuracy 
of the metres ; and this, they said, was the cause 
of the want of metre in some of the verses, the 
prophetess having no remembrance of what she 
had said, after the possession and inspiration 
ceased, and the reporters having, through their 
lack of education, failed to record the metres 
with accuracy. And on this account, it is mani- 
fest that Plato had an eye to the prophecies of 
the Sibyl when he said this about prophets, for 
he said, “‘When they correctly speak of many 
and important matters, and yet know nothing of 
what they are saying. 


CHAP. XXXVIII.— CONCLUDING APPEAL. 


But since, ye men of Greece, the matters of 
the true religion lie not in the metrical numbers 
of poetry, nor yet in that culture which is highly 





289 





esteemed among you, do ye henceforward pay 
less devotion to accuracy of metres and of lan- 
guage ; and giving heed without contentiousness 
to the words of the Sibyl, recognise how great are 
the benefits which she will confer upon you by 


predicting, as she does in a clear and patent 
manner, the advent of our Saviour Jesus Christ ;.1 
who, being the Word of God, inseparable from 
Him in power, having assumed man, who had 
been made in the image and likeness of God, re- 
stored to us the knowledge of the religion of our 
ancient forefathers, which the men who lived 
after them abandoned through the bewitching 
counsel of the envious devil, and turned to the wor- 
ship of those who were no gods. And if youstill 
hesitate and are hindered from belief regarding 
the formation of man, believe those whom you 
have hitherto thought it right to give heed to, 
and know that your own oracle, when asked by 
some one to utter a hymn of praise to the 
Almighty God, in the middle of the hymn spoke 
thus, “ Who formed the first of men, and called 
him Adam.” And this hymn is preserved by 
many whom we know, for the conviction of those 
who are unwilling to believe the truth which all 
bear witness to. If therefore, ye men of Greece, 
ye do not esteem the false fancy concerning those 
that are no gods at a higher rate than your own 
salvation, believe, as I said, the most ancient and 
time-honoured Sibyl, whose books are preserved 
in all the world, and who by some kind of potent 
inspiration both teaches us in her oracular utter- 
ances concerning those that are called gods, that 
have no existence ; and also clearly and manifestly 
prophesies concerning the predicted advent of 
our Saviour Jesus Christ, and concerning all those 
things which were to be done by Him. For the 
knowledge of these things will constitute your 
necessary preparatory training for the study of the 
prophecies of the sacred writers. And if any one 
supposes that he has learned the doctrine con- 
cerning God from the most ancient of those 
whom you name philosophers, let him listen to 
Ammon and Hermes:? to Ammon, who in his 
discourse concerning God calls Him wholly hid- 
den; and to Hermes, who says plainly and dis- 
tinctly, “that it is difficult to comprehend God, 
and that it is impossible even for the man who 
can comprehend Him to declare Him to others.” 
From every point of view, therefore, it must be 
seen that in no other way than only from the 
prophets who teach us by divine inspiration, is it 
at all possible to learn anything concerning God 
and the true religion. 





1 ay fascinating use made of this by Virgil must not be over- 
looke : im . * . aoe ” 
“ Ultima Cumzi venit jam carminis a:tas,” etc. 
; Ecil., iv. (Pollio) 4.] 
2 [Hermes Trismegistus. Milton (Penseroso, line 88,) translates 
thisname.] ‘ ee es 
[N.B. — This work is not supposed to be Justin s by modern critics. | 


JUSTIN ON THE SOLE GOVERNMENT OF GOD." 


[TRANSLATED BY THE REV. G. REITH, M.A.] 





CHAP. I. — OBJECT OF THE AUTHOR. 


ALTHOUGH human nature at first received a 
union of intelligence and safety to discern the 
truth, and the worship due to the one Lord of 
all, yet envy, insinuating the excellence of human 
greatness, turned men away to the making of 
idols ; and this superstitious custom, after con- 
tinuing for a long period, is handed down to the 
majority as if it were natural and true. It is 
the part of a lover of man, or rather of a lover 
of God, to remind men who have neglected it of 
that which they ought to know. For the truth 
is of itself sufficient to show forth, by means of 
those things which are contained under the pole 
of heaven, the order [instituted by ] Him who has 
created them. But forgetfulness having taken 
possession of the minds of men, through the 
long-suffering of God, has acted recklessly in 
transferring to mortals the name which is appli- 
cable to the only true God; and from the few 
the infection of sin spread to the many, who were 
blinded by popular usage to the knowledge of 
that which was lasting and unchangeable. For 
the men of former generations, who instituted 
private and public rites in honour of such as were 
more powerful, caused forgetfulness of the Cath- 
olic? faith to take possession of their posterity ; 
but I, as I have just stated, along with a God- 
loving mind, shall employ the speech of one 
who loves man, and set it before those who have 
intelligence, which all ought to have who are 
privileged to observe the administration of the 
universe, so that they should worship unchange- 
ably Him who knows all things. This I shall do, 
not by mere display of words, but by altogether 
using demonstration drawn from the old poetry 
in Greek literature,3 and from writings very com- 
mon amongst all. For from these the famous 
men who have handed down idol-worship as law 
to the multitudes, shall be taught and convicted by 
their own poets and literature of great ignorance. 


1 cod is omitted in Mss., but povapxéa of itself implies it. 
2 i.e,, the doctrine that God only is to be worshipped, 
3 Literally, ‘ history.” 


290 





CHAP. II.—TESTIMONIES TO THE UNITY OF GOD. 


F irst, then, Aeschylus,* in expounding the ar- 
rangement of his work,5 expressed himself also 
as follows respecting the only God : — 


“ Afar from mortals place the holy God, 

Nor ever think that He, like to thyself, 

In fleshly robes is clad; for all unknown 

Is the great God to such a worm as thou. 
Divers similitudes He bears; at times 

He seems as a consuming fire that burns 
Unsated; now like water, then again 

In sable folds of darkness shrouds Himself. 
Nay, even the very beasts of earth reflect 

His sacred image; whilst the wind, clouds, rain, 
The roll of thunder and the lightning flash, 
Reveal to men their great and sovereign Lord. 
Before Him sea and rocks, with every fount, 
And all the water floods, in reverence bend ; 
And as they gaze upon His awful face, 
Mountains and earth, with the profoundest depths 
Of ocean, and the highest peaks of hills, 
Tremble: for He is Lord Omnipotent; 

And this the glory is of God Most High.” 


But he was not the only man initiated in the 
knowledge of God; for Sophocles also thus de- 
scribes the nature of the only Creator of all 
things, the One God : — 


“There is one God, in truth there is but one, 

Who made the heavens and the broad earth beneath, 
The glancing waves of ocean, and the winds; 

But many of us mortals err in heart, 

And set up, for a solace in our woes, 

Images of the gods in stone and brass, 

Or figures carved in gold or ivory; 

And, furnishing for these, our handiworks, 

Both sacrifice and rite magnificent, 

We think that thus we do a pious work.” 


And Philemon also, who published many expla- 
nations of ancient customs, shares in the knowl- 
edge of the truth; and thus he writes : — 
“Tell me what thoughts of God we should conceive ?\ 
One, all things seeing, yet Himself unseen.” 
Even Orpheus, too, who introduces three hun- 
dred and sixty gods, will bear testimony in my 





; 4 Grotius supposes this to be A’schylus the younger in some pro- 
logue, 

5 This may also be translated: “ expounding the set of opinions 
prevalent in his day,” F 


JUSTIN ON THE SOLE GOVERNMENT OF GOD. 291 





favour from the tract called Diathec@, in which | “ Think’st thou, Nicostratus, the dead, who here 


he appears to repent of his error by writing the 
following : — 


“Tl speak to those who lawfully may hear ; 
All others, ye profane, now close the doors ! 
And, O Muszus, hearken thou to me, 
Who offspring art of the light-bringing moon. 
The words I tell thee now are true indeed, 
And if thou former thoughts of mine hast seen, 
Let them not rob thee of the blessed life ; 
But rather turn the depths of thine own heart 
Unto that place where light and knowledge dwell. 
Take thou the word divine to guide thy steps ; 
And walking well in the straight certain path, 
Look to the one and universal King, 
One, self-begotten, and the only One 
Of whom all things, and we ourselves, are sprung. 
All things are open to His piercing gaze, 
While He Himself is still invisible; 
Present in all His works, though still unseen, 
He gives to mortals evil out of good, 
Sending both chilling wars and tearful griefs; 
And other than the Great King there is none. 
The clouds for ever settle round His throne; 
And mortal eyeballs in mere mortal eyes 
Are weak to see Jove, reigning over all. 
He sits established in the brazen heavens 
Upon His throne; and underneath His feet 
He treads the earth, and stretches His right hand 
To all the ends of ocean, and around 
Tremble the mountain ranges, and the streams, 
The depths, too, of the blue and hoary sea.” 


He speaks indeed as if he had been an eye- 
witness of God’s greatness. And Pythagoras' 
agrees with him when he writes : — 


“ Should one in boldness say, Lo, I am God! 
Besides the One — Eternal — Infinite, 
Then let him from the throne he has usurped 
Put forth his power and form another globe, 
Such as we dwell in, saying, This is mine. 
Nor only so, but in this new domain 
For ever let him dwell. _ If this he can, 
Then verily he is a god proclaimed.” 


CHAP. III. — TESTIMONIES TO A FUTURE JUDGMENT. 


Then further concerning Him, that He alone 
is powerful, both to institute judgment on the 
deeds performed in life, and on the ignorance 
of the Deity [displayed by men], I can adduce 
witnesses from your own ranks ; and first Sopho- 
cles,? who speaks as follows : — 


“That time of times shall come, shall surely come, 
When from the golden ether down shall fall 
Fire’s teeming treasure, and in burning flames 
All things of earth and heaven shall be consumed ; 
And then, when all creation is dissolved, 
The sea’s last wave shall die upon the shore, 
The bald earth stript of trees, the burning air 
No winged thing upon its breast shall bear. 
There are two roads to Hades, well we know ;? 
By this the righteous, and by that the bad, 
On to their separate fates shall tend ; and He, 
Who all things had destroyed, shall all things save.” 


And Philemon * again : — : 
VoNOUS ee EEE 
1 “ Pythagorei cujusdam fetus.” — Orro, after Goezius. 
2 [iseens compares 2. Pet. iil. tJ sitive 
3 Some propose to insert these three lines in the centre of the next 
quotation from Philemon, after the line, “‘ Nay, there’s an eye,” etc. 
4 Some say Diphilus. 


Enjoyed whate’er of good life offers man, 
Escape the notice of Divinity, 

As if they might forgotten be of Him? 
Nay, there’s an eye of Justice watching all ; 
For if the good and bad find the same end, 
Then go thou, rob, steal, plunder, at thy will, 
Do all the evil that to thee seems good. 

Yet be not thou deceived ; for underneath 
There is a throne and place of judgment set, 
Which God the Lord of all shall occupy; 
Whose name is terrible, nor shall I dare 

To breathe it forth in feeble human speech.” 


And Euripides ; 5 — 


“Not grudgingly he gives a lease of life, 
That we the holders may be fairly judged; 
And if a mortal man doth think to hide 
His daily guilt from the keen eye of God, 
It is an evil thought; so if perchance 
He meets with leisure-taking Justice, she 
Demands him as her lawful prisoner: 

But many of you hastily commit 

A twofold sin, and say there is no God. 

But, ah! there is; there is. Then see that he 
Who, being wicked, prospers, may redeem 
The time so precious, else hereafter waits 
For him the due reward of punishment.” 


CHAP. IV.— GOD DESIRES NOT SACRIFICES, BUT 
RIGHTEOUSNESS, 


And that God is not appeased by the libations 
and incense of evil-doers, but awards vengeance 
in righteousness to each one, Philemon® again 
shall bear testimony to me : — 


“Tf any one should dream, O Pamphilus, 
By sacrifice of bulls or goats — nay, then, 
By Jupiter —of any such like things; 
Or by presenting gold or purple robes, 
Or images of ivory and gems ; 
If thus he thinks he may propitiate God, 
He errs, and shows himself a silly one. 
But let him rather useful be, and good, 
Committing neither theft nor lustful deeds, 
Nor murder foul, for earthly riches’ sake. 
Let him of no man covet wife or child, 
His splendid house, his wide-spread property, 
His maiden, or his slave born in his house, 
His horses, or his cattle, or his beeves. 
Nay, covet not a pin, O Pamphilus, 
For God, close by you, sees whate’er you do. 
He ever with the wicked man is wroth, 
But in the righteous takes a pleasure still, 
Permitting him to reap fruit of his toil, 
And to enjoy the bread his sweat has won. 
But being righteous, see thou pay thy vows, 
And unto God the giver offer gifts. 
Place thy adorning not in outward shows, 
But in an inward purity of heart; 
Hearing the thunder then, thou shalt not fear, 
Nor shalt thou flee, O master, at its voice, 
For thou art conscious of no evil deed, 
And God, close by you, sees whate’er you do.” 


Again, Plato, in Zim@us,’ says: “But if any 
one on consideration should actually institute 





5 Grotius joins these lines to the preceding. Clement of Alexan- 
dria assigns them, and the others, which are under the name of Euripi- 
des, to Diphilus. 

6 Some attribute these lines to Menander, others regard them 
as spurious. 


P. 68, D, [cap. 30.] 


292 





a rigid inquiry, he would be ignorant of the 
distinction between the human and the divine 
nature; because God mingles many‘ things up 
into one, [and again is able to dissolve one into 
many things,] seeing that He is endued with 
knowledge and power ; but no man either is, or 
ever shall be, able to perform any of these.” 


CHAP, V.— THE VAIN PRETENSIONS OF FALSE GODS. 


But concerning those who think that they 
shall share the holy and perfect name, which 
some have received by a vain tradition as if they 
were gods, Menander in the Auriga says : — 


“Tf there exists a god who walketh out 
With an old woman, or who enters in 
By stealth to houses through the folding-doors, 
He ne’er can please me; nay, but only he 
Who stays at home, a just and righteous God, 
To give salvation to His worshippers.” 


The same Menander, in the Sacerdos, says : — 


“ There is no God, O woman, that can save 
One man by another; if indeed a man, 
With sound of tinkling cymbals, charm a god 
Where’er he listeth, then assuredly 
He who doth so is much the greater god. 
But these, O Rhode, are but the cunning schemes 
Which daring men of intrigue, unabashed, 
Invent to earn themselves a livelihood, 
And yield a laughing-stock unto the age.” 


Again, the same Menander, stating his opinion 
about those who are received as gods, proving 
rather that they are not so, says : — 


“Vea, if I this beheld, I then should wish 
That back to me again my soul returned. 
For tell me where, O Getas, in the world 
’ Tis possible to find out righteous gods?” 


And in the Depositum : — 


“There’s an unrighteous judgment, as it seems, 
Even with the gods.” 


And Euripides the tragedian, in Orestes, says : — 


“ Apollo having caused by his command 
The murder of the mother, knoweth not 
What honesty and justice signify. 
We serve the gods, whoever they may be; 
But from the central regions of the earth 
You see Apollo plainly gives response 
To mortals, and whate’er he says we do. 
I him obeyed, when she that bore me fell 
Slain by my hand: 4e is the wicked man. 
Then slay him, for ’twas he that sinned, not I. 
What could I do? Think you not that the god 
Should free me from the blame which I do bear?” 


The same also in Azppolytus : — 


“But on these points the gods do not judge right.” 
And in on : — 


“But in the daughter of Erechtheus 
What interest have I? for that pertains 
Not unto such as me. But when I come 
With golden vessels for libations, I 
The dew shall sprinkle, and yet needs must warn 


1 The mss. are corrupt here, They seem to read, and one ac- 
tually does read, “all” for “many.” “Many” is in Plato, and the 
clause in brackets is taken from Plato to fill up the sense, 


JUSTIN ON THE SOLE GOVERNMENT OF GOD. 








Apollo of his deeds ; for when he weds 
Maidens by force, the children secretly 
Begotten he betrays, and then neglects 
When dying. Thus not you; but while you may 
Always pursue the virtues, for the gods 

Will surely punish men of wickedness. _ 

How is it right that you, who have prescribed 
Laws for men’s guidance, live unrighteously ? 
But ye being absent, I shall freely speak, 

And ye to men shall satisfaction give _ 

For marriage forced, thou Neptune, Jupiter, 
Who over heaven presides. The temples ye 
Have emptied, while injustice ye repay. 

And though ye laud the prudent to the skies, 
Yet have ye filled your hands with wickedness. 
No longer is it right to call men ill 

If they do imitate the sins ? of gods ;? 

Nay, evil let their teachers rather be.” 


And in Archelaus : — 


“Full oft, my son, do gods mankind perplex.” 


And in Bellerophon : — 


“They are no gods, who do not what is right.” 


And again in the same : — 


“ Gods reign in heaven most certainly, says one; 
But it is false, — yea, false: and let not him 
Who speaks thus, be so foolish as to use 
Ancient tradition, or to pay regard 
Unto my words: but with unclouded eye 
Behold the matter in its clearest light. 

Power absolute, I say, robs men of life 

And property; transgresses plighted faith; 

Nor spares even cities, but with cruel hand 
Despoils and devastates them ruthlessly. 

But they that do these things have more success 
Than those who live a gentle pious life ; 

And cities small, I know, which reverence gods, 
Submissive bend before the many spears 

Of larger impious ones; yea, and methinks 

If any man lounge idly, and abstain 

From working with his hands for sustenance, 
Yet pray the gods; he very soon will know 

If they from him misfortunes will avert.” 


And Menander in Diphilus : 4 — 


“Therefore ascribe we praise and honour great 
To Him who Father is, and Lord of all; 
Sole maker and preserver of mankind, 
And who with all good things our earth has stored.” 


The same also in the Piscatores : — 


“For I deem that which nourishes my life 
Is God; but he whose custom ’tis to meet 
The wants of men, — He needs not at our hands 
Renewed supplies, Himself being all in all.’”’5 


The same in the Frazres : — 


“God ever is intelligence to those 
Who righteous are: so wisest men have thought.” 


And in the Zitétcing : — 


“Good reason finds a temple in all things 
Wherein to worship; for what is the mind, 
But just the voice of God within us placed?” 





2 waka in Euripedes, xadd in text. ; 
3 [See Warburton’s Divine Legation (book ii. § 4), vol. ii. p. 20. 


Ed. London, 18r1.] 


4 These lines are assigned to Diphilus. 
5 The words from “‘ but” to “fall” are assigned by Otto to Justia, 


met to Menander, 


JUSTIN ON THE SOLE 


GOVERNMENT OF GOD. 


293 





And the tragedian in Phrixus : — 


“But if the pious and the impious 
Share the same lot, how could we think it just, 
If Jove, the best, judges not uprightly?” 


In Philoctetes > — 


“You see how honourable gain is deemed 
Even to the gods; and how he is admired 
Whose shrine is laden most with yellow gold. 
What, then, doth hinder thee, since it is good 
To be like gods, from thus accepting gain?” 


In Hecuba : — 


“O Jupiter! whoever thou mayest be, 
Of whom except in word all knowledge fails; ” 


and, — 


“Jupiter, whether thou art indeed 
A great necessity, or the mind of man, 
I worship thee!” 


CHAP. VI.— WE SHOULD ACKNOWLEDGE ONE ONLY 
GOD. 


Here, then, is a proof of virtue, and of a mind 
loving prudence, to recur to the communion of 
the unity,’ and to attach one’s self to prudence 
for salvation, and make choice of the better 
things according to the free-will placed in man ; 
and not to think that those who are possessed of 
human passions are lords of all, when they shall 
not appear to have even equal power with men. 





2 See chap. i., the opening sentemee. 


For in Homer,? Demodocus says he is self- 
taught — 
“God inspired me with strains ” — 


though he is a mortal. sculapius and Apollo 
are taught to heal by Chiron the Centaur, —a 
very novel thing indeed, for gods to be taught 
by aman. What need I speak of Bacchus, who 
the poet says is mad? or of Hercules, who he says 
is unhappy? What need to speak of Mars and 
Venus, the leaders of adultery ; and by means of 
all these to establish the proof which has been 
undertaken? For if some one, in ignorance, 
should imitate the deeds which are said to be 
divine, he would be reckoned among impure 
men, and a stranger to life and humanity ; and 
if any one does so knowingly, he will have a 
plausible excuse for escaping vengeance, by show- 
ing that imitation of godlike deeds of audacity is 
no sin. Butif any one should blame these deeds, 
he will take away their well-known names, and 
not cover them up with specious and plausible 
words. It is necessary, then, to accept the true 
and invariable Name, not proclaimed by my 
words only, but by the words of those who have 
introduced us to the elements of learning, in. 
order that we may not, by living idly in this 
present state of existence, not only as those who 
are ignorant of the heavenly glory, but also as 
having proved ourselves ungrateful, render our 
account to the Judge. 


2 Odyssey, xxii. 347. 
[M. . pi tractate is probably the genuine work of Justin.] 


FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST 


WORK OF JUSTIN ON THE 


RESURRECTION. 


[TRANSLATED BY THE REV. M. DODS, M.A.] 





CHAP. I. —THE SELF—EVIDENCING POWER OF | 
TRUTH. 


Tue word of truth is free, and carries its own 
authority, disdaining to fall under any skilful 
argument, or to endure the logical scrutiny of its 
hearers. But it would be believed for its own 
nobility, and for the confidence due to Him who 
sends it. Now the word of truth is sent from 
God ; wherefore the freedom claimed by the 
truth is not arrogant. For being sent with au- 
thority, it were not fit that it should be required 
to produce proof of what is said; since neither 
is there any proof beyond itself, which is God. 
For every proof is more powerful and trustwor- 
thy than that which it proves ; since what is dis- 
believed, until proof is produced, gets credit 
when such proof is produced, and is recognised 
as being what it was stated to be. But nothing 
' is either more powerful or more trustworthy than 
the truth ; so that he who requires proof of this, 
is like one who wishes it demonstrated why the 
things that appear to the senses do appear. For 
the test of those things which are received through 
the reason, is sense ; but of sense itself there is 
no test beyond itself. As then we bring those 
things which reason hunts after, to sense, and by 
it judge what kind of things they are, whether 
the things spoken be true or false, and then sit 
in judgment no longer, giving full credit to its 
decision ; so also we refer all that is said regard- 
ing men and the world to the truth, and by it 
judge whether it be worthless or no. But the 
utterances of truth we judge by no separate test, 
giving full credit to itself. And God, the Father 
of the universe, who is the perfect intelligence, 
is the truth. And the Word, being His Son, 
came to us, having put on flesh, revealing both 
Himself and the Father, giving to us in Himself 
resurrection from the dead, and eternal life after- 
wards. And this is Jesus Christ, our Saviour and 
Lord. He, therefore, is Himself both the faith 

294 





and the proof of Himself and of all things. 
Wherefore those who follow Him, and know Him, 
having faith in Him as their proof, shall rest in 
Him. But since the adversary does not cease 
to resist many, and uses many and divers arts to 
ensnare them, that he may seduce the faithful 
from their faith, and that he may prevent the 
faithless from believing, it seems to me necessary 
that we also, being armed with the invulnerable 
doctrines of the faith, do battle against him in 
behalf of the weak. 


CHAP. II. — OBJECTIONS TO THE RESURRECTION 
OF THE FLESH. 


They who maintain the wrong opinion say that 
there is no resurrection of the flesh; giving as © 
their reason that it is impossible that what is 
corrupted and dissolved should be restored to 
the same as it had been. And besides the im- 
possibility, they say that the salvation of the flesh 
is disadvantageous ; and they abuse the flesh, 
adducing its infirmities, and declare that it only 
is the cause of our sins, so that if the flesh, say 
they, rise again, our infirmities also rise with it. 
And such sophistical reasons as the following 
they elaborate: If the flesh rise again, it must 
rise either entire and possessed of all its parts, 
or imperfect. But its rising imperfect argues a 
want of power on God’s part, if some parts 
could be saved, and others not; but if all the 
parts are saved, then the body will manifestly 
have all its members. But is it not absurd to 
say that these members will exist after the resur- 
rection from the dead, since the Saviour said, 
“They neither marry, nor are given in marriage, 
but shall be as the angels in heaven?” ! And 
the angels, say they, have neither flesh, nor do 
they eat, nor have sexual intercourse ; therefore 
there shall be no resurrection of the flesh. By 


i Mark xii. 25. 


JUSTIN ON THE 





these and such like arguments, they attempt to 
distract men from the faith. And there are some 
who maintain that even Jesus Himself appeared 
only as spiritual, and not in flesh, but presented 
merely the appearance of flesh: these persons 
seek to rob the flesh of the promise. First, then, 
let us solve those things which seem to them to 
_ beinsoluble ; then we will introduce in an orderly 
manner the demonstration concerning the flesh, 
proving that it partakes of salvation. 


CHAP. IIIl.—IF THE MEMBERS RISE, MUST THEY 
DISCHARGE THE SAME FUNCTIONS AS NOW? 


They say, then, if the body shall rise entire, 
and in possession of all its members, it necessa- 
rily follows that the functions of the members 

' shall also be in existence ; that the womb shall 
become pregnant, and the male also discharge 
his function of generation, and the rest of the 
members in like manner. Now let this argument 
stand or fall by this one assertion. For this 
being proved false, their whole objection will be 
removed. Now it is indeed evident that the 
members which discharge functions discharge 
those functions which in the present life we see ; 
but it does not follow that they necessarily dis- 
charge the same functions from the beginning. 
And that this may be more clearly seen, let us 
consider it thus. The function of the womb is 
to become pregnant ; and of the member of the 
male to impregnate. But as, though these mem- 
bers are destined to discharge such functions, 
it is not therefore necessary that they from the 
beginning discharge them (since we see many 
women who do not become pregnant, as those 
that are barren, even though they have wombs), 
so pregnancy is not the immediate and necessary 
consequence of having a womb ; but those even 
who are not barren abstain from sexual inter- 
course, some being virgins from the first, and 
others from a certain time. And we see men 
also keeping themselves virgins, some from the 
first, and some from a certain time; so that by 
their means, marriage, made lawless through lust, 
is destroyed.‘ And we find that some even of 
the lower animals, though possessed of wombs, 
do not bear, such as the mule; and the male 
mules do not beget their kind. So that both in 
the case of men and the irrational animals we 
can see sexual intercourse abolished ; and this, 
too, before the future world. and our Lore 
Jesus Christ was born of a virgffTor no other 
reason than that He might destroy the begetting 
by lawless desire, and might show to the ruler? 
that the formation of man was possible to God 
without human intervention. And when He had 





! That is to say, their lives are a protest against entering into 
marriage for any other PErpess than that of begetting children, 
2 i.e., to the devil. [St. John xii. 31, xiv. 30, xvi. 11.] 





RESURRECTION. 295 





been born, and had submitted to the other con- 
ditions of the flesh,— I mean food, drink, and 
clothing, —this one condition only of dischar- 


ging the sexual function He did not submit to; 
for, regarding the desires of the flesh, He ac- 
cepted some as necessary, while others, which 
were unnecessary, He did not submit to. For if 
the flesh were deprived of food, drink, and cloth- 
ing, it would be destroyed ; but being deprived 
of lawless desire, it suffers no harm. And at the 
same time He foretold that, in the future world, 
sexual intercourse should be done away with ; as 
He says, “The children of this world marry, and 
are given in marriage; but the children of the 
world to come neither marry nor are given in 
marriage, but shall be like the angels in heaven.” 3 
Let not, then, those that are unbelieving marvel, 
if in the world to come He do away with those 
acts of our fleshly members which even in this 
present life are abolished. 


CHAP. IV.—MUST THE DEFORMED RISE DEFORMED ? 


Well, they say, if then the flesh rise, it must 
rise the same as it falls; so that if it die with 
one eye, it must rise one-eyed; if lame, lame; 
if defective in any part of the body, in this part 
the man must rise deficient. How truly blinded 
are they in the eyes of their hearts! For they 
have not seen on the earth blind men seeing 
again, and the lame walking by His word. All 
things which the Saviour did, He did in the first 
place in order that what was spoken concerning 
Him in the prophets might be fulfilled, “ that 
the blind should receive sight, and the deaf 
hear,’’4 and so on; but also to induce the belief 
that in the resurrection the flesh shall rise entire. 
For if on earth He healed the sicknesses of the 
flesh, and made the body whole, much more will 
He do this in the resurrection, so that the flesh 
shall rise perfect and entire. In this manner, 
then, shall those dreaded difficulties of theirs be 
healed. 


CHAP. V.— THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH IS 
NOT IMPOSSIBLE. 


But again, of those who maintain that the 
flesh has no resurrection, some assert that it is 
impossible ; others that, considering how vile 
and despicable the flesh is, it is not fit that God 
should raise it ; and others, that it did not at the 
first receive the promise. First, then, in respect 
of those who say that it is impossible for God to 
raise it, it seems to me that I should show that 
they are ignorant, professing as they do in word 
that they are believers, yet by their works prov- 
ing themselves to be unbelieving, even more 





3 Luke xx. 34, 35. 
4 Isa. xxxv. 5. 


296 JUSTIN ON THE 
‘unbelieving than the unbelievers. For, seeing 
that all the heathen believe in their idols, and 
are persuaded that to them all things are possi- 
ble (as even their poet Homer says," “ The 

ods can do all things, and that easily ;” and 
he added the word “easily” that he might bring 
out the greatness of the power of the gods), 
many do seem to be more unbelieving than they. 
For if the heathen believe in their gods, which 
are idols (“which have ears, and they hear not ; 
they have eyes, and they see not’’”), that they 
can do all things, though they be but devils, as 
saith the Scripture, “The gods of the nations 
are devils,” 3 much more ought we, who hold the 
right, excellent, and true faith, to believe in our 
God, since also we have proofs [of His power], 
first in the creation of the first man, for he was 
made from the earth by God; and this is suffi- 
cient evidence of God’s power; and then they 
who observe things can see how men are gen- 
erated one by another, and can marvel in a still 
greater degree that from a little drop of moisture 
so grand a living creature is formed. And cer- 
tainly if this were only recorded in a promise, 
and not seen accomplished, this too would be 
much more incredible than the other ; but it is 
rendered more credible by accomplishment.‘ 
But even in the case of the resurrection the 
Saviour has shown us accomplishments, of which 
we will in a little speak. But now we are de- 
monstrating that the resurrection of the flesh is 
possible, asking pardon of the children of the 
Church if we adduce arguments which seem to 
be secular 5 and physical : ° first, because to God 
nothing is secular, not even the world itself, for 
it is His workmanship; and secondly, because 
we are conducting our argument so as to meet 
unbelievers. For if we argued with believers, it 
were enough to say that we believe; but now 
we must proceed by demonstrations. The fore- 
going proofs are indeed quite sufficient to evince 
the possibility of the resurrection of the flesh ; 
but since these men are exceedingly unbelieving, 
we will further adduce a more convincing argu- 
ment still, — an argument drawn not from faith, 
for they are not within its scope, but from their 
own mother unbelief, — I mean, of course, from 
physical reasons. For if by such arguments we 
prove to them that the resurrection of the flesh 
is possible, they are certainly worthy of great 
contempt if they can be persuaded neither by 
the deliverances of faith nor by the arguments 
of the world. 


1 Odyssey, ii. 304. 

2 Ps, pre Ae ae 

3 Ps. xcvi. 5. 

4 i.e., by actually happening under our observation. 

5 e€w6ev, “ without” or ‘‘ outside,” to which reference is made in 
the next clause, which may be translated, “‘ because nothing is outside 
God,” or, ‘‘ because to God nothing is ‘ without.’” 

_ © xooptx@v, arguments drawn from the laws by which the world 
is governed. 
’ 





RESURRECTION. 


CHAP. VI. — THE RESURRECTION CONSISTENT WITH 
THE OPINIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS. . 


Those, then, who are called natural philoso- 
phers, say, some of them, as Plato, that the uni- 
verse is matter and God; others, as Epicurus, 
that it is atoms and the void ;7 others, like the 
Stoics, that it is these four — fire, water, air, earth. 
For it is sufficient to mention the most prevalent 
opinions. And Plato says that all things are 
made from matter by God, and according to His 
design ; but Epicurus and his followers say that 
all things are made from the atom and the void 
by some kind of self-regulating action of the nat- 
ural movement of the bodies; and the Stoics, 
that all are made of the four elements, God per- 
vading them. But while there is such discrep- 
ancy among them, there are some doctrines 
acknowledged by them all in common, one of 
which is that neither can anything be produced 
from what is not in being, nor anything be de- 
stroyed or dissolved into what has not any being, 
and that the elements exist indestructible out of 
which all things are generated. And this being 
so, the regeneration of the flesh will, according 
to all these philosophers, appear to be possible. 
For if, according to Plato, it is matter and God, 


‘both these are indestructible and God ; and God 


indeed occupies the position of an artificer, to 
wit, a potter ; and matter occupies the place of 
clay or wax, or some such thing. That, then, 
which is formed of matter, be it an image ora 
statue, is destructible ; but the matter itself is 
indesiructible, such as clay or wax, or any other 
such kind of matter. Thus the artist designs in 
the clay or wax, and makes the form of a living 
animal ; and again, if his handiwork be destroyed, 
it is not impossible for him to make the same 
form, by working up the same material, and 
fashioning it anew. So that, according to Plato, 
neither will it be impossible for God, who is 
Himself indestructible, and has also indestructi- 
ble material, even after that which has been first 
formed of it has been destroyed, to make it anew 
again, and to make the same form just as it was 
before. But according to the Stoics even, the 
body being produced by the mixture of the four 
elementary substances, when this body has been 
dissolved into the four elements, these remaining 
indestructible, it is possible that they receive a 
second time the same fusion and composition, 
from God pervading them, and so re-make the 
body which they formerly made. Like as if a 
man shall make a composition of gold and silver, 
and brass and tin, and then shall wish to dissolve 
it again, so that each element exist separately, 
having again mixed them, he may, if he pleases, 
make the very same composition as he had for- 


. 743 xevéy, the void of space in which the infinity of atoms 
moved. ¢ 


JUSTIN ON THE 


RESURRECTION. 297 





merly made. Again, according to Epicurus, the 
atoms and the void being indestructible, it is by 
a definite arrangement and adjustment of the 
atoms as they come together, that both all other 
formations are produced, and the body itself; 
and it being in course of time dissolved, is dis- 
solved again into those atoms from which it was 
also produced. And as these remain indestruc- 
tible, it is not at all impossible, that by coming 
together again, and receiving the same arrange- 
ment and position, they should make a body of 
like nature to what was formerly produced by 
them ; as if a jeweller should make in mosaic 
the form of an animal, and the stones should be 
scattered by time or by the man himself who 
made them, he having still in his possession the 
scattered stones, may gather them together again, 
and having gathered, may dispose them in the 
same way, and make the same form of an 
animal. And shall not God be able to collect 
again the decomposed members of the flesh, and 
make the same body as was formerly produced 
by Him? 


CHAP. VII. — THE BODY VALUABLE IN GOD’S SIGHT. 


But the proof of the possibility of the resur- 
rection of the flesh I have sufficiently demon- 
strated, in answer to men of the world. And if 
the resurrection of the flesh is not found impos- 
sible on the principles even of unbelievers, how 
much more will it be found in accordance with 
the mind of believers! But following our order, 
we must now speak with respect to those who 
think meanly of the flesh, and say that it is not 
worthy of the resurrection nor of the heavenly 
economy,’ because, first, its substance is earth ; 
and besides, because it is full of all wickedness, 
so that it forces the soul to sin along with it. 
But these persons seem to be ignorant of the 
whole work of God, both of the genesis and for- 
mation of man at the first, and why the things in 
the world were made? For does not the word 
say, “ Let Us make man in our image, and after 
our likeness?’”3 What kind of man? Mani- 
festly He means fleshly man. For the word says, 
“And God took dust of the earth, and made 
man.’’+ It is evident, therefore, that man made 
in the image of God was of flesh. Is it not, 
then, absurd to say, that the flesh made by God 
in His own image is contemptible, and worth 
nothing? But that the flesh is with God a 
precious possession is manifest, first from its being 
formed by Him, if at least the image is valuable 
to the former and artist ; and besides, its value 
can be gathered from the creation of the rest of 
eee. Se 28 

: hls micbt aoe rendered, “and the things in the world, on 
account of which he was made; ” but the subsequent argument shows 
the propriety of the above rendering. 


3 Gen. i, 26. 
4 Gen. ii. 7. 





the world. For that on account of which the 
rest is made, is the most precious of all to the 
maker. 


CHAP. VIII.— DOES THE BODY CAUSE THE SOUL 
TO SIN? 


Quite true, say they ; yet the flesh is a sinner, // 
so much so, that it forces the soul to sin along 
with it. And thus they vainly accuse it, and lay 
to its charge alone the sins of both. But in what 
instance can the flesh possibly sin by itself, if it 
have not the soul going before it and inciting it? 
For as in the case of a yoke of oxen, if one or 
other is loosed from the yoke, neither of them 
can plough alone ; so neither can soul or body 
alone effect anything, if they be unyoked from 
their communion. And if it is the flesh that is 
the sinner, then on its account alone did the 
Saviour come, as He says, “I am not come to 
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” 5 ° 
Since, then, the flesh has been proved to be 
valuable in the sight of God, and glorious above 
all His works, it would very justly be saved by 
Him. 

We must meet, therefore, those who say, that 
even though it be the special handiwork of God, 
and beyond all else valued by Him, it would not 
immediately follow that it has the promise of the 
resurrection. Yet is it not absurd, that that which 
has been produced with such circumstance, and 
which is beyond all else valuable, should be so 
neglected by its Maker, as to pass to nonentity? 
Then the sculptor and painter, if they wish the 
works they have made to endure, that they may 
win glory by them, renew them when they begin 
to decay ; but God would so neglect His own 
possession and work, that it becomes annihilated, 
and no longer exists. Should we not call this 
labour in vain? As if a man who has built a 
house should forthwith destroy it, or should neg- 
lect it, though he sees it falling into decay, and is 
able to repair it: we would blame him for labour- 
ing in vain ; and should we not so blame God? 
But not such an one is the Incorruptible, — not 
senseless is the Intelligence of the universe. Let 
the unbelieving be silent, even though they them- 
selves do not believe. 

But, in truth, He has even called the flesh to 
the resurrection, and. promises to it everlasting 
life. For where He promises to save man, there 
He gives the promise to the flesh. For what is 
man but the reasonable animal composed of 
body and soul? Is the soul by itself man? No; 
but the soul of man. Would the body be called 
man? No, but it is called the body of man. 
If, then, neither of these is by itself man, but 
that which is made up of the two together is 
called man, and God has called man to life and 
See rn ane 


” § Mask ii. 17. 


JUSTIN ON THE 


298 


RESURRECTION. 





resurrection, He has called not a part, but the 
whole, which is the soul and the body.. Since 
would it not be unquestionably absurd, if, while 
these two are in the same being and according 
to the same law, the one were saved and the 
other not? And if it be not impossible, as has 
already been proved, that the flesh be regener- 
ated, what is the distinction on the ground of 
which the soul is saved and the body not? Do 
they make God a grudging God? But He is 
good, and will have all to be saved. And by God 
and His proclamation, not only has your soul 
heard and believed on Jesus Christ, and with 
it the flesh, but both were washed, and both 
wrought righteousness. They make God, then, 
ungrateful and unjust, if, while both believe on 
Him, He desires to save one and not the other. 
Well, they say, but the soul is incorruptible, 
being a part of God and inspired by Him, and 
therefore He desires to save what is peculiarly 
His own and akin to Himself; but the flesh is 
corruptible, and not from Him, as the soul is. 
Then what thanks are due to Him, and what 
manifestation of His power and goodness is it, 
if He purposed to save what is by nature saved 
and exists as a part of Himself? For it had its 


salvation from itself; so that in saving the soul,. 


God does no great thing. For to be saved is 
its natural destiny, because it is a part of Him- 
self, being His inspiration. But no thanks are 
due to one who saves what is his own; for this 
is to save himself. For he who saves a part of 
himself, saves himself by his own means, lest he 
become defective in that part; and this is not 
the act of a good man. For not even when a 
man does good to his children and offspring, 
does one call him a good man; for even the 
most savage of the wild beasts do so, and indeed 
willingly endure death, if need be, for the sake 
of their cubs. But if a man were to perform 
the same acts in behalf of his slaves, that man 
would justly be called good. Wherefore the 
Saviour also taught us to love our enemies, since, 
says He, what thank have ye? . So that He has 
shown us that it is a good work not only to love 
those that are begotten of Him, but also those 
that are without. And what He enjoins upon us, 
He Himself first of all does. 


e e ° e 


GHAF, IX.—-THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST, 
PROVES THAT THE BODY RISES. 


If He had no need of the flesh, why did He 


heal it? And what is most forcible of all, He 
raised the dead. Why? Was it not to show 





1 Migne proposes to read here cai ov adv avy, “ without the 
flesh,” which gives a more obvious meaning. The shoes reading is, 
however, defensible. Justin means that the flesh was not merely 
partaking of the soul’s faith and Promise, but had rights of its own. 

s It is supposed that a part of the treatise has been here dropped 
out, 


what the resurrection should be? How then 

did He raise the dead? Their souls or their. 
bodies? Manifestly both. If the resurrection 

were only spiritual, it was requisite that He, in 

raising the dead, should show the body lying 

apart by itself, and the soul living apart by itself. | 
But now He did not do so, but raised the body, 

confirming in it the promise of life. Why did. 
He rise in the flesh in which He suffered, unless 

to show the resurrection of the flesh? And 

wishing to confirm this, when His disciples did 
not know whether to believe He had truly risen 

in the body, and were looking upon Him and. 
doubting, He said to them, “Ye have not yet 

faith, see that it is I ;’’3.and He let them handle 

Him, and showed them the prints of the nails in 

His hands. And when they were by every kind 

of proof persuaded that it was Himself, and in 

the body, they asked Him to eat with them, that 

they might thus still more accurately ascertain 

that He had in verity risen bodily ; and He did 

eat honey-comb and fish. And when He had 

thus shown them that there is truly a resurrection 

of the flesh, wishing to show them this also, that 

it is not impossible for flesh to ascend into heaven 

(as He had said that our dwelling-place is in 

heaven), “ He was taken up into heaven while. 
they beheld,” + as He was in the flesh. If, there-. 

fore, after all that has been said, any one demand 

demonstration of the resurrection, he is in no 

respect different from the Sadducees, since the 

resurrection of the flesh is the power of God, 

and, being above all reasoning, is established by 

faith, and seen in works. 


. ° 


CHAP. X.— THE BODY SAVED, AND WILL THERE- 
FORE RISE. 


The resurrection is a resurrection of the flesh 
which died. For the spirit dies not ; the soul is 
in the body, and without a soul it cannot live.. 
The body, whén the soul forsakes it, is not. 
For the body is the house of the soul; and the 
soul the house of the spirit. These three, in all. 
those who. cherish a sincere hope and unques- 
tioning faith in God, will be saved. Considering, 
therefore;-evenSuch_ arguments as are suited 
to this world, and finding that, even according 
to them, it is not impossible that the flesh be 
regenerated ; and seeing that, besides all these 
proofs, the Saviour in the whole Gospel shows 
that there is salvation for the flesh, why do we 
any longer endure those unbelieving and dan- 
gerous arguments, and fail to see that we are 
retrograding when we listen to such an argument 
as this: that the soul is immortal, but the body 
mortal, and incapable of being revived?- -For 
this we used to hear from Pythagoras and. Plato, 
Ghetaldi Tee She 


3 Comp. Luke xxiv. 32, etc. 
4 Acts i, 9. 


JUSTIN ON THE 


even before we learned the truth. If then the 
Saviour said this, and proclaimed salvation to 
the soul alone, what new thing, beyond what we 
heard from Pythagoras and Plato and all their 
band, did He bring us? But now He has come 
proclaiming the glad tidings of a new and strange 
hope to men. For indeed it was a strange and 
new thing for God to promise that He would 
not keep incorruption in incorruption, but would 
make corruption incorruption. But because the 
prince of wickedness could in no other way cor- 
rupt the truth, he sent forth his apostles (evil 
men who introduced pestilent doctrines) , choos- 
ing them from among those who crucified our 
Saviour ; and these men bore the name of the 
Saviour, but did the works of him that sent them, 
through whom the name itself has been spoken 


RESURRECTION. 299 


against. But if the flesh do not rise, why is it 
also guarded, and why do we not rather suffer 
it to indulge its desires? Why do we not imi- 
tate physicians, who, it is said, when they get a 
patient that is despaired of and incurable, allow 
him to indulge his desires? For they know that 
he is dying ; and this indeed those who hate the 
flesh surely do, casting it out of its inheritance, 
so far as they can; for on this account they also 
despise it, because it is shortly to become a 
corpse. But if our physician Christ, God, hav- 
ing rescued us from our desires, regulates our 
flesh with His own wise and temperate rule, it is 
evident that He guards it from sins because it 
possesses a hope of salvation, as physicians do 
not suffer men whom they hope to save to indulge 
in what pleasures they please. 





[N.B. — These fragments are probably genuine] 


OTHER FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOST WRITINGS OF JUSTIN. 


[TRANSLATED BY THE REV. A. ROBERTS, D.D.] 





I 


THE most admirable Justin rightly declared 
that the aforesaid demons' resembled robbers. 
— Tatian’s Address to the Greeks, chap. xviii. 


II. 


And Justin well said in his book against Mar- 
cion, that he would not have believed the Lord 
Himself, if He had announced any other God 
than the Fashioner and Maker [of the world], 
and our Nourisher. But since, from the one 
God, who both made this world and formed us, 

hd contains as well as administers all things, 

there came to us the only-begotten Son, sum- 
ming up His own workmanship in Himself, my 
faith in Him is stedfast, and my love towards 
the Father is immoveable, God bestowing both 
upon us. — lREN&uUS: Heresies, iv. 6. 


III. 


Justin well said: Before the advent of the 
Lord, Satan never ventured to blaspheme God, 
inasmuch as he was not yet sure of his own 
damnation, since that was announced concern- 
ing him by the prophets only in parables and 
allegories. But after the advent of the Lord, 
learning plainly from the discourses of Christ 
and His apostles that eternal fire was prepared 
for him who voluntarily departed from God, 
and for all who, without repentance, persevere 
‘ in apostasy, then, by means of a man of this 
sort, he, as if already condemned, blasphemes 
that God who inflicts judgment upon him, and 
imputes the sin of his apostasy to his Maker, 
instead of to his own will and predilection. — 
IrEN#uS: Heresies, v. 26. 


IV. 


_ Expounding the reason of the incessant plot- 
ting of the devil against us, he declares: Before 





3 [See, on the Resurrection, cap. vi.; and compare, — 
** And of those demons that are found 
In fire, air, flood, or under ground,” etc. 
Milton, Pens., line 93.] 
goo 


the advent of the Lord, the devil did not so 
plainly know the measure of his own punish- 
ment, inasmuch as the divine prophets had but 
enigmatically announced it; as, for instance, 
Isaiah, who in the person of the Assyrian tragi- 
cally revealed the course to be followed against 
the devil. But when the Lord appeared, and 
the devil clearly understood that eternal fire was 
laid up and prepared for him and his angels, 
he then began to plot without ceasing against 
the faithful, being desirous to have many com- 
panions in his apostasy, that he might not by 
himself endure the shame of condemnation, 
comforting himself by this cold and malicious 
consolation. — From the writings of JOHN OF 
ANTIOCH. 
Vv. 

And Justin of Neapolis, a man who was not 
far separated from the apostles either in age or 
excellence, says that that which is mortal is 
inherited, but that which is immortal inherits ; 
and that the flesh indeed dies, but the kingdom 
of heaven lives.— rom MeEtHopius On the 
Resurrection, in Photius. 


VI. 


Neither is there straitness with God, nor any- 
thing that is not absolutely perfect. — From 
manuscript of the writings of JUSTIN. 


VII. 


We shall not injure God by remaining igno- 
rant of Him, but shall deprive ourselves of His 
friendship. 

VIIL. 

The unskilfulness of the teacher proves de- 
structive to his disciples, and the carelessness of 
the disciples entails danger on the teacher, and 
especially should they owe their negligence to 
his want of knowledge. a 


IX. 


The soul can with difficulty be recalled to 
those good things from which ‘it has fallen, and 


FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOST WRITINGS OF JUSTIN. 


301 





is with difficulty dragged away from those evils 


to which it has become accustomed. If at any 
time thou showest a disposition to blame thy- 
self, then perhaps, through the medicine of re- 
, pentance, I should cherish good hopes regarding 
thee. But when thou altogether despisest fear, 
and rejectest with scorn the very faith of Christ, 
it were better for thee that thou hadst never 
been born from the womb. — From the writings 
of JouHN oF Damascus. 


xX 


By the two birds’ Christ is denoted, both 
dead as man, and living as God. He is likened 
to a bird, because He is understood and de- 
clared to be from above, and from heaven. And 
the living bird, having been dipped in the blood 
| of the dead one, was afterwards let go. For the 
) living and divine Word was in the crucified an 

ead temple [of the body], as being a partak 
ofthe passion, and yet impassible to God. 

By that which took place in the running? 
water, in which the wood and the hyssop and 
the scarlet were dipped, is set forth the bloody 
passion of Christ on the cross for the salvation 
of those who are sprinkled with the Spirit, and 
the water, and the blood. Wherefore the ma- 
terial for purification was not provided chiefly 
with reference to leprosy, but with regard to the 
forgiveness of sins, that both leprosy might be 
understood to be an emblem of sin, and the 
things which were sacrificed an emblem of Him 
who was to be sacrificed for sins. 

For this reason, consequently, he ordered that 
the scarlet should be dipped at the same time 
in the water, thus predicting that the flesh should 
no longer possess its natural [evil] properties. 
For this reason, also, were there the two birds, 
the one being sacrificed in the water, and the 
other dipped both in the blood and in the water, 
and then sent away, just as is narrated also re- 
specting the goats. 

The goat that was sent away presented a 
type of Him who taketh away the sins of men. 
But the two contained a representation of the 
one economy of God incarnate. For He was 
wounded for our transgressions, and He bare 
the sins of many, and He was delivered for our 
iniquities. — From manuscript of writings of 
JusTIN. 

XI. 

When God formed man at the beginning, He 
suspended the things of nature on his will, and 
- made an experiment by means of one command- 
ment. For He ordained that, if he kept this, 
he should partake of immortal existence ; but if 
he transgressed it, the contrary should be his lot. 
Man having been thus made, and immediately 
Do aes eee 


1 See Lev. xiv. 49-53- 
@ Litetally, “ Uving.” 








looking towards transgression, naturally became 
subject to corruption. Corruption then becom- 
ing inherent in nature, it was necessary that He 
who wished to save should be one who destroyed 
the efficient cause of corruption. And this could 
not otherwise be done than by the life which is 
according to nature being united to that which 
had received the corruption, and so destroying 
the corruption, while preserving as immortal for 
the future that which had received it. It was 
therefore necessary that the Word should be- 
come possessed of a body, that He might deliver 

s from the death of natural corruption. For 
if, as ye3 say, He had simply by a nod warded 

ff death from us, death indeed would not have 

pproached us on account of the expression of 

is will; but none the less would we again have 
become corruptible, inasmuch as we carried about 


in ourselves that natural corruption. — LEONTIUS " 


against Eutychians, etc., book il. 


XII. 


As it is inherent in all bodies formed by God 
to have a shadow, so it is fitting that God, who 
is just, should render to those who choose what 
is good, and to those who prefer what is evil, to 
every one according to his deserts. — rom the 
writings of JOHN OF DAMASCUS. 


XIII. 


He speaks not of the Gentiles in foreign lands, 
but concerning [the people] who agree with the 
Gentiles, according to that which is spoken by 
Jeremiah: “It is a bitter thing for thee, that 
thou hast forsaken me, saith the Lord thy God, 
that of old thou hast broken thy yoke, and torn 
asunder thy bands, and said, I will not serve 
Thee, but will go to every high hill, and under- 
neath every tree, and there shall I become dis- 
solute in my fornication.”+— From manuscript 
of the writings of JUSTIN. 


XIV. 


Neither shall light ever be darkness as long as 
light exists, nor shall the truth of the things per- 
taining to us be controverted. For truth is that 
than which nothing is more powerful. Every 
one who might speak the truth, and speaks it 
not, shall be judged by God. — Manuscript and 
works of JOHN OF DAMASCUS. 


XV. 


And the fact that it was not said of the 
seventh day equally with the other days, “And 
there was evening, and there was morning,” is a 
distinct indication of the consummation which is 
to take place in it before it is finished, as the 





3 The Gentiles are here referred to, who saw no necessity for the 
incarnation. 
4 Jer. ii. 19, etc. (LXX.) 


302 







fathers declare, especially St. Clement, and 
Irenzus, and Justin the martyr and philosopher, 
who, commenting with exceeding wisdom on 
the number six of the sixth day, affirms that the 
intelligent soul of man and his five susceptible 
senses were the six works of the sixth day. 
Whence also, having discoursed at length on the 
number six, he declares that all things which 
have been framed by God are divided into six 
classes, — viz., into things intelligent and im- 
mortal, such as are the angels; into things 
reasonable and mortal, such as mankind ; into 
things sensitive and irrational, such as cattle, 
and birds, and fishes; into things that can ad- 
vance, and move, and are insensible, such as the 
winds, and the clouds, and the waters, and the 
stars; into things which increase and are im- 
moveable, such as the trees; and into things 
which are insensible and immoveable, such as 
the mountains, the earth, and such like. For 
all the creatures of God, in heaven and on earth, 
fall under one or other of these divisions, and 
are circumscribed by them. — From the writings 
of ANASTASIUS. 
XVI. 
Sound doctrine does not enter into the hard 


‘and disobedient heart; but, as if beaten back, 


enters anew into itself. 
XVII. 
As the good of the body is health, so the 


\ good of the soul is knowledge, which is indeed 


_ akind of health of soul, by which a likeness to 
God is attained. — From the writings of JOHN OF 
DaMASCus. 


FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOST WRITINGS OF JUSTIN. 


To yield and give way to our passions is ‘the 
lowest slavery, even as to rule over them is the 
only liberty. 

The greatest of all good is to be free from sin, 
the next is to be justified ; but he must be reck- 
oned the most unfortunate of men, who, while 
living unrighteously, remains for a long time 
unpunished. 

Animals in harness cannot but be carried over 
a precipice by the inexperience and badness of 
their driver, even as by his skilfulness and ex- 
cellence they will be saved. 

The end contemplated by a philosopher is 
likeness to God, so far as that is possible. — 
From the writings of ANTONIS MELIssA. ' 

XIX. . a 


[The words] of St. Justin, philosopher and 
martyr, from the fifth part of his Apology: *—1 
reckon prosperity, O men, to consist in nothing 
else than in living according to truth. But we 
do not live properly, or according to truth, 
unless we understand the nature of things. 

It escapes them apparently, that he who has 
by a true faith come forth from error to the 
truth, has truly known himself, not, as they say, 
as being in a state of frenzy, but as free from the 
unstable and (as to every variety of error) 
changeable corruption, by the simple and ever 
identical truth. — From the writings of JOHN OF 
Damascus. 


1 It is doubtful if these words are really Justin's, or, if so, from 
which, or what part, of his Apologies they are derived. 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


TO THE 


MARTYRDOM OF JUSTIN MARTYR. 





CrEscENs, a cynic, has the ill-renown of stirring up the persecution in which Justin and his 
friends suffered for Christ. The story that he died by the hemlock seems to have originated 
among the Greeks, who naturally gave this turn to the sufferings of a philosopher. 

The following Inrropucrory Notice of the translator supplies all that need be added. 

THoucH nothing is known as to the date or authorship of the following narrative, it is generally 
reckoned among the most trustworthy of the Martyria. An absurd addition was in some copies 
made to it, to the effect that Justin died by means of hemlock. Some have thought it necessary, 
on account of this story, to conceive of two Justins, one of whom, the celebrated defender of the 
Christian faith whose writings are given in this volume, died through poison, while the other 
suffered in the way here described, along with several of his friends. But the description of 
Justin given in the following account, is evidently such as compels us to refer it to the famous 
apologist and martyr of the second century.’ 


a 





I [See Cave, Lives of the Fathers, i. 243. Epiphanius, by fixing the martyrdom under the prefecture of Rusticus, seems to identify 
this history; but, then, he also connects it with the reign of Hadrian. Ed, Oéhler, tom. ii. og. Berlin, 1859.] 


393 


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THE MARTYRDOM OF 


THE HOLY MARTYRS, 


JUSTIN, CHARITON, CHARITES, PAZON, AND LIBERIANUS, WHO SUFFERED 
AT ROME. 


(TRANSLATED BY THE REV. M. DODS, M.A.] 





CHAP. I,—— EXAMINATION OF JUSTIN BY ThE 
PREFECT. 


_In the time of the lawless partisans of idolatry, 
wicked decrees were passed against the godly 


Christians in town and country, to force them /( 


to offer libations to vain idols ; and accordingly 
the holy men, having been apprehended, were 
brought before the prefect of Rome, Rusticus by 
name. And when they had been brought before 
his judgment-seat, Rusticus the prefect said to 
Justin, “Obey the gods at once, and submit to 
the kings.” * Justin said, “To obey the com- 
mandments of our Saviour Jesus Christ is worthy 
neither of blame nor of condemnation.” Rusti- 
cus the prefect said, “ What kind of doctrines do 
you profess?’’ Justin said, “ I have endeavoured 
to learn all doctrines ; but I have acquiesced at 
last in the true doctrines, those namely of the 
Christians, even though they do not please those 
who hold false opinions.”” Rusticus the prefect 
said, “ Are those the doctrines that please you, 
you utterly wretched man?” Justin said, “Yes, 
since I adhere to them with right dogma.” 
Rusticus the prefect said, “‘ What is the dogma?”’ 
Justin said, “That according to which we wor- 
ship the God of the Christians, whom we reckon 
to be one from the beginning, the maker and 
fashioner of the whole creation, visible and invis- 
ible ; and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 
who had also been preached beforehand by the 
prophets as about to be present with the race of 
men, the herald of salvation and teacher of good 
disciples. And I, being a man, think that what 
I can say is insignificant in comparison with His 
boundless divinity, acknowledging a certain pro- 
phetic power,3 since it was prophesied concern- 
Es FS Ea a ae 


1 1e., the emperors. 

2 Mera Soynaros op0ov, orthadoxy., ‘ 

3 Thor is, that a prophetic inspiration is required to speak wor- 
thily of Christ. 


ing Him of whom now I say that He is the Son 
of God. For I know that of old the prophets 
foretold His appearance among men.” 


CHAP, II. — EXAMINATION OF JUSTIN CONTINUED. 


Rusticus the prefect said, ‘Where do you as- 
semble?” Justin said, ‘Where each one chooses 
and can: for do you fancy that we all meet in 
the very same place? Notso; because the God 
of the Christians is not circumscribed by place ; 
but being invisible, fills heaven and earth, and 
everywhere is worshipped and glorified by the 
faithful.” Rusticus the prefect said, “Tell me 
where you assemble, or into what place do you 
collect your followers?” Justin said, “I live 
above one Martinus, at the Timiotinian Bath ; 
and during the whole time (and I am now living 
in Rome for the second time) I am unaware of 
any other meeting than his. And if any one 
wished to come to me, I communicated to him 
the doctrines of truth.” Rusticus said, “ Are 
you not, then, a Christian?” Justin said, “ Yes, 
I am a Christian.” 


CHAP. III]. — EXAMINATION OF CHARITON AND 
OTHERS. 


Then said the prefect Rusticus to Chariton, 
“ Tell me further, Chariton, are you also a Chris- 
tian?” Chariton said, “I am a Christian by the 
command of God.” Rusticus the prefect asked 
the woman Charito, “What say you, Charito?” 
Charito said, “I am a Christian by the grace of 
God.” Rusticus said to Euelpistus, “And what 
are you?” Euelpistus, a servant of Cesar, an- 
swered, “I too ama Christian, having been freed 
by Christ ; and by the grace of Christ I partake 
of the same hope.” Rusticus the prefect said 
to Hierax, “And you, are you a Christian?” 
Hierax said, “ Yes, I am a Christian, for I revere 
and worship the same God.” Rusticus the pre- 

395 


306 THE MARTYRDOM OF 


THE HOLY MARTYRS. 





fect said, “Did Justin make you Christians?” 
Hierax said, “I was a Christian, and will be a 
Christian.” And Pzeon stood up and said, “I 
too am a Christian.” Rusticus the prefect said, 
“Who taught you?’”’ Peon said, “ From our par- 
ents we received this good confession.” Euel- 
pistus said, “I willingly heard the words of Justin. 
But from my parents also I learned to be a 


Christian.” Rusticus the prefect said, “‘ Where 
are your parents?” Euelpistus said, “In Cap- 
padocia.”’ Rusticus says to Hierax, “‘ Where are 


your parents?’’ And he answered, and said, 
“Christ is our true father, and faith in Him is 
our mother; and my earthly parents died ; and 
I, when I was driven from Iconium in Phrygia, 
came here.” Rusticus the prefect said to Libe- 
rianus, ‘And what say you? Are you a Christian, 
and unwilling to worship [the gods]?” Liberi- 
anus said, “I too am a Christian, for I worship 
and reverence the only true God.” 


CHAP. IV.—- RUSTICUS THREATENS THE CHRISTIANS 
WITH DEATH. 


The prefect says to Justin, “ Hearken, you who 
are called learned, and think that you know true 
doctrines ; if you are scourged and beheaded, 
do you believe you will ascend into heaven?” 
Justin said, “I hope that, if I endure these 
things, I shall have His gifts." For I know that, 
to all who have thus lived, there abides the 
divine favour until the completion of the whole 
world.” Rusticus the prefect said, “Do you 
suppose, then, that you will ascend into heaven 
to receive some recompense?” Justin said, “I 
do not suppose it, but I know and am fully per- 





1 Another reading is 5éya7a, which may be translated, “I shall 
have what He teaches [us to expect].” 


suaded of it.” Rusticus the prefect said, “Let 
us, then, now come to the matter in hand, and 
which presses. Having come together, offer 
sacrifice with one accord to. the gods.” Justin, — 
said, “‘ No right-thinking person falls away from) 
piety to impiety.”  Rusticus the prefect said 

“Unless ye obey, ye shall be mercilessly pun- | 
ished.” Justin said, “Through e_can 

be saved on-account of Our ford Tesus Christ Jesus Christ, 
"even when we have been punished,? because this 

shall become to us salvation and confidence at 


the more fearful and universal judgment-seat of 
our Lord and Saviour.” Thus also said the 





other martyrs: “Do what you will, for we are 
Christians, and do not sacrifice to idols.” 


CHAP. V.—SENTENCE PRONOUNCED AND EXECUTED. 


Rusticus the prefect pronounced sentence, 
saying, “ Let those who have refused to sacrifice 
to the gods and to yield to the command of the 
emperor be scourged,3 and led away to suffer 
the punishment of decapitation, according to the 
laws.” The holy martyrs having glorified God, 
and having gone forth to the accustomed place, 
were beheaded, and perfected their testimony in 
the confession of the Saviour. And some of the 
faithful having secretly removed their bodies, 
laid them in a suitable place, the grace of our 
Lord Jesus Christ having wrought along with 
them, to whom be glory for ever and ever. 
Amen, 





_ ? This passage admits of another rendering. Lord Hailes, follow- 
ing the common Latin version, thus translates: ‘It was our chief 
wish to endure tortures for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so 
to be saved.” 

3 Lis wholesale sentence implies a great indifference to the 
probable Roman citizenship of some of them, if not of our heroic 
martyr himself; but Acts xxii. 25-29 seems to allow that the con- 
demned were not protected by the law. ] é 


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A) 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


TO 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


/{A.D. 120-202.] Tuts history introduces us to the Church in her Western outposts. We 
reach_the-banks of the Rhone, where for nearly a century Christian missions have flourished. 
Between Marseilles and Smyrna there seems to have been a brisk trade, and Polycarp had sent 
Pothinus into Celtic Gaul at an early date as its evangelist. He had fixed his see at Lyons, when 
Irenzeus joined him as a presbyter, having been his fellow-pupil under Polycarp. There, under. 
the “good Aurelius,” as he is miscalled (a.D. 177), arose the terrible persecution which made / 
“the martyrs of Lyons and Vienne” so memorable. It was during this persecution that Irenzeus \ 
was sent to Rome with letters of remonstrance against the rising pestilence of heresy ; and he , 
was probably the author of the account of the sufferings of the martyrs which is appended to | 
their testimony.’ But he had the mortification of finding the Montanist heresy patronized by 
Eleutherus the Bishop of Rome; and there he met an old friend from the school of Polycarp, 
who had embraced the Valentinian heresy. We cannot doubt that to this visit we owe the life- 
long struggle of Irenzeus against the heresies that now came in, like locusts, to devour the harvests 
of the Gospel. But let it be noted here, that, so far from being “the mother and mistress” of 
even the Western Churches, Rome herself is a mission of the Greeks ;? Southern Gaul is evan- 
gelized from Asia Minor, and Lyons checks the heretical tendencies of the Bishop at Rome. 
Ante-Nicene Christianity, and indeed the Church herself, appears in Greek costume which lasts 
through the synodical period ; and Latin Christianity, when it begins to appear, is African, and 
not Roman. It is strange that those who have recorded this great historical fact have so little 
perceived its bearings upon Roman pretensions in the Middle Ages and modern times. 

Returning to Lyons, our author found that the venerable Pothinus had closed his holy career 
by a martyr’s death; and naturally Irenaeus became his successor. When the emissaries of 
heresy followed him, and began to disseminate their licentious practices and foolish doctrines by 
the aid of “silly women,” the great work of his life began. He condescended to study these 
diseases of the human mind like a wise physician ; and, sickening as was the process of classifying 
and describing them, he made this also his laborious task, that he might enable others to withstand 
and to overcome them. The works he has left us are monuments of his fidelity to Christ, and to 
the charges of St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. Jude, whose solemn warnings now proved to be 
prophecies. No marvel that the great apostle, “night and day with tears,’”’ had forewarned the 
churches of “the grievous wolves” which were to make havoc of the fold. 

If it shocks the young student of the virgin years of Christianity to find such a state of things, 
Jet him reflect that it was all foretold by Christ himself, and demonstrates the malice and power 
of the adversary. “An enemy hath done this,” said the Master. ‘The spirit that was then work- 








1 Eusebius, book v. to the twenty-seventh chapter, should be read as an introduction to this author. 
2 Milman, Hist. Latin Christianity, b. i. pp. 27, 28, and the notes, 
3°9 


310 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 


ing “in the children of disobedience,” now manifested itself. The awful visions of the Apocalypse 
began to be realized. It was now evident in what sense “the Prince of peace ” had pronounced 
His mission, “not peace, but a sword.” In short, it became a conspicuous fact, that the Church 
here on earth is “ militant ;” while, at the same time, there was seen to be a profound philosophy 
in the apostolic comment,’ “ There must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved 
may be made manifest.” In the divine economy of Providence it was permitted that every form 
of heresy which was ever to infest the Church should now exhibit its essential principle, and 
attract the censures of the faithful. Thus testimony to primitive truth was secured and recorded : 
the language of catholic orthodoxy was developed and defined, and landmarks of faith were set 
up for perpetual memorial to all generations. It is a striking example of this divine economy, 
that the see of Rome was allowed to exhibit its fallibility very conspicuously at this time, and not 
only to receive the rebukes of Irenaeus, but to accept them as wholesome and necessary ; so that 
the heresy of Eleutherus, and the spirit of Diotrephes in Victor, have enabled reformers ever since, 
and even in the darkest days of pontifical despotism, to testify against the manifold errors patron- 
ized by Rome. Hilary and other Gallicans have been ‘strengthened by the example of Irenzus, 
and by his faithful words of reproof and exhortation, to resist Rome, even down to our own times. 

That the intolerable absurdities of Gnosticism should have gained so many disiciples, and 
proved itself an adversary to be grappled with and not despised, throws light on the condition of 
the human mind under heathenism, even when it professed “knowledge” and “ philosophy.” 
The task of Irenzeus was twofold: (1) to render it impossible for any one to confound Gnosti- 
cism with Christianity, and (2) to make it impossible for such a monstrous system to survive, Or 
ever to rise again. His task was a nauseous one ; but never was the spirit enjoined by Scripture 
more patiently exhibited, nor with more entire success.? If Julian had found Gnosticism just 
made to his hand, and powerful enough to suit his purposes, the whole history of his attempt to 
revive Paganism would have been widely different. Irenzeus demonstrated its essential unity with 
the old mythology, and with heathen systems of philosophy. If the fog and malaria that rose with 
the Day-star, and obscured it, were speedily dispersed, our author is largely to be identified 
with the radiance which flowed from the Sun of righteousness, and with the breath of the Spirit 
that banished them for ever. 

The Episcopate of Irenzeus was distinguished by labours, “in season and out of season,” for 
the evangelization of Southern Gaul; and he seems to have sent missionaries into other regions of 
what we now call France. In spite of Paganism and heresy, he rendered Lyons a Christian city ; 
and Marcus seems to have retreated before his terrible castigation, taking himself off to regions 
beyond the Pyrenees.3 But the pacific name he bears, was rendered yet more illustrious by his 
interposition to compose the Easter Controversy, then threatening to impair, if not to destroy, the 
unity of the Church. The beautiful concordat between East and West, in which Polycarp and 
Anicetus had left the question, was now disturbed by Victor, Bishop of Rome, whose ‘turbulent 
spirit would not accept the compromise of his predecessor. Irenzeus remonstrates with him in a 
catholic spirit, and overrules his impetuous temper. At the Council of Nice, the rule for the 
observance of Easter was finally settled by the whole Church; and the forbearing example of 
Ireneus, no doubt contributed greatly to this happy result. The blessed peacemaker survived 
this great triumph, for a short time only, closing his life, like a true shepherd, with thousands of 
his flock, in the massacre (A.D. 202) stimulated by the wolfish Emperor Severus. 

The Inrropucrory Notice of the learned translators + is as follows : — 


1 x Cor. xi. 19. 2 2 Tim. ii, 24, 25, 26. 

3 On the authority of St. Jerome. See Guettee, De /’église de France, vol. 1. p. 27. 

4 The first two books of Irenzus Agaznst Heresies have been translated by Dr. Roberts. The groundwork of the translation of the 
third book, and that portion of the fourth book which is continued in this volume, has been furnished by the Rev. W. H. Rambaut. An 
attempt has been made, in rendering this important author into English, to adhere as closely as possible to the original. It would have been 
far easier to give a loose and flowing translation of the obscure and involved sentences of Irenzus; but the object has been studiously kept 
in view, to place the English reader, as much as possible, in the position of one who has immediate access to the Greek or Latin text. 


a ee eer ree 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE. art 
Eo a a ea 
. THE work of Irenzeus Against Heresies is one of the most precious remains of early Christian 
antiquity. It is devoted, on the one hand, to an account and refutation of those multiform Gnos- 
tic heresies which prevailed in the latter half of the second century ; and, on the other hand, to an 
exposition and defence of the Catholic faith. 

In the prosecution of this plan, the author divides his work into five books. The first of these 
contains a minute description of the tenets of the various heretical sects, with occasional brief 
remarks in illustration of their absurdity, and in confirmation of the truth to which they were 
opposed. In his second book, Irenzeus proceeds to a more complete demolition of those heresies 
which he has already explained, and argues at great length against them, on grounds principally , 


_ of reason. The three remaining books set forth more directly the true doctrines of revelation, 


as being in utter antagonism to the views held by the Gnostic teachers. In the course of this 
argument, many passages of Scripture are quoted and commented on; many interesting state- 
ments are made, bearing on the rule of faith ; and much important light is shed on the doctrines, 
held, as well as the practices observed, by the Church of the second century. 

It may be made matter of regret, that so large a portion of the work of Irenzus is given to 
an exposition of the manifold Gnostic speculations. Nothing more absurd than these has prob- 
ably ever been imagined by rational beings. Some ingenious and learned men have indeed 
endeavoured to reconcile the wild theories of these heretics with the principles of reason ; but, 
as Bishop Kaye remarks (Lecl. Hist. of the Second and Third Centuries, p. 524), “a more ardu- 
ous or unpromising undertaking cannot well be conceived.” The fundamental object of the 
Gnostic speculations was doubtless to solve the two grand problems of all religious philosophy, 
viz., How to account for the existence of evil ; and, How to reconcile the finite with the infinite. 
But these ancient theorists were not more successful in grappling with such questions than have 
been their successors in modern times. And by giving loose reins to their imagination, they built 
up the most incongruous and ridiculous systems; while, by deserting the guidance of Scripture 
they were betrayed into the most pernicious and extravagant errors. 

Accordingly, the patience of the reader is sorely tried, in following our author through those 
mazes of absurdity which he treads, in explaining and refuting these Gnostic speculations. This is 
especially felt in the perusal of the first two books, which, as has been said, are principally devoted 
to an exposition and subversion of the various heretical systems. But the vagaries of the human 
mind, however melancholy in themselves, are never altogether destitute of instruction. And in 
dealing with those set before us in this work, we have not only the satisfaction of becoming ac- 
quainted with the currents of thought prevalent in these early times, but we obtain much valuable 
information regarding the primitive Church, which, had it not been for these heretical schemes, 
might never have reached our day. 

Not a little of what is contained in the following pages will seem almost unintelligible to the 
English reader. And it is scarcely more comprehensible to those who have pondered long on the 
original. We have inserted brief notes of explanation where these seemed specially necessary. 
But we have not thought it worth while to devote a great deal of space to the elucidation of those 
obscure Gnostic views which, in so many varying forms, are set forth in this work. For the same 
reason, we give here no account of the origin, history, and successive phases of Gnosticism. 
Those who wish to know the views of the learned on these points, may consult the writings of 
Neander, Baur, and others, among the Germans, or the lectures of Dr. Burton in English ; while 


a succinct description of the whole matter will be found in the “ Preliminary Observations on the 


Gnostic System,” prefixed to Harvey’s edition of Irenzeus. 

The great work of Irenzeus, now for the first time translated into English, is unfortunately no 
longer extant in the original. It has come down to us only in an ancient Latin version, with the 
exception of the greater part of the first book, which has been preserved in the original Greek, 
through means of copious quotations made by Hippolytus and Epiphanius. The text, both Latin 


> 


312 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 


and Greek, is often most uncertain. Only three Mss. of the work Against Heresies are at present 
known to exist. Others, however, were used in the earliest printed editions put forth by Erasmus. 
And as these codices were more ancient than any now available, it is greatly to be regretted that 
they have disappeared or perished. One of our difficulties throughout, has been to fix the read- 
ings we should adopt, especially in the first book. Varieties of reading, actual or conjectural, 
have been noted only when some point of special importance seemed to be involved. 

After the text has been settled, according to the best judgment which can be formed, the work 
of translation remains ; and that is, in this case, a matter of no small difficulty. Irenzeus, even in 
the original Greek, is often a very obscure writer. At times he expresses himself with remarkable 
clearness and terseness ; but, upon the whole, his style is very involved and prolix. And the Latin 
version adds.to these difficulties of the original, by being itself of the most barbarous character. 
In fact, it is often necessary to make a conjectural re-translation of it into Greek, in order to ob- 
tain some inkling of what the author wrote. Dodwell supposes this Latin version to have been 
made about the end of the fourth century ; but as Tertullian seems to have used it, we must rather 
place it in the beginning of the third. Its author is unknown, but he was certainly little qualified 
for his task. We have endeavoured to give as close and accurate a translation of the work as pos- 
sible, but there are not a few passages in which a guess can only be made as to the probable 
meaning. 

Irenzeus had manifestly taken great pains to make himself acquainted with the various heretical 
systems which he describes. His mode of exposing and refuting these is generally very effective. 
It is plain that he possessed a good share of learning, and that he had a firm grasp of the doctrines 
of Scripture. Not unfrequently he indulges in a kind of sarcastic humour, while inveighing 
against the folly and impiety of the heretics. But ‘at times he gives expression to very strange 
opinions. He is, for example, quite peculiar in imagining that our Lord lived to be an o/d man, 
and that His public ministry embraced at least em years. But though, on these and some other 
points, the judgment of Irenzeus is clearly at fault, his work contains a vast deal of sound and 
valuable exposition of Scripture, in opposition to the fanciful systems of interpretation which 
prevailed in his day. 

We possess only very scanty accounts of the personal history of Irenzus. It has been gen- 
erally supposed that he was a native of Smyrna, or some neighbouring city, in Asia Minor. Harvey, 
however, thinks that he was probably born in Syria, and removed in boyhood to Smyrna. He 
himself tells us (iii. 3, 4) that he was in early youth acquainted with Polycarp, the illustrious 
bishop of that city. A sort of clue is thus furnished as to the date of his birth. Dodwell sup- 
poses that he was born so early as A.D. 97, but this is clearly a mistake; and the general date 
assigned to his birth is somewhere between A.D. 120 and A.D. 140. 

It is certain that Irenzeus was bishop of Lyons, in France, during the latter quarter of the 
second century. The exact period or circumstances of his ordination cannot be determined. 
Eusebius states (/7is¢. Ecc/., v. 4) that he was, while yet a presbyter, sent with a letter, from cer- 
tain members of the Church of Lyons awaiting martyrdom, to Eleutherus, bishop of Rome ; and 
that (v. 5) he succeeded Pothinus as bishop of Lyons, probably about a.p. 177. His great work 
Against Heresies was, we learn, written during the episcopate of Eleutherus, that is, between a.D. 
182 and a.p. 188, for Victor succeeded to the bishopric of Rome in a.p. 189. This new bishop 
of Rome took very harsh measures for enforcing uniformity throughout the Church as to the ob- 
servance of the paschal solemnities. On account of the severity thus evinced, Irenzeus addressed 
to him a letter (only a fragment of which remains), warning him that if he persisted in the course 
on which he had entered, the effect would be to rend the Catholic Church in pieces. This letter 
had the desired result ; and the question was‘more temperately debated, until finally settled by the 
Council of Nice. 


The full title of the principal work of Irenzeus, as given by Eusebius (/is¢. Zcc/., v. 7), and 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE, 313 
indicated frequently by the author himself, was 4 Refutation and Subversion of Knowledge falsely 
so called, but it is generally referred to under the shorter title, Against Heresies. Several other 
smaller treatises are ascribed to Irenzeus ; viz., An Epistle to Florinus, of which a small fragment 
has been preserved by Eusebius ; a treatise On she Valentinian Ogdoad ; a work called forth by 
the paschal controversy, entitled On Schism, and another On Science, all of which that remain 
will be found in our next volume of his writings. Irenzeus is supposed to have died about a.p. 
202 ; but there is probably no real ground for the statement of Jerome, repeated by subsequent 
writers, that he suffered martyrdom, since neither Tertullian nor Eusebius, nor other early authori- 
ties, make any mention of such a fact. 

As has been already stated, the first printed copy of our author was given to the world by Eras- 
mus. ‘This was in the year 1526. Between that date and 1571, a number of reprints were pro- 
duced in both folio and octavo. All these contained merely the ancient barbarous Latin version, 
and were deficient towards the end by five entire chapters. hese latter were supplied by the 
edition of Feuardent, Professor of Divinity at Paris, which was published in 1575, and went 
through six subsequent editions. Previously to this, however, another had been set forth by Gal- 
lasius, a minister of Geneva, which contained the first portions of the Greek text from Epiphanius. 
Then, in 1702, came the edition of Grabe, a learned Prussian, who had settled in England. It 
was published at Oxford, and contained considerable additions to the Greek text, with fragments. 
Ten years after this there appeared the important Paris edition by the Benedictine monk Massuet. 
This was reprinted at Venice in the year 1724, in two thin folio volumes, and again at Paris in a 
large octavo, by the Abbé Migne, in 1857. A German edition was published by Stieren in 1853. 

In the year 1857 there was also brought out a Cambridge edition, by the Rev. Wigan Harvey, 
in two octavo volumes. The two principal features of this edition are: the additions which have 
been made to the Greek text from the recently discovered Philosophoumena of Hippolytus ; and 
the further addition of thirty-two fragments of a Syriac version of the Greek text of Irenzus, 
culled from the Nitrian collection of Syriac mss. in the British Museum. These fragments are of 
considerable interest, and in some instances rectify the readings of the barbarous Latin version, 
where, without such aid, it would have been unintelligible. The edition of Harvey will be found 

constantly referred to in the notes appended to our translation. 











a a ed 
eV a atl i ipo Se cae 


et" uh = 
,* « 
mdi Pets wh 24) 5. 


.- o 
it Sa 
eet 





IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


BOOK I. 





PREFACE. 


1. INASMUCH' as certain men have set the 
truth aside, and bring in lying words and vain 
genealogies, which, as the apostle says,? “ min- 
ister questions rather than godly edifying which 
is in faith,” and by means of their craftily-con- 
structed plausibilities draw away the minds of 
the inexperienced and take them captive, [I 
have felt constrained, my dear friend, to com- 
pose the following treatise in order to expose 
and counteract their machinations.] These men 
falsify the oracles of God, and prove themselves 
evil interpreters of the good word of revelation. 
They also overthrow the faith of many, by draw- 
ing them away, under a pretence of [superior] 
knowledge, from Him who founded and adorned 
the universe ; as if, forsooth, they had something 
more excellent and sublime to reveal, than that 
God who created the heaven and the earth, and 
all things that are therein. By means of specious 
and plausible words, they cunningly allure the 
simple-minded to inquire into their system ; but 
they nevertheless clumsily destroy them, while 
they initiate them into their blasphemous and 
impious opinions respecting the Demiurge ;3 
and these simple ones are unable, even in such 
a matter, to distinguish falsehood from truth. 

2. Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked 
deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at 
once be detected. But. it is craftily decked out 
in an attractive dress, so as,.by its outward form, 





I The Greek original of the work of Irenzus is from time to time 
recovered through the numerous quotations made from it by subse- 
uent writers, especially by the author’s pupil Hippolytus, and by 
iphanius, The latter preserves (Har, xxx1. secs. 9-32) the preface 
of renzeus, and most of the first book. An important difference of 
reading occurs between the Latin and Greek in the very first word. 
The translator manifestly read’ére’, guatenus, while in Epiphanius 
we find ém(, against. The former is probably correct, and has been 
followed in our version... We have also supplied a clause, in order to 
avoid the extreme length of the sentence in the original, which runs 
on without. any apodosis to the words avayxaiov nynoauyy, “I have 
judged it necessary.” . 
2x. Tim.i. 4. The Latin has here genealogias infinttas, “Cend- 
less genealogies,” as in textus receptus of New Testament. 
3 As will be seen by and by, this fancied being. was, in the Valen- 


tinian system, the creator of the material universe, but far inferior to 
the supreme ruler Bythus. 


to make it appear to the inexperienced (ridicu- 
lous as the expression may seem) more true than 
the truth itself. One+ far superior to me has 
well said, in reference to this point, “A clever 
imitation in glass casts contempt, as it were, on 
that precious jewel the emerald (which is most. 
highly esteemed by some), unless it come under 
the eye of one able to test and expose the coun- 
terfeit. Or, again, what inexperienced person 
can with ease detect the presence of brass when 
it has been mixed up with silver?” Lest, there- 
fore, through my neglect, some should be carried 
off, even as sheep are by wolves, while they per- 
ceive not the true character of these men, — 
because they outwardly are covered with sheep’s 
clothing (against whom the Lord has enjoined 5 
us to be on our guard), and because their lan- 
guage resembles ours, while their sentiments are 
very different, —I have deemed it my duty (after 
reading some of the Commentaries, as they call 
them, of the disciples of Valentinus, and after 
making myself acquainted with their tenets 
through personal intercourse with some of them) 
to unfold to thee, my friend, these portentous 
and profound mysteries, which do not fall within 
the range of every intellect, because all have not 
sufficiently purged® their brains. I do this, in 
order that thou, obtaining an acquaintance with 
these things, mayest in turn explain them to all 
those with whom thou art connected, and exhort 
them to avoid such an abyss of madness and of 
blasphemy against Christ. I intend, then, to the 
best of my ability, with brevity and clearness 
to set forth the opinions of those who are now 
i agers ete RRA SAP OPT ed 


4 There are frequent references in Irenzus to some venerable men ~ 
who had preceded him in the Church. It is supposed that Pothinus, 
whom he succeeded at Lyons, is generally meant; but the reference 
may sometimes be to Polycarp, with whom in early life he had been 
acquainted, : 

5 Comp. Matt. vii. 15. 

6 The original is ¢yxépadov éfentvxacwv, which the Latin trans- 
lator renders simply, “have not sufficient brains.” He probably 
followed Bee newnt different reading. Various emendations have 
been proposed, but the author may be understood by the ordinary 
text to be referring ironically to the boasted subtlety and sublimity 
of the Gnostics. 


355 


316 





promulgating heresy. I refer especially to the 
disciples of Ptolemzus, whose school may be 
described as a bud from that of Valentinus. I 
shall also endeavour, according to my moderate 
ability, to furnish the means of overthrowing 
them, by showing how absurd and inconsistent 
with the truth are their statements. Not that I 
am practised either in composition or eloquence ; 
but my feeling of affection prompts me to make 
_known to thee and all thy companions those 
doctrines which have been kept in concealment 
until now, but which are at last, through the 
goodness of God, brought to light.“ For there 
is nothing hidden which shall not be revealed, 
nor secret that shall not be made known.” * 

3. Thou wilt not expect from me, who am 
resident among the Kelte,? and am accustomed 
for the most part to use a barbarous dialect, any 
display of rhetoric, which I have never learned, 
or any excellence of composition, which I have 
never practised, or any beauty and persuasive- 
ness of style, to which I make no pretensions. 
But thou wilt accept in a kindly spirit what I in 
a like spirit write to thee simply, truthfully, and 
in my own homely way ; whilst thou thyself (as 
being more capable than I am) wilt expand those 
ideas of which I send thee, as it were, only the 
seminal principles ; and in the comprehensive- 
ness of thy understanding, wilt develop to their 
full extent the points on which I briefly touch, 
so as to set with power before thy companions 
those things which I have uttered in weakness. 
In fine, as I (to gratify thy long-cherished desire 
for information regarding the tenets of these 
persons) have spared no pains, not only to make 
these doctrines known to thee, but also to furnish 
the means of showing their falsity ; so shalt thou, 
according to the grace given to thee by the Lord, 
prove an earnest and efficient minister to others, 
that men may no longer be drawn away by the 
plausible system of these heretics, which I now 
proceed to describe. 


CHAP. I.—-ABSURD IDEAS OF THE DISCIPLES OF 
VALENTINUS AS TO THE ORIGIN, NAME, ORDER, 
AND CONJUGAL PRODUCTIONS OF THEIR FANCIED 
EONS, WITH THE PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE WHICH 
THEY ADAPT TO THEIR OPINIONS. 


1. THEY maintain, then, that in the invisible 
and ineffable heights above there exists a cer- 
tain perfect, pre-existent Aton, whom they call 


t Matt. x. 26. 

2 As Cesar informs us (Comm., i. 1), Gaul was divided into three 
parts, one of which was called Celtic Gaul, lying between the Seine 
and the Garonne, Of this division Lyons is the principal city. 

3 [The reader will find a logical and easy introduction to the 
crabbed details which follow, by turning to chap. xxiii., and reading 
through succeeding chapters down to chap. od | 

4 This term Zon (Aldy) seems to-have been formed from the 
words act ov, ever-existing. ‘We may take aidy, therefore,” says 
Harvey (/renexs, cxix.), “‘in the Valentinian acceptation of the 
word, to mean an emanation from the divine substance, subsisting co- 


ordinately and co-eternally with the Deity, the Pleroma still remain- 
ing on¢ 








IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


NTs Nr mene TS Ee 


Proarche, Propator, and Bythus, and describe 
as being invisible and incomprehensible. Eter- 
nal and unbegotten, he remained throughout 
innumerable cycles of ages in profound serenity 
and quiescence. There existed along with him 
Enncea, whom they also call Charis and Sige.° 
At last this Bythus determined to send forth from 
himself the beginning of all things, and deposited 
this production (which he had resolved to bring 
forth) in his contemporary Sige, even as seed is 
deposited in the womb. She then, having re- 
ceived this seed, and becoming pregnant, gave 
birth to Nous, who was both similar and equal 
to him who had produced him, and was alone 
capable of comprehending his father’s greatness. 
This Nous they call also Monogenes, and Father, 
and the Beginning of all Things. Along with 
him was also produced Aletheia ; and these four 
constituted the first and first-begotten Pythago- 
rean Tetrad, which they also denominate the 
root of all things. For there are first Bythus and 
Sige, and then Nous and Aletheia. And Mono- 
genes, perceiving for what purpose he had been 
produced, also himself sent forth Logos and Zoe, 
being the father of all those who were to come 
after him, and the beginning and fashioning of 
the entire Pleroma. By the conjunction of Logos 
and Zoe were brought forth Anthropos and Ec- 
clesia; and thus was formed the first-begotten 
Ogdoad, the root and substance of all things, 
called among them by four names, viz., Bythus, 
and Nous, and Logos, and Anthropos. For each 
of these is masculo-feminine, as follows: Propa- 
tor was united by a conjunction with his Enncea ; 
then Monogenes, that is Nous, with Aletheia ; 
Logos with Zoe, and Anthropos with Ecclesia. 

2. These Eons having been produced for the 
glory of the Father, and wishing, by their own 
efforts, to effect this object, sent forth emana- 
tions by means of conjunction. Logos and Zoe, 
after producing Anthropos and Ecclesia, sent 
forth other ten A®ons, whose names are the 
following: Bythius and Mixis, Ageratos and 
Henosis, Autophyes and Hedone, Acinetos and 
Syncrasis, Monogenes and Macaria.® These are 


5 Sige, however, was no true consort of Bythus, who included in 
himself the idea _of male and female, and was the one cause of all 
things: comp. Hippolytus, Phz/osop., vi. 29. There seems to have 
been considerable disagreement among these heretics as to the com- 
pletion of the mystical number thirty. Valentinus himself appears to 

ave considered Bythus as a monad, and Sige as a mere nonentity. 
The two latest ASons, Christ and the Holy Spirit, would then com- 
plete the number thirty. But other Gnostic teachers included both 
Bythus and Sige in that mystical number. 

It may be well to give here the English equivalents of the names 
of these AZons and their authors, They are as follows: Bythus, Pro- 
free, s Proarche, First-Beginning,; Propator, First-Father ; 

nnoea, /dea ; Charis, Grace » Sige, Szlence ; Nous, [ntelligence ; 
Aletheia, Truth ; Logos, Word ; Zoe, Life ; Anthropos, Man ; Ec- 
clesia, Churct ; Bythius, Deep; Mixis, Mingling ; Ageratos, Us- 
decaying; Henosis, Union, Autophyes, Selfexzstent ; Hedone, 
Pleasure; Acinetos, Jmmoveable ; Syncrasis, Blending ; Mono- 
genes, Only-Begotten ; Macaria, Happiness; Paracletus, Advo- 
cate; Pistis, Faith ; Patricos, Ancestral ; Elpis, Hope ; Metricos, 
Metrical » Agape, Love; Ainos, Pratse ; Synesis, Understanding ; 
Ecclesiasticus, Ecclestastical ; Macariotes, Felicity; Theletos, De- 
siderated ; Sophia, Wisdom. 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


317 





the ten AZons whom they declare to have been 
produced by Logos and Zoe. They then add that 
Anthropos himself, along with Ecclesia, produced 
twelve AZons, to whom they give the following 
names: Paracletus and Pistis, Patricos and Elpis, 
Metricos and Agape, Ainos and Synesis, Eccle- 
siasticus and Macariotes, Theletos and Sophia. 

3- Such are the thirty Avons in the erroneous 
system of these men ; and they are described as 
being wrapped up, so to speak, in silence, and 
known to none [except these professing teachers]. 
Moreover, they declare that this invisible and 
spiritual Pleroma of theirs is tripartite, being di- 
vided into an Ogdoad, a Decad, and a Duodecad. 
And for this reason they affirm it was that the 
“Saviour ”— for they do not please to call Him 
“Lord” —did no work in public during the space 
of thirty years," thus setting forth the mystery of 
these AZons. They maintain also, that these thirty 
fons are most plainly indicated in the parable? 
of the labourers sent into the vineyard. For 
some are sent about the first hour, others about 
the third hour, others about the sixth hour, 
others about the ninth hour, and others about the 
eleventh hour. Now, if we add up the numbers 
of the hours here mentioned, the sum total will 
be thirty: for one, three, six, nine, and eleven, 
when added together, form thirty. And by the 
hours, they hold that the AXons were pointed 
out; while they maintain that these are great, 
and wonderful, and hitherto unspeakable myste- 
ries which it is their special function to develop ; 
and so they proceed when they find anything in 
the multitude 3 of things contained in the Scrip- 
tures which they can adopt and accommodate to 
their baseless speculations. 


CHAP. II. —-THE PROPATOR WAS KNOWN TO MONO- 
GENES ALONE. AMBITION, DISTURBANCE, AND 
DANGER INTO WHICH SOPHIA FELL ; HER SHAPE- 
LESS OFFSPRING: SHE IS RESTORED BY HOROS. 
THE PRODUCTION OF CHRIST AND OF THE HOLY 
SPIRIT, IN ORDER TO THE COMPLETION OF THE 
EONS. MANNER OF THE PRODUCTION OF JESUS. 


1. They proceed to tell us that the Propator 
of their scheme was known only to Monogenes, 
who sprang from him; in other words, only to 
Nous, while to all the others he was invisible 
and incomprehensible. And, according to them, 
Nous alone took pleasure in contemplating the 
Father, and exulting in considering his immeas- 
urable greatness ; while he also meditated how he 
might communicate to the rest of the AXons the 
greatness of the Father, revealing to them how 
vast and mighty he was, and how, he was with- 
‘out beginning,— beyond comprehension, and 
ULE a ahead 1 bs ae a ne Ra Ra SL 

t Luke iii. 23:: 

2 Matt. xx. 1-16. 

3. Some-omit év A76ec, while others render the words ‘‘a definite 


number,” thus: “ And if there is anything else in Scripture which is 
referred to by a definite number.” 


nature enabled her to produce. 


altogether incapable of being seen. But, in 
accordance with the will of the Father, Sige 
restrained him, because it was his design to lead 
them all to an acquaintance with the aforesaid 
Propator, and to create within them a desire of 
investigating his nature. In like manner, the rest 
of the ons also, in a kind of quiet way, had 
a wish to behold the Author of their being, and 
to contemplate that First Cause which had no 
beginning. 

2. But there rushed forth in advance of the 
rest that ASon who was much the latest of them, 
and was the youngest of the Duodecad which 
sprang from Anthropos and Ecclesia, namely 
Sophia, and suffered passion apart from the em- 
brace of her consort Theletos. This passion, 
indeed, first arose among those who were con- 
nected with Nous and Aletheia, but passed as 
by contagion to this degenerate A‘on, who acted 
under a pretence of love, but was in reality in- 
fluenced by temerity, because she had not, 
like Nous, enjoyed communion with the perfect 
Father. This passion, they say, consisted in a 
desire to search into the nature of the Father ; 
for she wished, according to them, to compre- 
hend his greatness. When she could not attain 
her end, inasmuch as she aimed at an impos- 
sibility, and thus became involved in an extreme 
agony of mind, while both on account of the vast 
profundity as well as the unsearchable nature of 
the Father, and on account of the love she bore 
him, she was ever stretching herself forward, 
there was danger lest she should at last have 
been absorbed by his sweetness, and resolved 
into his absolute essence, unless she had met 
with that Power which supports all things, and 
preserves them outside of the unspeakable great- 
ness. This power they term Horos ; by whom, 
they say, she was restrained and supported ; and 
that then, having with difficulty been brought 
back to herself, she was convinced that the 
Father is incomprehensible, and so laid aside 
her original design, along with that passion which 
had arisen within her from the overwhelming 
influence of her admiration. 

3. But others of them fabulously describe the 
passion and restoration of Sophia as follows: 
They say that she, having engaged in an im- 
possible and impracticable attempt, brought forth 
an amorphous substance, such as her female 
When she 
looked upon it, her first feeling was one of grief, 
on account of the imperfection of its generation, 
and then of fear lest this should end5 her own 
existence. Next she lost, as it were, all com- 





4 Alluding to the Gnostic notion that, in generation, the male gives 
form, the female substance. Sophia, therefore, being a female Aon, 
gave to her enthymesis substance alone, without form. Comp..Hippol., 
Philosop., Vi. 30. : 3 

5 Some render this obscure clause, ‘‘ lest it should never attain 
perfection,” but the above seems preferable. See Hippol., vi. 31, 
where the fear referred to is extended to the whole Pleroma. 


318 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





mand of herself, and was in the greatest per- 
plexity while endeavouring to discover the cause 
of all this, and in what way she might conceal 
what had happened. Being greatly harassed by 
these passions, she at last changed her mind, 
and endeavoured to return anew to the Father. 
When, however, she in some measure made the 
attempt, strength failed her, and she became a 
suppliant of the Father. The other AZons, Nous 
in particular, presented their supplications along 
with her. And hence they declare material sub- 
stance’ had its beginning from ignorance and 
grief, and fear and bewilderment. 

4. The Father afterwards produces, in his 
own image, by means of Monogenes, the above- 
mentioned Horos, without conjunction,? masculo- 
feminine. For they maintain that sometimes 
the Father acts in conjunction with Sige, but 
that at other times he shows himself indepen- 
dent both of male and female. They term this 
Horos both Stauros and Lytrotes, and Carpistes, 
and Horothetes, and Metagoges.3 And by this 
Horos they declare that Sophia was purified and 
established, while she was also restored to her 
proper conjunction. For her enthymesis (or 
inborn idea) having been taken away from her, 
along with its supervening passion, she herself 
certainly remained within the Pleroma; but her 
enthymesis, with its passion, was separated from 
her by Horos, fenced+ off, and expelled from 
that circle. This enthymesis was, no doubt, a 
spiritual substance, possessing some of the nat- 
ural tendencies of an AZon, but at the same time 
shapeless and without form, because it had re- 
ceived nothing.’ And on this account they say 
that it was an imbecile and feminine production.® 

5. After this substance had been placed out- 
side of the Pleroma of the AZons, and its mother 
restored to her proper conjunction, they tell us 
that Monogenes, acting in accordance with the 
prudent forethought of the Father, gave origin 
to another conjugal pair, namely Christ and the 
Holy Spirit (lest any of the A®ons should fall 
into a calamity similar to that of Sophia), for 





t “ The reader will observe the parallel; as the enthymesis of 
Bythus produced intelligent substance, so the enthymesis of Sophia 
resulted in the formation of material substance.” — Tteves 

2 Some propose reading these words in the dative rather than 
the accusative, and thus to make them refer to the image of the 
Father. 

3 The meaning of these terms is as follows: Stauros means pri- 
marily a stake, and then a cross; Lytrotes isa Redeemer; Car- 

istes, according to Grabe, means an Emancipator, according to 
eander a Reafer ; Horothetes is one that fixes boundaries ; and 
Metagoges is explained by Neander as being one that brings back, 
from the supposed function of Horos, to bring back all that sought to 
wander from the special grade of being assigned them. 
ns The common text has amoorepyORvat, was deprived ; but Bil- 
hus proposes to read amoctavpw6qvat, in conformity with the ancient 
Latin version, “ crucifixam.” 

5 That is, had not shared in any male influence, but was a purely 
female production. : 

® Literally, ‘ fruit.” Harvey remarks on this expression, “ that 
what we understand by emanations, the Gnostic described as spiritual 
“od hohe 6} and as the seed of atree is in itself, even in the em- 

Tyo state, so these various AZons, as existing always in the divine 
nature, were co-eternal with it.” 


the purpose of fortifying and strengthening the 
Pleroma, and who at the same time completed 
the number of the AZons. Christ then instructed 
them as to the nature of their conjunction, and 
taught them that those who possessed a compre- 
hension of the Unbegotten were sufficient for 
themselves.?7 He also announced among them 
what related to the knowledge of the Father, — 
namely, that he cannot be understood or com- 
prehended, nor so much as seen or heard, ex- 
cept in so far as he is known by Monogenes 
only. And the reason why the rest of the AZons 
possess perpetual existence is found in that part 
of the Father’s nature which is incomprehensi- 
ble ; but the reason of their origin and formation 
was situated in that which may be comprehended 
regarding him, that is, inthe Son. Christ, then, 
who had just been produced, effected these things 
among them. 

6. But the Holy Spirit 9 taught them to give 
thanks on being all rendered equal among them- 
selves, and led them to a state of true repose. 
Thus, then, they tell us that the A°ons were con- 
stituted equal to each other in form and senti- 
ment, so that all became as Nous, and Logos, 
and Anthropos, and Christus. The female ons, 
too, became all as Aletheia, and Zoe, and Spiritus, 
and Ecclesia. Everything, then, being thus es- 
tablished, and brought into a state of perfect 
rest, they next tell us that these beings sang 
praises with great joy to the Propator, who him- 
self shared in the abounding exaltation. Then, 
out of gratitude for the great benefit which had 
been conferred on them, the whole Pleroma of 
the AZons, with one design and desire, and with 
the concurrence of Christ and the Holy Spirit, 
their Father also setting the seal of His approval 
on their conduct, brought together whatever each 
one had in himself of the greatest beauty and 
preciousness ; and uniting all these contributions 
so as skilfully to blend the whole, they produced, 
to the honour and glory of Bythus, a being of 
most perfect beauty, the very star of the Ple- 
roma, and the perfect fruit [of it], namely Jesus. 
Him they also speak of under the name of Sav- 
iour, and Christ, and patronymically, Logos, and 
Everything, because He was formed from the 
contributions of all. And then we are told that, 
by way of honour, angels of the same nature as 
Himself were simultaneously produced, to act 
as His body-guard. 
Enno Nr tere Mie ee AS PY, 

Be ithe : . : 
rendering is: For say they, Che Guane Gat eeae 
copulz, (namely,) that being cognisant of their (limited) perception 
of the Unbegotten they needed no higher knowledge, and that He 
enounced,” etc. The words seem scarcely capable of yielding this 
sense: we have followed the interpretation of Billius, : 

8 Both the text and meaning are here very doubtful. Some think 
that the import of the sentence is, that the perhiers 3 that the Father 


is incomprehensible secured the continued safety of the ALons, while 


ee same knowledge conferred upon Monogenes his origin ‘and 
form, : 


9 The Greek text inserts év, one, before Holy Spirit.” 


OOS yg Bm 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES, 


319 





CHAP. Ill. — TEXTS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE USED’ BY 
THESE HERETICS TO SUPPORT THEIR OPINIONS. 


1. Such, then, is the account they give of 
what took place within the Pleroma; such the 
calamities that flowed from the passion which 
seized upon the AZon who has been named, and 
who was within a little of perishing by being 
absorbed in the universal substance, through 
her inquisitive searching after the Father ; such 
the consolidation ' [of that AZon] from her con- 
dition of agony by Horos, and Stauros, and 
Lytrotes, and Carpistes, and Horothetes, and 
Metagoges.? Such also is the account of the 
generation of the later Atons, namely of the first 
Christ and of the Holy Spirit, both of whom 
were produced by the Father after the repent- 
ance 3 [of Sophia], and of the second‘ Christ 
(whom they also style Saviour), who owed his 
being to the joint contributions [of the AZons]. 
They tell us, however, that this knowledge has 
not been openly divulged, because all are not 
capable of receiving it, but has been mystically 
revealed by the Saviour through means of para- 
bles to those qualified for understanding it. 
This has been done as follows. ‘The thirty 
fons are indicated (as we have already re- 
marked) by the thirty years during which they 
say the Saviour performed no public act, and 
by the parable of the labourers in the vineyard. 
Paul also, they affirm, very clearly and frequently 
names these Atons, and even goes so far as to 
preserve their order, when he says, “To all the 
generations of. the AZons of the Aton.”5 Nay, 
we ourselves, when at the giving® of thanks we 
pronounce the words, “To ‘Eons of Hons” 
(for ever and ever), do set forth these AZons. 
And, in fine, wherever the words on or ons 
occur, they at once refer them to these beings. 

2. The production, again, of the Duodecad 
of the AZons, is indicated by the fact that the 
Lord was Awelve7 years of age when He disputed 
with the teachers of the law, and by the election 
of the apostles, for of these there were twelve.® 
The other eighteen AZons are made manifest in 
this way: that the Lord, [according to them, | 


ee 


I The reading is here very doubtful. We have followed the text 
of Grabe (approved by Harvey), é& ay@vos oupmnées. es 

2 These are all names of the same person: see above, li. 4, 
Hence some have proposed the reading ¢fatavtos instead of é§ ayavos, 
alluding to the sixfold appellation of the Zon Horos. 

3 Billius renders, ‘from the repentance of the Father,” but the 
above seems preferable. Sphere ne 
_ 4& Harvey remarks, “Even in their Christology the Valentinians 
must have their part and counterpart.” 

5 Or, “to all the generations of the ages of the age.” See Eph. 
iii. 2x. The apostle, of course, simply uses these words as a strong 
expression to denote “forever.” | ae 

6 Literally, “at the thanksgiving,” or “ eucharist.” Massuet, 
the Benedictine editor, refers this to the Lord’s. Supper, and hence 
concludes that some.of, the ancient liturgies still extant must even 
then have been in use. Harvey and others, however, deny.that there 
is any necessity for supposing the Holy Eucharist to be referred to; 
the ancient Latin version translates in the plural, “in gratiarum 
actionibus.” — .- 

7 Lukeii. 42, °° vents $4 

8 Luke vi. 13. 


conversed with His 
months? after His resurrection from the dead. 
They also affirm that these eighteen AZons are 








disciples for eighteen 


strikingly indicated by the first two letters of 
His name ["Incots], namely Jo/a'? and Liza. 


And, in like manner, they assert that the ten 
Eons are pointed out by the letter /ofa, which 


begins His name; while, for the same reason, 
they tell us the Saviour said, “ One /o/a, or one 
tittle, shall by no means pass away until all be 
fulfilled.” ** 

3. They further maintain that the passion 
which took place in the case of the twelfth Aton 
is pointed at by the apostasy of Judas, who was 
the twelfth apostle, and also by the fact that 
Christ suffered in the twelfth month. For their 
opinion is, that He continued to preach for one 
year only after His baptism. The same thing is 
also most clearly indicated by the case of the 
woman who suffered from an issue of blood. 
For after she had been thus afflicted during 
twelve years, she was healed by the advent of 
the Saviour, when she had touched the border 
of His garment ; and on this account the Saviour 
said, “Who touched me?” ?—teaching his dis- 
ciples the mystery which had occurred among 
the AZons, and the healing of that Aton who 
had been involved in suffering. For she who 
had been afflicted twelve years represented that 
power whose essence, as they narrate, was 
stretching itself forth, and flowing into immen-- 
sity; and unless she had touched the garment 
of the Son," that is, Aletheia of the first Tetrad, 
who is denoted by the hem spoken of, she 
would have been dissolved into the general 
essence 4 [of which she participated]. She 
stopped short, however, and ceased any longer 
to suffer. For the power that went forth from 
the Son (and this power they term Horos) 
healed her, and separated the passion from her. 

4. They moreover affirm that the Saviour *5 is 
shown to be derived from all the AZons, and to 
be in Himself everything by the following pas- 
sage: “Every male that openeth the womb.” xe 
For He, being everything, opened the womb ‘7 
of the enthymesis of the suffering Aton, when 


Ra a ee 
9 This opinion is in positive contradicticn ts the forty days men- 
tioned by St. Luke (Acts i. 3). But the Valentinians seem to have 
followed a spurious writing of their own called “The Gospel of 
Truth.” See iii. 11, 8. ; : 
10 The numeral value of /ofa in Greek is ten, and of Eéa, eight. 
II Matt. v. 18. : 
12 Mark v. 31. hee ; 
13 The Latin reads “ filii,” which we have followed. Reference 1s 
made inthis word to Nous, who was, as we have already seen, also 
called Son, and who interested himself in the recovery of: Sophia. 
Aletheia was his consort, and was typified by the hem of the Saviour’s 
garment, Eee 

14 Her individuality (uop}y) would have been lost, while her sub- 
stance (ovata) would have survived in the common essence of the 
Eons. : : 

15 That is, the ‘‘second Christ” referred to above sec. 1 {It is 
much to be wished that this second were always distinguished by the 
untranslated name Softer. | 

16 Ex, xiii. 2; Luke ii. 23. ; ‘ 

17 Not as being born of it, but as fecundating st, and so producing 
a manifold offspring, See below. 


320 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


Nee ee ee 


it had been expelled from the Pleroma. This 
they also style the second Ogdoad, of which we 
shall speak presently. And they state that it 
was clearly on this account that Paul said, “ And 
He Himself is all things;”* and again, “ All 
things are to Him, and of Him are all things ;”? 
and further, “In Him dwelleth all the fulness of 
the Godhead ;’’3 and yet again, “ All things are 
gathered together by God in Christ.”4 Thus do 
they interpret these and any like passages to be 
found in Scripture. 

5. They show, further, that that Horos of 
theirs, whom they call by a variety of names, 
has two faculties, — the one of supporting, and 
the other of separating ; and in so far as he sup- 
ports and sustains, he is Stauros, while in so far 
as he divides and separates, he is Horos. They 
then represent the Saviour as having indicated 
this twofold faculty: first, the sustaining power, 
when He said, ‘“ Whosoever doth not bear his 
cross (Stauros), and follow after me, cannot be 
my disciple;”5 and again, “Taking up the 
cross, follow me;’’® but the separating power 
when He said, “I came not to send peace, but 
a sword.”7 They also maintain that John indi- 
cated the same thing when he said, “ The fan is 
in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge the 
floor, and will gather the wheat into His garner ; 
but the chaff He will burn with fire unquench- 
able.”* By this declaration He set forth the 
faculty of Horos. For that fan they explain to 
be the cross (Stauros), which consumes, no 
doubt, all material 9 objects, as fire does chaff, 
but it purifies all them that are saved, as a fan 
does wheat. Moreover, they affirm that the 
Apostle Paul himself made mention of this cross 
in the following words: “The doctrine of the 
cross is to them that perish foolishness, but to us 
who are saved it is the power of God.’’'° And 
again: “ God forbid that I should glory in any- 
thing "* save in the cross of Christ, by whom the 
world is crucified to me, and I unto the world.” 

6. Such, then, is the account which they all 
give of their Pleroma, and of the formation ” of 
the universe, striving, as they do, to adapt the 
good words of revelation to their own wicked in- 





5 Luke xiv. 27, It will be observed that the quotations of Scrip: 
ture made by Irenzeus often vary somewhat from the received text. 
This may be due to various reasons — his quoting from memory; his 
giving the texts in the form in which they were quoted by the heretics; 
or, as Harvey conjectures, from his having been more familiar with a 
Syriac version of the New Testament than with the Greek original. 

Matt. x. 21, 

7 Matt. x. 34. 

8 Luke iii. 17. 

9 Hence Stauros was called by the agricultural name Carpistes, 


of separating what was gross and material from the spiritual and 
aven 


ly. 
toy; Coe. i. 18, 
és A Gal. vi. 14. The words éy undert do not occur in the Greek 
xt. 
2 Billius renders, “ of their opinion.” 


ventions. And it is not only from the writings 
of the evangelists and the apostles that they en- 
deavour to derive proofs for their opinions by 
means of perverse interpretations and deceitful 
expositions: they deal in the same way with the 
law and the prophets, which contain many para- 
bles and allegories that can frequently be drawn 
into various senses, according to the kind of exe- 
gesis to which they are subjected. And others ‘5 
of them, with great craftiness, adapted such parts 
of Scripture to their own figments, lead away 
captive from the truth those who do not retain a 
stedfast faith in one God, the Father Almighty, 
and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 


CHAP. IV.—- ACCOUNT GIVEN BY THE HERETICS OF 
THE FORMATION OF ACHAMOTH ; ORIGIN OF THE 
VISIBLE WORLD FROM HER DISTURBANCES. 


1. The following are the transactions which 
they narrate as having occurred outside of the 
Pleroma: The enthymesis of that Sophia who 
dwells above, which they also term Achamoth," 
being removed from the Pleroma, together with 
her passion, they relate to have, as a matter of 
course, become violently excited in those places 
of darkness and vacuity [to which she had been 
banished]. For she was excluded from light '5 
and the Pleroma, and was without form or figure, 
like an untimely birth, because she had received 
nothing ‘© [from a male parent]. But the Christ 
dwelling on high took pity upon her; and having 
extended himself through and beyond Stauros,'7 
he imparted a figure to her, but merely as re- 
spected substance, and not so as to convey 
intelligence.*® Having effected this, he withdrew 
his influence, and returned, leaving Achamoth to 
herself, in order that she, becoming sensible of 
her suffering as being severed from the Pleroma, 
might be influenced by the desire of better things, 
while she possessed in the meantime a kind of 
odour of immortality left in her by Christ and the 
Holy Spirit. Wherefore also she is called by two 
names — Sophia after her father (for Sophia jis 
spoken of as being her father), and Holy Spirit 
from that Spirit who is along with Christ. Hav- 
ing then obtained a form, along with intelligence, 
and being immediately deserted by that Logos 
who had been invisibly present with her — that 
is, by Christ —she strained herself to discover 
that light which had forsaken her, but could not 





13 The punctuation and rendering are here slightly doubtful. 

%4 This term, though Tertullian declares himself to have been ig- 
norant of its derivation, was evidently formed from the Hebrew word 
WWIIN) —chockmah, wisdom. 


1s The reader will observe that /igh? and fulness are the exact 
correlatives of the darkness and vacutty which have just been 
mentioned. 

16 As above stated (ii. 3), the Gnostics held that form and figure 
were due to the male, substance to the female parent. 

17 The Valentinian Stauros was the boundary fence of the Pleroma 
bseheeay which Christ extended himself to assist the enthymesis of 

ophia. 

18 The peculiar gyost’s which Noys received from his father, and 

communicated to the other Eons, 


IRENAZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


321 


a 


effect.her purpose, inasmuch as she was prevent- 
ed by Horos. And as Horos thus obstructed her 
further progress, he exclaimed, IAO,' whence, 
they say, this name /ao derived its origin. And 
when she could not pass by Horos on account of 
that passion in which she had been involved, and 
because she alone had been left without, she 
then resigned herself to every sort of that mani- 
fold and varied state of passion to which she was 
subject ; and thus she suffered grief on the one 
hand because she had not obtained the object of 
her desire, and fear on the other hand, lest life 
itself should fail her, as light had already done, 
while, in addition, she was in the greatest per- 
plexity. All these feelings were associated with 
ignorance. And this ignorance of hers was not, 
like that of her mother, the first Sophia, an Zon, 
due to degeneracy by means of passion, but to 
an [innate] opposition [of nature to knowledge]. 
Moreover, another kind of passion fell upon her 
(Achamoth), namely, that of desiring to return 
to him who gave her life. 

2. This collection [of passions] they declare 
was the substance of the matter from which this 
world was formed. For from [her desire of] re- 
turning [to him who gave her life], every soul be- 
longing to this world, and that of the Demiurge 3 
himself, derived its origin. All other things owed 
their beginning to her terror and sorrow. For 
from her tears all that is of a liquid nature was 
formed ; from her smile all that is lucent; and 
from her grief and perplexity all the corporeal 
elements of the world. For at one time, as they 
affirm, she would weep and lament on account 
of being left alone in the midst of darkness and 
vacuity ; while, at another time, reflecting on 
the light which had forsaken her, she would be 
filled with joy, and laugh ; then, again, she would 
be struck with terror; or, at other times, would 
sink into consternation and bewilderment. 

3. Now what follows from all this? No light 
tragedy comes out of it, as the fancy of every 
man among them pompously explains, one in one 
way, and another in another, from what kind of 
passion and from what element being derived 
its origin. They have good reason, as seems to 
me, why they should not feel inclined to teach 
these things to all in public, but only to such as 
are able to pay a high price for an acquaintance 
with such profound mysteries. For these doc- 
trines are not at all similar to those of which 
our Lord said, “ Freely ye have received, freely 
give.’* They are, on the contrary, abstruse, 
and portentous, and profound mysteries, to be 





1 Probably corresponding to the Hebrew "11", Fehovah. | 

2 This sentence is very elliptical in the original, but the sense is as 
given above. Sophia fell from Gnosts by degradation; Achamoth 
never possessed this knowledge, her nature being from the first op- 
posed to it. 

3 “ The Demiur; 
spiritual nature.” — 

4 Matt, x, 8 


¢ derived from Enthymesis an animal, and not a 
ARVEY, 








got at only with great labour by such as are in 
love with falsehood. For who would not expend 
all that he possessed, if only he might learn in 
return, that from the tears of the enthymesis of 
the Aon involved in passion, seas, and fountains, 
and rivers, and every liquid substance derived 
its origin ; that light burst forth from her smile ; 
and that from her perplexity and consternation 
the corporeal elements of the world had their 
formation ? 

4. I feel somewhat inclined myself to con- 
tribute a few hints towards the development of 
their system. For when I perceive that waters 
are in part fresh, such as fountains, rivers, showers, 
and so on, and in part salt, such as those in the 
sea, I reflect with myself that all such waters 
cannot be derived from her tears, inasmuch as 
these are of a saline quality only. It is clear, 
therefore, that the waters which are salt are alone 
those which are derived from her tears. But it 
is probable that she, in her intense agony and 
perplexity, was covered with perspiration. And 
hence, following out their notion, we may con- 
ceive that fountains and rivers, and all the fresh 
water in the world, are due to this source. For 
it is difficult, since we know that all tears are of 
the same quality, to believe that waters both 
salt and fresh proceeded from them. The more 
plausible supposition is, that some are from her 
tears, and some from her perspiration. And 
since there are also in the world certain waters 
which are hot and acrid in their nature, thou 
must be left to guess their origin, how and whence. 
Such are some of the results of their hypothesis. 

5. They go on to state that, when the mother 
Achamoth had passed through all sorts of pas- 
sion, and had with difficulty escaped from them, 
she turned herself to supplicate the light which 
had forsaken her, that is, Christ. He, however, 
having returned to the Pleroma, and being prob- 
ably unwilling again to descend from it, sent 
forth to her the Paraclete, that is, the Saviour.5 
This being was endowed with all power by the 
Father, who placed everything under his author- 
ity, the A‘ons® doing so likewise, so that “by 
him were all things, visible and invisible, created, 
thrones, divinities, dominions.” ? He then was 
sent to her along with his contemporary angels. 
And they related that Achamoth, filled with rev- 
erence, at first veiled herself through modesty, 
but that by and by, when she had looked upon 
him with all his endowments, and had acquired 
strength from his appearance, she ran forward to 
meet him. He then imparted to her form as 
respected intelligence, and brought healing to 
her passions, separating them from her, but not 





5 “ Jesus, or Soter, was also called the Paraclete in the sense of 
Advocate, or one acting as the representative of others.” — Harvey. 

6 Both the Father ‘and the other Hons constituting Soter an imper- 
sonation of the entire Pleroma, 


7 Col, i, 76, 


322 


IRENZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


MO i ee ae ee 


so as to drive them out of thought altogether. 
For it was not possible that they should be anni- 
hilated as in the former case,' because they had 
already taken root and acquired strength [so as 
to possess an indestructible existence]. All that 
he could do was to separate them and set them 
apart, and then commingle and condense them, 
so as to transmute them from incorporeal pas- 
sion into unorganized matter.? He then by this 
process conferred upon them a fitness and a 
nature to become concretions and corporeal 
structures, in order that two substances should 
be formed,—the one evil, resulting from the 
passions, and the other subject indeed to suffer- 
ing, but originating from her conversion. And 
on this account (i.e., on account of this hypos- 
tatizing of ideal matter) they say tnat the Saviour 
virtually 3 created the world. But when Acha- 
moth was freed from her passion, she gazed with 
rapture on the dazzling vision of the angels that 
were with him; and in her ecstasy, conceiving 
by them, they tell us that she brought forth new 
beings, partly after her own image, and partly a 
spiritual progeny after the image of the Saviour’s 
attendants. 


CHAP. V.— FORMATION OF THE DEMIURGE; DE- 
SCRIPTION OF HIM. HE IS THE CREATOR OF 
EVERYTHING OUTSIDE OF THE PLEROMA. 


1. These three kinds of existence, then, hay- 
ing, according to them, been now formed, — one 
from the passion, which was matter; a second 
from the conversion, which was animal ; and the 
third, that which she (Achamoth) herself brought 
forth, which was spiritual, she next addressed 
herself to the task of giving these form. But 
she could not succeed in doing this as respected 
the spiritual existence, because it was of the same 
nature with herself. She therefore applied her- 
self to give form to the animal substance which 
had proceeded from her own conversion, and to 
bring forth to light the instructions of the Sav- 
iour.t And they say she first formed out of 
animal substance him who is Father and King 
of all things, both of these which are of the same 
nature with himself, that is, animal substances, 
which they also call right-handed, and those 
which sprang from the passion, and from mat- 
ter, which they call left-handed. For they affirm 
that he formed all the things which came into 
existence after him, being secretly impelled there- 
to by his mother. From this circumstance they 


I That is, as in the case of her mother Sophia, who is sometimes 
called ‘‘ the Sophia above,” Achamoth being “‘ the Sophia below,” or 
“the second Sophia.” 

2 Thus Harvey renders agwparov vAnv : so Baur, Chr. Gnos., as 
quoted by Stieren. Billius proposes to read évoduarov, corporeal. 

3 Though not actually, for that was the work of the Demiurge. 
‘See next chapter, 

4 “In order that,” says Grabe, ‘‘this formation might not be 
merely according to essence, but also according to knowledge, as 
the formation of the mother Achamoth was characterized above.” 








style him Metropator,’ Apator, Demiurge, and 
Father, saying that he is Father of the substances 
on the right hand, that is, of the animal, but 
Demiurge of those on the left, that is, of the 
material, while he is at the same time the king 
of all. For they say that this Enthymesis, de- 
sirous of making all things to the honour of the 
Eons, formed images of them, or rather that 
the Saviour® did so through her instrumentality. 
And she, in the image? of the invisible Father, 
kept herself concealed from the Demiurge. But 
he was in the image of the -only-begotten Son, 
and the angels and archangels created by him 
were in the image of the rest of the A‘ons. 

2. They affirm, therefore, that he was consti- 
tuted the Father and God of everything outside 
of the Pleroma, being the creator of all animal 
and material substances. For he it was that dis- 
criminated these two kinds of existence hitherto 
confused, and made corporeal from incorporeal 
substances, fashioned things-heavenly and earthly, 
and became the Framer (Demiurge) of things 
material and animal, of those on the right and 
those on the left, of the light and of the heavy, 
and of those tending upwards as well as of those 
tending downwards. He created also seven 
heavens, above which they say that he, the Demi- 
urge, exists. And on this account they term him 
Hebdomas, and his mother Achamoth Ogdoads, 
preserving the number of the first-begotten and 
primary Ogdoad as the Pleroma. ‘They affirm, 
moreover, that these seven heavens are intelli- 
gent, and speak of them as being angels, while 
they refer to the Demiurge himself as being ar 
angel bearing a likeness to God ; and in the same 
strain, they declare that Paradise, situated above 
the third heaven, is a fourth angel possessed of 
power, from whom Adam derived certain qualities 
while he conversed with him. 

3. They go on to say that the Demiurge 
imagined that he created all these things of him- 
self, while he in reality made them in conjunction 
with the productive power of Achamoth. He 
formed the heavens, yet was ignorant of the 
heavens ; he fashioned man, yet knew not man ; 
he brought to light the earth, yet had no ac- 
quaintance with the earth ; and, in like manner, 
they declare that he was ignorant of the forms 
of all that he made, and knew not even of the 
existence of his own mother, but imagined that 
he himself was all things. They further affirm 


5 Metropator, as proceeding only from his mother Achamoth: 
Apator, as having no male progenitor. 

_ © Harvey remarks, “‘ The Valentinian Saviour being an aggrega- 
tion of all the zonic perfections, the images of them were reproduced 
by the spiritual conception of Achamoth beholding the glory.of Zw77p. 
The reader will not fail to observe that every. successive development 
is the reflex of a more divine.antecedent.” ’ ‘ 

_7 The relation indicated seems to be as follows: Achamoth, after 
being formed “ according to knowledge,” was outside of the’ Pleroma 
as the image of Propator, the Demiurge was as Nous, and the, mun- 
a angels which he formed corresponded to the gther AZons of the 

eroma, i Hes! 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


323 


pa oe ap Soe a rn eR ee aaa a 


that his mother originated this opinion in his 
mind, because she desired to bring him forth 
possessed of such a character that he should be 
the head and source of his own essence, and the 
absolute ruler over every kind of operation [that 
was afterwards attempted]. This mother they 
also call Ogdoad, Sophia, Terra, Jerusalem, Holy 
Spirit, and, with a masculine reference, Lord.? 
Her place of habitation is an intermediate one, 
above the Demiurge indeed, but below and out- 
side of the Pleroma, even to the end. 

4. As, then, they represent all material sub- 
stance to be formed from three passions, viz., 
fear, grief, and perplexity, the account they give 
_ is as follows: Animal substances originated from 
fear and from conversion ; the Demiurge they also 
describe as owing his origin to conversion ; but 
the existence of all the other animal substances 
they ascribe to fear, such as the souls of irrational 
animals, and of wild beasts, and men. And on 
this account, he (the Demiurge), being incapable 
of recognising any spiritual essences, imagined 
himself to be God alone, and declared through 
the prophets, “I am God, and besides me there 
is none else.”3 They further teach that the 
spirits of wickedness derived their origin from 
grief. Hence the devil, whom they also call Cos- 
mocrator (the ruler of the world), and the de- 
mons, and the angels, and every wicked spiritual 
being that exists, found the source of their exist- 
ence. They represent the Demiurge as being the 
son of that mother of theirs (Achamoth), and 
Cosmocrator as the creature of the Demiurge. 
Cosmocrator has knowledge of what is above 
himself, because he is a spirit of wickedness ; 
but the Demiurge is ignorant of such things, in- 
asmuch as he is merely. axzma/. Their mother 
dwells in that place which is above the heavens, 
that is, in the intermediate abode ; the Demiurge 
in the heavenly place, that is, in the hebdomad ; 
but the Cosmocrator in this our world. The 
corporeal elements of the world, again, sprang, 
as we before remarked, from bewilderment and 
perplexity, as from a more ignoble source. Thus 
the earth arose from her state of stupor; water 
from the agitation caused by her fear; air from 
the consolidation of her grief; while fire, pro- 
ducing death and corruption, was inherent in all 
these elements, even as they teach that ignorance 
also lay concealed in these three passions. 

5. Having thus formed the world, he (the 
Demiurge) also created the earthy [part of ] 
man, not taking him from this dry earth, but 
from an invisible substance consisting of fusible 





1 ‘ Achamoth by these names must be understood to have an in- 
termediate position between the divine prototypal idea and creation: 
she was the reflex of the one, and therefore smasculo-feminine ; she 
was the pattern to be realized in the latter, and therefore was named 
Earth and Ferusalem,” — Harvey. . 

2 Butafter the consummation here referred to, Achamoth regained 
the Pleroma: see below, chap. vii. 1. ; 

3 Isa, xlv. 5, 6, xlvi. 9. 








and fluid matter, and then afterwards, as they 
define the process, breathed into him the animal 
part of his nature. It was this latter which was 
created after his image and likeness. The ma- 
terial part, indeed, was very near to God, so far 
as the image went, but not of the same substance 
with him. ~The animal, on the other hand, was 
so in respect to likeness; and hence his sub- 
stance was called the spirit of life, because it 
took its rise from a spiritual outflowing. After 
all this, he was, they say, enveloped all round 
with a covering of skin; and by this they mean 
the outward sensitive flesh. 

6. But they further affirm that the Demiurge 
himself was ignorant of that offspring of his 
mother Achamoth, which she brought forth as 
a consequence of her contemplation of those 
angels who waited on the Saviour, and which 
was, like herself, of a spiritual nature. She took 
advantage of this ignorance to deposit it (her 
production) in him without his knowledge, in 
order that, being by his instrumentality infused 
into that animal soul proceeding from himself, 
and being thus carried as in a womb in this 
material body, while it gradually increased in 
strength, might in course of time become fitted 
for the reception of perfect rationality.4 Thus it 
came to pass, then, according to them, that, with- 
out any knowledge on the part of the Demiurge, 
the man formed by his inspiration was at the same 
time, through an unspeakable providence, ren- 
dered a spiritual man by the simultaneous inspi- 
ration received from Sophia. For, as he was 
ignorant of his mother, so neither did he recog- 
nise her offspring. This [offspring] they also 
declare to be the Ecclesia, an emblem of the 
Ecclesia which is above. This, then, is the kind 
of man whom they conceive of: he has his ani- 
mal soul from the Demiurge, his body from the 
earth, his fleshy part from matter, and his spirit- 
ual man from the mother Achamoth. 


CHAP. VI. — THE THREEFOLD KIND OF MAN FEIGNED 
BY THESE HERETICS : GOOD WORKS NEEDLESS FOR 
THEM, THOUGH NECESSARY TO OTHERS: THEIR 
ABANDONED MORALS. 


1. There being thus three kinds of substances, 
they declare of all that is material (which they 
also describe as being “on the left hand”) that 
it must of necessity perish, inasmuch as it is in- 
capable of receiving any affatus of incorruption. 
As to every animal existence (which they also 
denominate “on the right hand”), they hold 
that, inasmuch as it is a mean between the spirit- 
ual and the material, it passes to the side to 





4 An account is here given of the infusion of a spiritual principle 
into mankind. The Demiurge himself could give no more than the 
animal soul; but, unwittingly to himself, he was made the instrument 
of conveying that spiritual essence from Achamoth, which had grown 
up within her from the contemplation of those angels who accom- 
panied the Saviour, 


324 


which inclination draws it. Spiritual substance, 
again, they describe as having been sent forth 
for this end, that, being here united with that 
which is animal, it might assume shape, the two 
elements being simultaneously subjected to the 
same discipline. And this they declare to be 
“the salt’? * and “the light of the world.” For 
the animal substance had need of training by 
means of the outward senses ; and on this account 
they affirm that the world was created, as well 
as that the Saviour came to the animal substance 
(which was possessed of free-will), that He 
might secure for it salvation. For they affirm 
that He received the first-fruits of those whom 
He was to save [as follows], from Achamoth 
that which was spiritual, while He was invested 
by the Demiurge with the animal Christ, but 
was begirt? by a [special] dispensation with a 
body endowed with an animal nature, yet con- 
structed with unspeakable skill, so that it might 


be visible and tangible, and capable of enduring | 


suffering. At the same time, they deny that He 
assumed anything material [into His nature], 
since indeed matter is incapable of salvation. 
They further hold that the consummation of all 
things will take place when all that is spiritual has 
been formed and perfected by Gnosis (knowl- 
edge) ; and by this they mean spiritual men who 
have attained to the perfect knowledge of God, 
and been initiated into these mysteries by Acha- 
moth. And they represent themselves to be 
these persons. 

2. Animal men, again, are instructed in animal 
things ; such men, namely, as are established by 
their works, and by a mere faith, while they have 
not perfect knowledge. We of the Church, they 
say, are these persons.3 Wherefore also they 
maintain that good works are necessary to us, 
for that otherwise it is impossible we should be 
saved. But as to themselves, they hold that they 
shall be entirely and undoubtedly saved, not by 
means of conduct, but because they are spiritual 
by nature.* For, just as it is impossible that 
material substance should partake of salvation 
(since, indeed, they maintain that it is incapable 
of receiving it), so again it is impossible that 
spiritual substance (by which they mean them- 
selves) should ever come under the power of 
corruption, whatever the sort of actions in which 
they indulged. For even as gold, when sub- 
mersed in filth, loses not on that account its 
beauty, but retains its own native qualities, the 
filth having no power to injure the gold, so they 
affirm that they cannot in any measure suffer 


I Matt. v. 13, 14. 

3 ‘The doctrine of Valentinus, therefore,” says Harvey, ‘‘as re- 
gards the human nature of Christ, was essentially Docetic. His body 
was animal, but not #aterzal, and only visible and tangible as hav- 
ing been formed Kar’ oixovowiav and kaTeckevacmevoy appytwy TéEXVY.” 

3 [That is, cavxa/; men of the carnal mind, psychic instead of 
preumatic. Rom. viii. 6.] 

4 On account of what they had received from Achamoth, 





IRENZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


—7 


hurt, or lose’ their spiritual substance, whatever 
the material actions in which they may be in- 
volved. 

3. Wherefore also it comes to pass, that the 
“ most perfect ” among them addict themselves 
without fear to all those kinds of forbidden deeds 
of which the Scriptures assure us that “they who 
do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of 
God.” For instance, they make no scruple 
about eating meats offered in sacrifice to idols, 
imagining that they can in this way contract no 
defilement. Then, again, at every heathen fes- 
tival celebrated in honour of the idols, these 
men are the first to assemble; and to such a 
pitch do they go, that some of them do not 
even keep away from that bloody spectacle 
hateful both to God and men, in which gladia- 
tors either fight with wild beasts, or singly en- 
counter one another. Others of them yield 
themselves up to the lusts of the flesh with the 
utmost greediness, maintaining that carnal things 
should be allowed to the carnal nature, while 
spiritual things are provided for the spiritual. 
Some of them, moreover, are in the habit of 
defiling those women to whom they have taught 
the above doctrine, as has frequently been con- 
fessed by those women who have been led astray 
by certain of them, on their returning to the 
Church of God, and acknowledging this along 
with the rest of their errors. Others of them, 
too, openly and without a blush, having become 
passionately attached to certain women, seduce 
them away from their husbands, and contract 
marriages of their own with them. Others of 
them, again, who pretend at first to live in all 
modesty with them as with sisters, have in course 
of time been revealed in their true colours, when 
the sister has been found with child by her 
[pretended] brother. 

4. And committing many other abominations 
and impieties, they run us down (who from the 
fear of God guard against sinning even in thought 
or word) as utterly contemptible and ignorant 
persons, while they highly exalt themselves, and 
claim to be perfect, and the elect seed. For 
they declare that we simply receive grace for 
use, wherefore also it will again be taken away 
from us; but that they themselves have grace 
as their own special possession, which has de- 
scended from above by means of an unspeak- 
able and indescribable conjunction ; and on this 
account more will be given them.® They main- 
tain, therefore, that in every way it is always 
necessary for them to practise the mystery of 
conjunction. And that they may persuade the 
thoughtless to believe this, they are in the habit 
of using these very words, “ Whosoever being 
in this world does not so love a woman as to 








5 Gal. v. 21. 
6 Comp. Luke xix. 26. 


IRENZUS. AGAINST HERESIES. 





—— 


obtain possession of her, is not of the truth, nor 
shall attain to the truth. But whosoever being 
of' this world has intercourse with woman, shall 
not attain to the truth, because he has so acted 
under the power of concupiscence.” On_ this 
account, they tell us that it is necessary for us 
whom they call animaZ men, and describe as 
being of the world, to practise continence and 
good works, that by this means we may attain at 
length to the intermediate habitation, but that 
to them who are called “the spiritual and per- 
fect” such a course of conduct is not at all 
necessary. For it is not conduct of any kind 
which leads into the Pleroma, but the seed sent 
forth thence in a feeble, immature state, and 
here brought to perfection. 


CHAP. VII.— THE MOTHER ACHAMOTH, WHEN ALL 
HER SEED ARE PERFECTED, SHALL PASS INTO 
THE PLEROMA, ACCOMPANIED BY THOSE MEN 
WHO ARE SPIRITUAL; THE DEMIURGE, WITH 
ANIMAL MEN, SHALL PASS INTO THE INTERME- 
DIATE HABITATION; BUT ALL MATERIAL MEN 
SHALL GO INTO CORRUPTION. THEIR BLASPHE- 
MOUS OPINIONS AGAINST THE. TRUE INCARNA- 
TION OF CHRIST BY THE VIRGIN MARY. THEIR 
VIEWS AS TO THE PROPHECIES. STUPID IGNO- 
RANCE OF THE DEMIURGE. 


1. When all the seed shall have come to per- 
fection, they state that then their mother Acha- 
moth shall pass from the intermediate place, and 
enter in within the Pleroma, and shall receive as 
her spouse the Saviour, who sprang from all the 
“Eons, that thus a conjunction may be formed 
between the Saviour and Sophia, that is, Acha- 
moth. These, then, are the bridegroom and 
bride, while the nuptial chamber is the full ex- 
tent of the Pleroma. The spiritual seed, again, 
being divested of their animal souls,? and becom- 
ing intelligent spirits, shall in an irresistible and 
invisible manner enter in within the Pleroma, 
and be bestowed as brides on those angels who 
wait upon the Saviour. The Demiurge himself 
will pass into the place of his mother Sophia ; 3 
that is, the intermediate habitation. In this 
intermediate place, also, shall the souls of the 
righteous repose; but nothing of an animal 
nature shall find admittance to the Pleroma. 
When these things have taken place as. described, 
then shall that fire which lies hidden in the world 
blaze forth and burn; and while destroying all 
matter, shall also be extinguished along with it, 
and have no further existence. They affirm that 
the Demiurge was acquainted with none of these 
things before the advent of the Saviour. 





t Comp. John xvii, 16, The Valentinians, while zz the world, 
claimed to be not of the world, as animal men were. : 
2 Their spiritual substance was received from Achamoth;_ their 
animal souls were created by the Demiurge. These are now sepa- 
sated; the spirit enters the Pleroma, while the sowl remains in heaven. 
3 Viz., Achamoth. ’ > 











325 


2. ‘There are also some who maintain that he 
also produced Christ as his own proper son, but 
of an animal nature, and that mention was4 
made of him by the prophets. This Christ 
passed through Mary 5 just as water flows through 
a tube ; and there descended upon him in the 
form of a dove at the time of his baptism, that 
Saviour who belonged to the Pleroma, and was 
formed by the combined efforts of all its inhabit- 
ants. In him there existed also that spiritual 
seed which proceeded from Achamoth. They 
hold, accordingly, that our Lord, while presery- 
ing the type of the first-begotten and primary 
tetrad, was compounded of these four substances, 
— of that which is spiritual, in so far as He was 
from Achamoth; of that which is animal, as 
being from the Demiurge by a special dispensa- 
tion, inasmuch as He was oe [corporeally] 
with unspeakable skill; and of the Saviour, as 
respects that dove which descended upon Him. 
He also continued free from all suffering, since 
indeed it was not possible that He should suffer 
who was at once incomprehensible and invisible. 
And for this reason the Spirit of Christ, who had 
been placed within Him, was taken away when 
He was brought before Pilate. They maintain, 
further, that not even the seed which He had 
received from the mother [Achamoth] was sub- . 
ject to suffering ; for it, too, was impassible, as 
being spiritual, and invisible even to the Demi- 
urge himself. It follows, then, according to 
them, that the animal Christ, and that which 
had been formed mysteriously by a special dis- 
pensation, underwent suffering, that the mother 
might exhibit through him a type of the Christ 
above, namely, of him who extended himself 
through Statmus,° and imparted to Achamoth 
shape, so far as substance was concerned. For 
they declare that all these transactions were 
counterparts of what took place above. 

3. They maintain, moreover, that those souls 
which possess the seed of Achamoth are superior 
to the rest, and are more dearly loved by the 
Demiurge than others, while he knows not the 
true cause thereof, but imagines that they are 
what they are through his favour towards them. 
Wherefore, also, they say he distributed them to 
prophets, priests, and kings; and they declare 
that many things were spoken? by this seed 
through the prophets, inasmuch as it was en- 
dowed with a transcendently lofty nature. The 





4 A Syriac fragment here reads, “He spake by the prophets 
through him.” : 

5 “Thus,” says Harvey, ““we may trace back to the Gnostic 
period the Apollinarian error, closely allied to the Docetic, that the 
body of Christ was not derived from the blessed Virgin, but that it 
was of heavenly substance, and was only brought forth into the world 
through her instrumentality.” 

® By thus extending himself through Stauros, who bounded the 
Pleroma, the Christ above became the type of the Christ below, who 
was extended upon the cross. ; ; : ‘ 

7 Billius, following the old Latin version, reads, “ They interpret 
many things, spoken by the prophets, of this seed,” 


326 





mother also, they say, spake much about things 
above, and that both through him and through 
the souls which were formed by him. Then, 
again, they divide the prophecies [into different 
classes], maintaining that one portion was uttered 
by the mother, a second by her seed, and a third 
by the Demiurge. In like manner, they hold 
that Jesus uttered some things under the influ- 
ence of the Saviour, others under that of the 
mother, and others still under that of the Demi- 
urge, as we shall show further on in our work. 

4. The Demiurge, while ignorant of those 
things which were higher than himself, was indeed 
excited by the announcements made [through 
the prophets], but treated them with contempt, 
attribufing them sometimes to one cause and 
sometimes to another; either to the prophetic 
spirit (which itself possesses the power of self- 
excitement), or to [mere unassisted ] man, or that 
it was simply a crafty device of the lower [and 
baser order of men]. He remained thus igno- 
rant until the appearing of the Lord. But they 
relate that when the Saviour came, the Demiurge 
learned all things from Him, and gladly with all 
his power joined himself to Him. They main- 
tain that he is the centurion mentioned in the 
Gospel, whoaddressed the Saviour in these words : 
“ For I also am one having soldiers and servants 
under my authority ; and whatsoever I command 
they do.””? They further hold that he will con- 
tinue administering the affairs of the world as 
long as that is fitting and needful, and specially 
that he may exercise a care over the Church ; 
while at the same time he is influenced by the 
knowledge of the reward prepared for him, 
namely, that he may attain to the habitation of 
his mother. 

5. They conceive, then, of three kinds of men, 
spiritual, material, and animal, represented by 
Cain, Abel, and Seth. These three natures are 
no longer found in one person,3 but constitute 
various kinds [of men]. The material goes, as a 
matter of course, into corruption. ‘The animal, if 
it make choice of the better part, finds repose in 
the intermediate place ; but if the worse, it too 
shall pass into destruction. But they assert that 
the spiritual principles which have been sown by 
Achamoth, being disciplined and nourished here 
from that time until now in righteous souls (be- 
cause when given forth by her they were yet but 
weak), at last attaining to perfection, shall be 
given as brides to the angels of the Saviour, 
while their animal souls of necessity rest for ever 
with the Demiurge in the intermediate place. 
And again subdividing the animal souls them- 





1 Such appears to be the meaning of this sentence, but the origi- 
nal is very obscure. The writer seems to refer to the spiritual, the 
animal, and the material classes of men, and to imply that the Demi- 
urge supposed some propehcies to be due to one of these classes, and 
some to the others. 

2 Matt. vili.g; Luke vii. 8. 

3 As was the case at first, in Adam. 





IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





selves, they say that some are by nature good, 
and others by nature evil. The good are those 
who become capable of receiving the [spiritual ] 
seed ; the evil by nature are those who are never 
able to receive that seed. 


CHAP, VIII.— HOW THE VALENTINIANS PERVERT 
THE SCRIPTURES TO SUPPORT THEIR OWN IM- 
PIOUS OPINIONS. 


1. Such, then, is their system, which neither 
the prophets announced, nor the Lord taught, 
nor the apostles delivered, but of which they 
boast that beyond all others they have a perfect 
knowledge. They gather their views from other 
sources than the Scriptures ;+ and, to use a com- 
mon proverb, they strive to weave ropes of sand, 
while they endeavour to adapt with an air of 
probability to their own peculiar assertions the 
parables of the Lord, the sayings of the prophets, 
and the words of the apostles, in order that their 
scheme may not seem altogether without sup- 
port. In doing so, however, they disregard the 
order and the connection of the Scriptures, and 
so far as in them lies, dismember and destroy the 
truth. By transferring passages, and dressing 
them up anew, and making one thing out of an- 
other, they succeed in deluding many through 
their wicked art in adapting the oracles of the 
Lord to their opinions. Their manner of acting 
is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a 
king has been constructed by some skilful artist 
out of precious jewels, should then take this like- 
ness of the man all to pieces, should re-arrange 
the gems, and so fit them together as to make 
them into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even 
that but poorly executed ; and should then main- 
tain and declare that ¢hzs was the beautiful image 
of the king which the skilful artist constructed, 
pointing to the jewels which had been admirably 
fitted together by the first artist to form the image 
of the king, but have been with bad effect trans- 
ferred by the latter one to the shape of a dog, 
and by thus exhibiting the jewels, should de- 
ceive the ignorant who had no conception what 
a king’s form was like, and persuade them that 
that miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, 
the beautiful image of the king. In like manner 
do these persons patch together old wives’ fables, 
and then endeavour, by violently drawing away 
from their proper connection, words, expressions, 
and parables whenever found, to adapt the ora- 
cles of God to their baseless fictions. We have 
already stated how far they proceed in this way 
with respect to the interior of the Pleroma. 

2. Then, again, as to those things outside of 
their Pleroma, the following are some specimens 
of what they attempt to accommodate out of the 
Scriptures to their opinions. They affirm that 





4 Literally, “‘ reading from things unwritten.” 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES, 





327 





the Lord came in the last times of the world to 
endure suffering, for this end, that He might in- 
dicate the passion which occurred to the last of 
the Atons, and might by His own end announce 
the cessation of that disturbance which had risen 
among the AZons. They maintain, further, that 
that girl of twelve years old, the daughter of the 
ruler of the synagogue,’ to whom the Lord ap- 
proached and raised her from the dead, was a 
type of Achamoth, to whom their Christ, by ex- 
tending himself, imparted shape, and whom he 
led anew to the perception of that light which 
had forsaken her. And that the Saviour appeared 
to her when she lay outside of the Pleroma as 
a kind of abortion, they affirm Paul to have de- 
clared in his Epistle to the Corinthians [in these 
words], “And last of all, He appeared to me 
also, as to one born out of due time.”? Again, 
the coming of the Saviour with His attendants to 
Achamoth is declared in like manner by him in 
the same Epistle, when he says, “A woman ought 
to have a veil upon her head, because of the 
angels.””3_ Now, that Achamoth, when the Sav- 
iour came to her, drew a veil over herself 
through modesty, Moses rendered manifest when 
he put a veil upon his face. Then, also, they 
say that the passions which she endured were 
indicated by the Lord upon the cross. Thus, 
when He said, “My God, my God, why hast 
Thou forsaken Me?’’+ He simply showed that 
Sophia was deserted by the light, and was re- 
strained by Horos from making any advance for- 
ward. Her anguish, again, was indicated when 
He said, “ My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even 
unto death ;”5 her fear by the words, “ Father, 
if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me;’® 
and her perplexity, too, when He said, “ And 
what I shall say, I know not.’’7 

3. And they teach that He pointed out the 
three kinds of men as follows: the mazerial, 
when He said to him that asked Him, “Shall I 
follow Thee?”® “The Son of man hath not 
where to lay His head ;””— the animal, when 
He said to him that declared, “I will follow 
Thee, but suffer me first to bid them farewell 
that are in my house,” “No man, putting his 
hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for 
the kingdom of heaven”? (for this man they 
declare to be of the intermediate class, even as 
they do that other who, though he professed to 


1 Luke viii. 41. 

2 x Cor. xv. 8. p 

3 x Cor. xi. 10, Irenaeus here reads xaAvmma, vert, instead of 
efovoiav, power, as in the received text. [An interesting fact, as it 
betokens an old gloss, which may have slipped into the text of some 
ancient Mss. | 

4 Matt. xxvii. 46. 

5 Matt. xxvi. 38. 

6 Matt. xxvi. 39. bes ; 

7 John xii. 27. The Valentinians seem, for their own purposes, 
to have added ovx« oida to this text. 

8 Luke ix. 57, 58. 

9 Luke ix. 61, 62. 








have wrought a large amount of righteousness, 
yet refused to follow Him, and was so overcome 
by [the love of] riches, as never to reach per- 
fection) — this one it pleases them to place in 
the animal class ;—the spiritual, again, when 
He said, “ Let the dead bury their dead, but go 
thou and preach the kingdom of God,” * and 
when He said to Zaccheus the publican, “ Make 
haste, and come down, for to-day I must abide 
in thine house”! — for these they declared to 
have belonged to the spiritual class. Also the 
parable of the leaven which the woman is de- 
scribed as having hid in three measures of meal, 
they declare to make manifest the three classes. 
For, according to their teaching, the woman 
represented Sophia ; the three measures of meal, 
the three kinds of men — spiritual, animal, and 
material ; while the leaven denoted the Saviour 
Himself. Paul, too, very plainly set forth the 
material, animal, and spiritual, saying: in one 
place, “ As is the earthy, such are they also that 
are earthy ;” ' and in another place, “ But the 
animal man receiveth not the things of the 
Spirit ;”"*3 and again: “He that is spiritual 
judgeth all things.” *4 And this, “The animal 
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit,” they 
affirm to have been spoken concerning the 
Demiurge, who, as being animal, knew neither 
his mother who was spiritual, nor her seed, nor 
the AXons in the Pleroma. And that the Saviour 
received first-fruits of those whom He was to 
save, Paul declared when he said, “And if the 
first-fruits be holy, the lump is also holy,’’'s 
teaching that the expression “ first-fruits’’ de- 
noted that which is spiritual, but that “the 
lump” meant us, that is, the animal Church, 
the lump of which they say He assumed, and 
blended it with Himself, inasmuch as He is 
“the leaven.” 

4. Moreover, that Achamoth wandered be- 
yond the Pleroma, and received form from 
Christ, and was sought after by the Saviour, 
they declare that He indicated when He said, 
that He had come after that sheep which was 
gone astray.'° For they explain the wandering 
sheep to mean their mother, by whom they 
represent the Church as having been sown. The 
wandering itself denotes her stay outside of the 
Pleroma in a state of varied passion, from which 
they maintain that matter derived its origin. 
The woman, again, who sweeps the house and 
finds the piece of money, they declare to denote 
the Sophia above, who, having lost her enthy- 
mesis, afterwards recovered it, on all things 





10 Luke ix. 60. 
11 Luke xix. 5. 
12 x Cor. xv. 48. 
13 x Cor. ii. 14. 
14 x Cor. ii. ry. 
15 Rom. xi. 16. 
16 Luke xv. 4, 8. 


328 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


ne ee 


being purified by the advent of the Saviour. 
Wherefore this substance also, according to 
them, was reinstated in Pleroma. They say, 
too, that Simeon, “who took Christ into his 
arms, and gave thanks to God, and said, Lord, 
now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, 
according to Thy word,”* was a type of the 
Demiurge, who, on the arrival of the Saviour, 
learned his own change of place, and gave 
thanks to Bythus. They also assert that by 
Anna, who is spoken of in the gospel? as a 
prophetess, and who, after living seven years 
with her husband, passed all the rest of her life 
in widowhood until she saw the Saviour, and 
recognised Him, and spoke of Him to all, was 
most plainly indicated Achamoth, who, having 
for a little while looked upon the Saviour with 
His associates, and dwelling all the rest of the 
time in the intermediate place, waited for Him 
till He should come again, and restore her to 
her proper consort. Her name, too, was indi- 
cated by the Saviour, when He said, “ Yet wis- 
dom is justified by her children.” 3 This, too, 
was done by Paul in these words, “‘ But we speak 
wisdom among them that are perfect.”+ They 
declare also that Paul has referred to the con- 
junctions within the Pleroma, showing them forth 
by means of one ; for, when writing of the con- 
jugal union in this life, he expressed himself 
thus: “This is a great mystery, but I speak 
concerning Christ and the Church.” 5 

5. Further, they teach that John, the disciple 
of the Lord, indicated the first Ogdoad, express- 
ing themselves in these words: John, the dis- 
ciple of the Lord, wishing to set forth the origin 
of all things, so as to explain how the Father 
produced the whole, lays down a certain princi- 
ple, — that, namely, which was first-begotten by 
God, which Being he has termed both the only- 
begotten Son and God, in whom the Father, 
after a seminal manner, brought forth all things. 
By him the Word was produced, and in him the 
whole substance of the AZons, to which the Word 
himself afterwards imparted form. Since, there- 
fore, he treats of the first origin of things, he 
rightly proceeds in his teaching from the begin- 
ning, that is, from God and the Word. And he 
expresses himself thus: “In the beginning was 
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the 
Word was God; the same was in the beginning 
with God.”® Having first of all distinguished 
these three—God, the Beginning, and the 
Word —he again unites them, that he may ex- 
hibit the production of each of them, that is, of 
the Son and of the Word, and may at the same 


T Luke ii. 28, 
2 Luke ii, 36. 
3 Luke vii. 35. 
eee ii. 6, 
ph. v. 32. 
6 Johni. 1, e. 











time show their union with one enother, and 
with the Father. For “the beginning” is in the 
Father, and of the Father, while “the Word ”’ is 
in the beginning, and of the beginning. Very 
properly, then, did he say, “In the beginning 
was the Word,” for He was in the Son; “and 
the Word was with God,” for He was the begin- 
ning; “and the Word was God,” of course, for . 
that which is begotten of God is God. “The 
same was in the beginning with God” — this 
clause discloses the order of production. “ All 
things were made by Him, and without Him was 
nothing made ;”’7 for the Word was the author 
of form and beginning to all the AZons that came 
into existence after Him. But “ what was made 
in Him,” says John, “is life.”® Here again he 
indicated conjunction ; for all things, he said, 
were made dy Him, but 7” Him was life. This, 
then, which is in Him, is more closely connected 
with Him than those things which were simply 
made by Him, for it exists along with Him, and 
is developed by Him. When, again, he adds, 
“And the life was the light of men,” while thus 
mentioning Anthropos, he indicated also Ec- 
clesia by that one expression, in order that, by 
using only one name, he might disclose their 
fellowship with one another, in virtue of their 
conjunction. For Anthropos and Ecclesia spring 
from Logos and Zoe. Moreover, he styled life 
(Zoe) the light of men, because they are en- 
lightened by her, that is, formed and made 
manifest. This also Paul declares in these words: 
“ For whatsoever doth make manifest is light.” 9 
Since, therefore, Zoe manifested and begat both 
Anthropos and Ecclesia, she is termed their light. 
Thus, then, did John by these words reveal both 
other things and the second Tetrad, Logos and 
Zoe, Anthropos and Ecclesia. And still further, 
he also indicated the first Tetrad. For, in dis- 
coursing of the Saviour, and declaring that all 
things beyond the Pleroma received form from 
Him, he says that He is the fruit of the entire 
Pleroma. For he styles Him a “light which 
shineth in darkness, and which was not compre- 
hended’’?° by it, inasmuch as, when He imparted 
form to all those things which had their origin 
from passion, He was not known by it." He also 
styles Him Son, and Aletheia, and Zoe, and the 
“Word made flesh, whose glory,” he says, “we 
beheld ; and His glory was as that of the Only- 
begotten (given to Him by the Father), full of 
grace and truth.” (But what John really does 


7 fone i 3 
8 John i. 3, 4. The punctuation here followed is different from 
that commonly adopted, but is found in many of the Fathers, and in 
some of the most ancient Mss. : 

9 Eph, v. 13. 

10 John i. 5. 

ry vn’ avris, occurring twice, is rendered both times in the old Latin 
version, ‘‘ab eis.” The reference is to oxetia, darkness, i.e, all « 
those not belonging to the spiritual seed. 

32 Comp. John 1. 14. 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 








Say is this: “ And the Word was made flesh, and 
dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory, the 
glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of 
grace and truth.’'") Thus, then, does he [ac- 
cording to them] distinctly set forth the first 
Tetrad, when he speaks of the Father, and 
Charis, and Monogenes, and Aletheia. In this 
way, too, does John tell of the first Ogdoad, and 
that which is the mother of all the Atons. For 
he mentions the Father, and Charis, and Mono- 
genes, and Aletheia, and Logos, and Zoe, and 
Anthropos, and Ecclesia. Such are the views of 
Ptolemzeus.? 


CHAP. IX. — REFUTATION OF THE IMPIOUS INTER- 
PRETATIONS OF THESE HERETICS. 


1. You see, my friend, the method which 
these men employ to deceive themselves, while 
they abuse the Scriptures by endeavouring to 
support their own system out of them. For 
this reason, I have brought forward their modes 
of expressing themselves, that thus thou mightest 
understand the deceitfulness of their procedure, 
and the wickedness of their error. For, in the 
first place, if it had been John’s intention to set 
forth that Ogdoad above, he would surely have 
preserved the order of its production, and would 
doubtless have placed the primary Tetrad first, 
as being, according to them, most venerable, 
and would then have annexed the second, that, 
by the sequence of the names, the order of the 
Ogdoad might be exhibited, and not after so 
long an interval, as if forgetful for the moment ; 
and then again calling the matter to mind, he, 
last of all, made mention of the primary Tetrad. 
In the next place, if he had meant to indicate 
their conjunctions, he certainly would not have 
omitted the name of Ecclesia; while, with re- 
spect to the other conjunctions, he either would 
have been satisfied with the mention of the male 
[ons] (since the others [like Ecclesia] might 
be understood), so as to preserve a uniformity 
throughout; or if he enumerated the conjunc- 
tions of the rest, he would also have announced 
the spouse of Anthropos, and would not have 
left us to find out her name by divination. 

2. The fallacy, then, of this exposition is 
manifest. For when John, proclaiming one God, 
the Almighty, and one Jesus Christ, the Only- 
begotten, by whom all things were made, de- 
clares that this was the Son of God, this the 
Only-begotten, this the Former of all things, 
this the true Light who enlighteneth every man, 
this the Creator of the world, this He that came 
to His own, this He that became flesh and dwelt 
among us, — these men, by a plausible kind of 





1 This is parenthetically inserted by the author, to show the mis- 
quotation of Scripture by these heretics. ; : 

> These words are wanting in the Greek, but are inserted in the 
old Latin version, 











329 


exposition, perverting these statements, maintain 
that there was another Monogenes, according to 
production, whom they also style Arche. They 
also maintain that there was another Saviour, 
and another Logos, the son of Monogenes, and 
another Christ produced for the re-establishment 
of the Pleroma. Thus it is that, wresting from 
the truth every one of the expressions which 
have been cited, and taking a bad advantage of 
the names, they have transferred them to their 
own system ; so that, according to them, in all 
these terms John makes no mention of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. For if he has named the Father, 
and Charis, and Monogenes, and Aletheia, and 
Logos, and Zoe, and Anthropos, and Ecclesia, 
according to their hypothesis, he has, by thus 
speaking, referred to the primary Ogdoad, in 
which there was as yet no Jesus, and no Christ, 
the teacher of John. But that the apostle did 
not speak concerning their conjunctions, but 
concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, whom he also 
acknowledges as the Word of God, he himself 
has made evident. For, summing up his state- 
ments respecting the Word previously mentioned 
by him, he further declares, ‘‘ And the Word was 
made flesh, and dwelt among us.” But, accord- 
ing to their hypothesis, the Word did not become 
flesh at all, inasmuch as He never went outside 
of the Pleroma, but that Saviour [became flesh] 
who was formed by a special dispensation [out 
of all the AZons], and was of later date than the 
Word. 

3. Learn then, ye foolish men, that Jesus who 
suffered for us, and who dwelt among us, is 
Himself the Word of God. For if any other of 
the AZons had become flesh for our salvation, it 
would have been probable that the apostle spoke 
of another. But if the Word of the Father who 
descended is the same also that ascended, He, 
namely, the Only-bégotten Son of the only God, 
who, according to the good pleasure of the 
Father, became flesh for the sake of. men, the 
apostle certainly does not speak regarding any 
other, or concerning any Ogdoad, but respecting 
our Lord Jesus Christ. For, according to them, 
the Word did not originally become flesh. For 
they maintain that the Saviour assumed an ani- 
mal body, formed in accordance with a special 
dispensation by an unspeakable providence, so 
as to become visible and palpable. But flesh is 
that which was of old formed for Adam by God 
out of the dust, and it is this that John has de- 
clared the Word of God became. ‘Thus is their 
primary and first-begotten Ogdoad brought to 
nought. For, since Logos, and Monogenes, and 
Zoe, and Phos, and Soter, and Christus, and the 
Son of God, and He who became incarnate for 
us, have been proved to be one and the same, 
the Ogdoad which they have built up. at once 
falls to pieces. And when this is destroyed, 


330 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


ON ee 


their whole system sinks into ruin, —a system 
which they falsely dream into existence, and 
thus inflict injury on the Scriptures, while they 
build up their own hypothesis. 

4. Then, again, collecting a set of expressions 
and names scattered here and there [in Scrip- 
ture], they twist them, as we have already said, 
from a natural to a non-natural sense. In so 
doing, they act like those who bring forward 
any kind of hypothesis they fancy, and then en- 
deavour to support’ them out of the poems of 
Homer, so that the ignorant imagine that Homer 
actually composed the verses bearing upon that 
hypothesis, which has, in fact, been but newly 
constructed ; and many others are led so far by 
the regularly-formed sequence of the verses, as 
to doubt whether Homer may not have com- 
posed them. Of this kind? is the following 
passage, where one, describing Hercules as hav- 
ing been sent by Eurystheus to the dog in the 
infernal regions, does so by means of these 
Homeric verses, — for there can be no objection 
to our citing these by way of illustration, since 
the same sort of attempt appears in both : — 


“Thus saying, there sent forth from his house deeply 
greaning.” — Od., x. 76. 

“The hero Hercules conversant with mighty deeds.” 
— Od., xxi. 26. 

Eurystheus, the son of Sthenelus, descended from 
Perseus.” — /7., xix. 123. 

“That he might bring from Erebus the dog of gloomy 
Pluto.” — /7,, vili. 368. 

“And he advanced like a mountain-bred lion confi- 
dent of strength.” — Od., vi. 130. 

“Rapidly through the city, while all his friends fol- 
lowed.” — //., xxiv. 327. 

“Both maidens, and youths, and much-enduring old 
men.” — Od, xi. 38. 

“Mourning for him bitterly as one going forward to 
death.” — //., xxiv. 328. 

“But Mercury and the blue-eyed Minerva conducted 
him.” — Od., xi. 626. 

“For she knew the mind of fier brother, how it la- 
boured with grief.” — //,, ii. 409. 


Now, what simple-minded man, I ask, would not 
be led away by such verses as these to think that 
Homer actually framed them so with reference 
to the subject indicated? But he who is ac- 
quainted with the Homeric writings will recognise 
the verses indeed, but not the subject to which 
they are applied, as knowing that some of them 
were spoken of Ulysses, others of Hercules him- 
self, others still of Priam, and others again of 
Menelaus and Agamemnon. But if he takes 
them and restores each of them to its proper 
position, he at once destroys the narrative in 
question. In like manner he also who retains 








T It is difficult to give an exact rendering of peAerav in this pas- 
sage; the old Lat. version translates it by #edztar7, which Massuet 
Proposes to render “ skilfully to fit.” 

? Tertullian refers (Prescrip. Her.) to those Homeric centos of 
which a specimen follows. We have given each line as it stands in 
the original: the text followed by Irenseus differs slightly from the 
received text, 


unchangeable 3 in his heart the rule of the truth 
which he received by means of baptism, will 
doubtless recognise the names, the expressions, 
and the parables taken from the Scriptures, but 
will by no means acknowledge the blasphemous 
use which these men make of them. For, though 
he will acknowledge the gems, he will certainly 
not receive the fox instead of the likeness of the 
king. But when he has restored every one of 
the expressions quoted to its proper position, and 
has fitted it to the body of the truth, he will lay 
bare, and prove to be without any foundation, | 
the figment of these heretics. 

5. Butsince what may prove a finishing-stroke* 
to this exhibition is wanting, so that any one, on 
following out their farce to the end, may then at 
once. append an argument which shall overthrow 
it, we have judged it well to point out, first of 
all, in what respects the very fathers of this fable 
differ among themselves, as if they were inspired 
by different spirits of error. For this very fact — 
forms an @ priori proof that the truth proclaimed 
by the Church is immoveable,5 and that the theo- 
ries of these men are but a tissue of falsehoods. 


CHAP. X.— UNITY OF THE FAITH OF THE CHURCH 
THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE WORLD. 


1. The Church, though dispersed throughout 
the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, 
has received from the apostles and their disciples 
this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father 
Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the 
sea, and all things that are in them; and in one 
Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incar- 
nate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, 
who proclaimed through the prophets the dispen- 
sations © of God, and the advents, and the birth 
from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrec- 
tion from the dead, and the ascension into heaven 
in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, 
and His [future] manifestation from heaven in 
the glory of the Father “to gather all things in 
one,”7 and to raise up anew all flesh of the’ 
whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, 
our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, ac- 
cording to the will of the invisible Father, “every 
knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things 
in earth, and things under the earth, and that 
every tongue should confess ”’® to Him, and that 
He should execute just judgment towards all ; 
that He may send “spiritual wickednesses,”’? and 


3 Literally, “‘ immoveable in himself,” the word axAw% being used 
with an apparent reference to the original meaning cS xavéva, a butld- 
ers rule, 

4 The meaning of the word aoAvtpwots here is not easily deter- 
mined ; but it is probably a scenic term équivalent to améAvats, and 
may be rendered as above. 

_ 5 [The Creed, in the sublime simplicity of its fundamental articles, 
is established; that is, by the impossibility of framing anything to 
take their place. | i 

6 “Of God” is added from the old Latin, 

7 Eph. i. ro. 

8 Phil. ii. 10, rx. 

9 Eph. vi. x12. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





the angels who transgressed and became apos- 
tates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, 
and wicked, and profane among men, into ever- 
lasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His 
grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and 
holy, and those who have kept His command- 
ments, and have persevered in His love, some 
from the beginning [of their Christian course], 
and others from [the date of] their repentance, 
and may surround them with everlasting glory. 

2. As I have already observed, the Church, 

having received this preaching and this faith, 
although scattered throughout the whole world, 
yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully 
preserves it. She also believes these points [of 
doctrine] just as if she had but one soul, and 
one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, 
and teaches them, and hands them down, with 
perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one 
mouth. For, although the languages of the 
world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tra- 
- dition is one and the same. For the Churches 
which have been planted in Germany do not 
believe or hand down anything different, nor do 
- those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in 
the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, 
nor those which have been established in the cen- 
tral regions' of the world. But as the sun, that 
creature of God, is one and the same throughout 
the whole world, so also the preaching of the 
truth shineth everywhere, and enlightens all men 
that are willing to come to a knowledge of the 
truth. Nor will any one of the rulers in the 
Churches, however highly gifted he may be in 
pomt of eloquence, teach doctrines different 
from these (for no one is greater than the Mas- 
ter) ; nor, on the other hand, will he who is de- 
ficient in power of expression inflict injury on 
the tradition. For the faith being ever one and 
the same, neither does one who is able at great 
length to discourse regarding it, make any addi- 
tion to it, nor does one, who can say but little, 
diminish it. 

3. It does not follow because men are en- 
dowed with greater and less degrees of intelli- 
gence, that they should therefore change the 
subject-matter [of the faith] itself, and should 
conceive of some other God besides Him who is 
the Framer, Maker, and Preserver of this uni- 
verse, (as if He were not sufficient? for them), 
or of another Christ, or another Only-begotten. 
But the fact referred to simply implies this, that 
one may [more accurately than another] bring 
out the meaning of those things which have been 
spoken in parables, and accommodate them to 
the general scheme of the faith ; and explain [with 
hii a aes bl are ee 


1 Probably referring to the Churches in Palestine. ‘ 
2 The text here is apxouyévous Tovrovs, which is manifestly cor- 
rupt. Various emendations have been proposed: we prefer reading 


Gpxovpevos Tovrots, and have translated accordingly. 





331 








special clearness] the operation and dispensation 
of God connected with human salvation; and 
show that God manifested longsuffering in regard 
to the apostasy of the angels who transgressed, 


as also with respect to the disobedience of men ; 


and set forth why it is that one and the same 
God has made some things temporal and some 
eternal, some heavenly and others earthly ; and 
understand for what reason God, though invisi- 
ble, manifested Himself to the prophets not 
under one form, but differently to different in- 
dividuals ; and show why it was that more cove- 
nants than one were given to mankind; and 
teach what was the special character of each of 
these covenants ; and search out for what reason 
“God 3 hath concluded every man‘ in unbelief, 
that He may have mercy upon all;” and grate- 
fully 5 describe on what account the Word of 
God became flesh and suffered ; and relate why 
the advent of the Son of God took place in these 
last times, that is, in the end, rather than in the 
beginning [of the world]; and unfold what is 
contained in the Scriptures concerning the end 
[itself], and things to come ; and not be silent 
as to how it is that God has made the Gentiles, 
whose salvation was despaired of, fellow-heirs, 
and of the same body, and partakers with the 
saints ; and discourse how it is that ‘this mortal 
body shall put on immortality, and this corrupt- 
ible shall put on incorruption ;”’° and proclaim 
in what sense [God] says, “That is a people 
who was not a people; and she is beloved who 
was not beloved ;”"7 and in what sense He says 
that “more are the children of her that was 
desolate, than of her who possessed a hus- 
band.” ® For in reference to these points, and 
others of a like nature, the apostle exclaims: 
“Oh! the depth of the riches both of the wis- 
dom and knowledge of God ; how unsearchable 
are His judgments, and His ways past finding 
out!”9 But [the superior skill spoken of] is 
not found in this, that any one should, beyond 
the Creator and Framer [of the world], con- 
ceive of the Enthymesis of an erring A‘on, their 
mother and his, and should thus proceed to such 
a pitch of blasphemy ; nor does it consist in this, 
that he should again falsely imagine, as being 
above this [fancied being], a Pleroma at one 
time supposed to contain thirty, and at another 
time an innumerable tribe of A®ons, as these 
teachers who are destitute of truly divine wis- 
dom maintain ; while the Catholic Church pos- 





3 Rom. xi. 32. 

4 Irenzus here reads mavra instead of mavras, as in Text. Rec. of 
New Testament. : ; 

5 evyapioteiv — this word has been deemed corrupt, as it certainly 
appears out of keeping with the other verbs; but it may be rendered 
as above. . 

6 x Cor. xv. 54. : 

7 Hos, ii. 23; Rom. ix. 25. 

8 Isa. liv. 1; Gal. iv. 27. 

9 Rom, xi. 33. 


332 


—— 





sesses one and the same faith throughout the 
whole world, as we have already said. 


CHAP. XI.— THE OPINIONS OF VALENTINUS, WITH 
THOSE OF HIS DISCIPLES AND OTHERS. 


1. Let us now look at the inconsistent opinions 
of those heretics (for there are some two or three 
of them), how they do not agree in treating the 
same points, but alike, in things and names, set 
forth opinions mutually discordant. The first * of 
them, Valentinus, who adapted the principles 
of the heresy called “Gnostic” to the peculiar 
character of his own school, taught as follows : 
He maintained that there is a certain Dyad (two- 
fold being), who is inexpressible by any name, 
of whom one part should be called Arrhetus 
(unspeakable), and the other Sige (silence). 
But of this Dyad a second was produced, one 
part of whom he names Pater, and the other 
Aletheia. From this Tetrad, again, arose Logos 
and Zoe, Anthropos and Ecclesia. These con- 
stitute the primary Ogdoad. He next states 
that from Logos and Zoe ten powers were pro- 
duced, as we have before mentioned. But from 
Anthropos and Ecclesia proceeded twelve, one 
of which separating from the rest, and falling 
from its original condition, produced the rest? of 
the universe. He also supposed two beings 
of the name of Horos, the one of whom has his 
place between Bythus and the rest of the Pleroma, 
and divides the created AZons from the uncreated 
Father, while the other separates their mother 
from the Pleroma. Christ also was not produced 
from the Mons within the Pleroma, but was 
brought forth by the mother who had been ex- 
cluded from it, in virtue of her remembrance of 
better things, but not without a kind of shadow. 
He, indeed, as being masculine, having severed 
the shadow from himself, returned to the Plero- 
ma; but his mother being left with the shadow, 
and deprived of her spiritual substance, brought 
forth another son, namely, the Demiurge, whom 
he also styles the supreme ruler of all those 
things which are subject to him. He also asserts 
that, along with the Demiurge, there was pro- 
duced a left-hand power, in which particular he 
agrees with those falsely called Gnostics, of whom 
to we have yet to speak. Sometimes, again, he 
maintains that Jesus was produced from him 
who was separated from their mother, and united 
to the rest, that is, from Theletus, sometimes as 
springing from him who returned into the Plero- 
ma, that is, from Christ ; and at other times still 
as derived from Anthropos and Ecclesia. And 
he declares that the Holy Spirit was produced by 





? That is, the first of the two or three here referred to, not the first 
of the Gnostic teachers, as some have imagined, [The Gnosticism of 
one age may be essentially the same in spirit as the Agnosticzsm 
of another. 

2 Viz., all outside of the Pleroma. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 








Aletheia 3 for the inspection and fructification of 
the AZons, by entering invisibly into them, and 
that, in this way, the AZons brought forth the 
plants of truth. 

2. Secundus again affirms that the primary 
Ogdoad consists of a right hand and a left hand 
Tetrad, and teaches that the one of these is 
called light, and the other darkness. But he 
maintains that the power which separated from 
the rest, and fell away, did not proceed directly 
from the thirty AZons, but from their fruits. 

3. There is another, who is a renowned 
teacher among them, and who, struggling to 
reach something more sublime, and to attain 
to a kind of higher knowledge, has explained the 
primary Tetrad as follows: There is [he says] a 
certain Proarche who existed before all things, 
surpassing all thought, speech, and nomenclature, 
whom I call Monotes (unity). Together with 
this Monotes there exists a power, which again I 
term Henotes (oneness). This Henotes and 
Monotes, being one, produced, yet not so as 
to bring forth [apart from themselves, as an 
emanation] the beginning of all things, an intelli- 
gent, unbegotten, and invisible being, which be- 
ginning language terms “ Monad.” With this 
Monad there co-exists a power of the same es- 
sence, which again I term Hen (One). These 
powers then — Monotes, and Henotes, and 
Monas, and Hen—produced the remaining 
company of the A®ons. 

4. Iu, Iu! Pheu, Pheu !—for well may we 
utter these tragic exclamations at sucha pitch of 
audacity in the coining of names as he has 
displayed without a blush, in devising a nomen- 
clature for his system of falsehood. For when he 
declares: There is a certain Proarche before all 
things, surpassing all thought, whom I call Mono- 
tes ; and again, with this Monotes there co-exists 
a power which I also call Henotes, — it is most 
manifest that he confesses the things which have 
been said to be his own invention, and that he 
himself has given names to his scheme of 
things, which had never been previously sug- 
gested by any other. It is manifest also, that he 
himself is the one who has had sufficient auda- 
city to coin these names ; so that, unless Ze had 
appeared in the world, the truth would still have 
been destitute of a name. But, in that case, 
nothing hinders any other, in dealing with the 
same subject, to affix names after such a fashion 
as the following: There’ is a certain Proarche, 
royal, surpassing all thought, a power existing 
before every other substance, and extended into 
space in every direction. But along with it there 
exists a power which I term a Gourd; and along 





3 Corrected from Zcclesza in the text. 

4 Some have supposed that the name of this teacher was Epitha- 
nes, and that the old Latin mistakenly translates this by clarus s 
others think that Colorbasus is the teacher in question. 

5 The Greek text is wanting till the end of this section. 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


333 





with this Gourd there exists a power which again 
I term Ustter-Emptiness. This Gourd and Emp- 
tiness, since they are one, produced (and yet did 
not simply produce, so as to be apart from them- 
selves) a fruit, everywhere visible, eatable, and 
delicious, which fruit-language calls a Cucumber. 
Along with this Cucumber exists a power of 
the same essence, which again I call a Melon, 
These powers, the Gourd, Utter-Emptiness, the 
Cucumber, and the Melon, brought forth the 
remaining multitude of the delirious melons of 
Valentinus.t' For if it is fitting that that lan- 
guage which is used respecting the universe be 
transformed to the primary Tetrad, and if any 
one may assign names at his pleasure, who shall 
prevent us from adopting these names, as being 
much more credible [than the others], as well 
as in general use, and understood by all? 

3. Others still, however, have called their pri- 
mary and first-begotten Ogdoad by the follow- 
ing names: first, Proarche; then Anennoetos ; 
thirdly, Arrhetos ; and fourthly, Aoratos. Then, 
from the first, Proarche, there was produced, in 
the first and fifth place, Arche ; from Anennoe- 
tos, in the second and sixth place, Acataleptos ; 
from Arrhetos, in the third and seventh place, 
Anonomastos ; and from Aoratos, in the fourth 
and eighth place, Agennetos. This is the Ple- 
roma of the first Ogdoad. They maintain that 
these powers were anterior to Bythus and Sige, 
that they may appear more perfect than the per- 
fect, and more knowing than the very Gnostics ! 
To these persons one may justly exclaim: “O 
ye trifling sophists!”. since, even respecting 
Bythus himself, there are among them many and 
discordant opinions. For some declare him to 
be without a consort, and neither male nor fe- 
male, and, in fact, nothing at all; while others 
affirm him to be masculo-feminine, assigning to 
him the nature of a hermaphrodite ; others, again, 
allot Sige to him as a spouse, that thus may be 
formed the first conjunction. 


CHAP. XII. — THE DOCTRINES OF THE FOLLOWERS 
OF PrOLEMY AND COLORBASUS. 


1. But the followers of Ptolemy say? that he 
[Bythos] has two consorts, which they also name 
Diatheses (affections), viz., Ennoea and Thelesis. 
For, as they affirm, he first conceived the thought 
of producing something, and then willed to that 
effect. Wherefore, again, these two affections, 
or powers, Enncea and Thelesis, having inter- 
course, as it were, between themselves, the pro- 
duction of Monogenes and Aletheia took place 
according to conjunction. These two came forth 
sable “Bi pe Se iioe pee fe ee 


x [z Kings xviii. 27. ‘It came to pass that Elijah mocked 
them,” etc. This reductio ad absurdum of our author is. singu- 
larly applicable to certain forms of what is called “‘ Modern Thought. 4 

2 We here follow the Greek as preserved by Hippolytus (Phil- 
rsoph., vi. 38). The text followed by Epiphanius ( Ha@r., xxxill, 1) 
does not so well agree with the Latin. 





as types and images of the two affections of the - 
Father, — visible representations of those that 
were invisible,— Nous (i.e., Monogenes) of 
Thelesis, and Aletheia of Ennoea, and accord- 
ingly the image resulting from Thelesis was mas- 
culine,3 while that from Ennoea was feminine. 
Thus Thelesis (will) became, as it were, a faculty 
of Enncea (thought). For Enncea continually 
yearned after offspring; but she could not of 
herself bring forth that which she desired. But 
when the power of Thelesis (the faculty of will) 
came upon her, then she brought forth that on 
which she had brooded. 

2. These fancied beings‘ (like the Jove of 
Homer, who is represented 5 as passing an anx- 
ious sleepless night in devising plans for honour- 
ing Achilles and destroying numbers of the 
Greeks) will not appear to you, my dear friend, 
to be possessed of greater knowledge than He 
who is the God of the universe. He, as soon 
as He thinks, also performs what He has willed ; 
and as soon as He wills, also thinks that which 
He has willed; then thinking when He wills, 
and then willing when He thinks, since He is all 
thought, [all will, all mind, all light,]° all eye, 
all ear, the one entire fountain of all good things. 

3. Those of them, however, who are deemed 
more skilful than the persons who have just been 
mentioned, say that the first Ogdoad was not 
produced gradually, so that one Avon was sent 
forth by another, but that all7 the A®ons were 
brought into existence at once by Propator and 
his Enncea. He (Colorbasus) affirms this as 
confidently as if he had assisted at their birth. 
Accordingly, he and his followers maintain that 
Anthropos and Ecclesia were not produced,* as 
others hold, from Logos and Zoe ; but, on the 
contrary, Logos and Zoe from Anthropos and 
Ecclesia. But they express this in another form, 
as follows: When the Propator conceived the 
thought of producing something, he received the 
name of Father. But because what he did pro- 
duce was ¢vze, it was named Aletheia. Again, 
when he wished to reveal himself, this was 
termed Anthropos. Finally, when he produced 
those whom he had previously thought of, these 
were named Ecclesia. Anthropos, by speaking, 
formed Logos: this is the first-born son. But 
Zoe followed upon Logos; and thus the first 
Ogdoad was completed. 

4. They have much contention also among 
themselves respecting the Saviour. For some 





3 The text is here hopelessly corrupt; but the general meaning 
seems to be that given above. | f : : 
4 This sentence exists only in the Latin version, and we can give 


only a free translation. 


5 Llzad, ii. 1, etc. ; : 

6 These words are found in Efzshanzus, but omitted in the old 
Latin version. The Latin gives ‘ sense” instead of ‘‘ light.” ; 

7 The text is here very uncertain, Some propose to read szx 
E€ons instead of a//. 

8 Here again the text is corrupt and obscure. 
what seems the most probable emendation. 


We have followed 


334 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





maintain that he was formed out of all; where- 
fore also he was called Eudocetos, because the 
whole Pleroma was wef pleased through him to 
glorify the Father. But others assert that he was 
produced from those ten AXons alone who sprung 
from Logos and Zoe, and that on this account he 
was called Logos and Zoe, thus preserving the 
ancestral names.’ Others, again, affirm that he 
had his being from those twelve AZons who were 
the offspring of Anthropos and Ecclesia; and 
on this account he acknowledges himself the 
Son of man, as being a descendant of Anthropos. 
Others still, assert that he was produced by 
Christ and the Holy Spirit, who were brought 
forth for the security of the Pleroma; and that 
on this account he was called Christ, thus pre- 
serving the appellation of the Father, by whom 
he was produced. And there are yet others 
among them who declare that the Propator of 
the whole, Proarche, and Proanennoetos is called 
Anthropos ; and that this is the great and ab- 
struse mystery, namely, that the Power which is 
above all others, and contains all in his embrace, 
is termed Anthropos; hence does the Saviour 
style himself the “Son of man.” 


CHAP. XIII.—THE DECEITFUL ARTS AND NEFARI- 
OUS PRACTICES OF MARCUS. 


1. But? there is another among these heretics, 
Marcus by name, who boasts himself as having 
improved upon his master. He is a perfect adept 
in magical impostures, and by this means draw- 
ing away a great number of men, and not a few 
women, he has induced them to join themselves 
to him, as to one who is possessed of the greatest 
knowledge and perfection, and who has received 
the highest power from the invisible and ineffable 
regions above. Thus it appears as if he really 
were the precursor of Antichrist. For, joining 
the buffooneries of Anaxilaus 3 to the craftiness of 
the magi, as they are called, he is regarded by his 
senseless and cracked-brain followers as working 
miracles by these means. 

2. Pretending + to consecrate cups mixed with 
wine, and protracting to great length the word of 
invocation, he contrives to give them a purple and 
reddish colour, so that Charis,5 who is one of those 
that are superior to all things, should be thought 
to drop her own blood into that cup through 
means of his invocation, and that thus those who 


a 





_ 1 Harvey justly remarks, that ‘ one cause of perplexity in unravel- 

ling the Valentinian scheme is the recurrence of similar names at 
different points of the system, e.g., the Enthymesis of Sophia was 
called Sophia and Spiritus; and Pater, Arche, Monogenes, Christus, 
Anthropos, Ecclesia, were all of them terms of a double denomina. 
tion, 

2 The Greek text of this section is preserved both by Epiphanius 
(Her., xxxiy. 1) and by Hippolytus (Phtlosoph., vi. 39, 40). Their 
citations are somewhat discordant, and we therefore Litow the old 

atin version. 

3 Pliny, Azst. Mat., xxxv. 15, etc. 

4 Epiphanius now gives the Greek text verbatim, to which, there- 
fore, we return. 

5 Probably referring to Sige, the consort of Bythus. 








are present should be led to rejoice to taste of 
that cup, in order that, by so doing, the Charis, 
who is set forth by this magician, may also flow 
into them. Again, handing mixed cups to the 
women, he bids them consecrate these in his 
presence. When this has been done, he himself 
produces another cup of much larger size than 
that which the deluded woman has consecrated, 
and pouring from the smaller one consecrated by 
the woman into that which has been brought for- 
ward by himself, he at the same time pronounces 
these words : “ May that Charis who is before all 
things, and who transcends all knowledge and 
speech, fill thine inner man, and multiply in thee 
her own knowledge, by sowing the grain of mus- 
tard seed in thee as in good soil.” Repeating 
certain other like words, and thus goading on the 
wretched woman [to madness], he then appears 
a worker of wonders when the large cup is seen 
to have been filled out of the small one, so as 
even to overflow by what has been obtained from 
it. By accomplishing several other similar things, 
he has completely deceived many, and drawn. 
them away after him. 

3. It appears probable enough that this man 
possesses a demon as his familiar spirit, by means 
of whom he seems able to prophesy,® and also en- 
ables as many as he counts worthy to be partakers 
of his Charis themselves to prophesy. He devotes 
himself especially to women, and those such as 
are well-bred, and elegantly attired, and of great 
wealth, whom he frequently seeks to draw after 
him, by addressing them in such seductive words 
as these : “I am eager to make thee a partaker 
of my Charis, since the Father of all doth con- 
tinually behold thy angel before His face. Now 
the place of thy angel is among us:7 it behoves 
us to become one. Receive first from me and 
by me [the gift of ] Charis. Adorn thyself as a 
bride who is expecting her bridegroom, that thou 
mayest be what I am, and I what thou art. Es- 
tablish the germ of light in thy nuptial chamber. 
Receive from me a spouse, and become receptive 
of him, while thou art received by him. Behold 
Charis has descended upon thee ; open thy mouth 
and prophesy.” On the woman replying, “I have 
never at any time prophesied, nor do I know how 
to prophesy ;” then engaging, for the second 
time, in certain invocations, so as to astound his 
deluded victim, he says to her, “ Open thy mouth, 
speak whatsoever occurs to thee, and thou shalt 
prophesy.” She then, vainly puffed up and elated 
by these words, and greatly excited in soul by the 
expectation that it is herself who is to prophesy, 
her heart beating violently [from emotion |, 
reaches the requisite pitch of audacity, and idly 
as well as impudently utters some nonsense as it 
happens to occur to her, such as might be ex- 





& (Comp. Acts xvi, 16,] 
7 Literally, “‘ the place of thy mightiness is in us.” 


- 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


pected from one heated by an empty spirit. 
(Referring to this, one superior to me_ has 
observed, that the soul is both audacious and 
impudent when heated with empty air.) Hence- 
forth she reckons herself a prophetess, and ex- 
presses her thanks to Marcus for having imparted 
to her of his own Charis. She then makes the 
effort to reward him, not only by the gift of her 
possessions (in which way he has collected a very 
large fortune), but also by yielding up to him 
her person, desiring in every way to be united to 
se that she may become altogether one with 
im. 

4. But already some of the most faithful wo- 
men, possessed of the fear of God, and not being 
deceived (whom, nevertheless, he did his best 
to seduce like the rest by bidding them proph- 
esy), abhorring and execrating him, have with- 
drawn from such a vile company of revellers. 
This they have done, as being well aware that 
the gift of prophecy is not conferred on men by 
Marcus, the magician, but that only those to 
whom God sends His grace from above possess 
the divinely-bestowed power of prophesying ; 
and then they speak where and when God pleases, 
and not when Marcus orders them to doso. For 
that which commands is greater and of higher 
authority than that which is commanded, inas- 
much as the former rules, while the latter is in 
a state of subjection. If, then, Marcus, or any 
one else, does command, —as these are accus- 
tomed continually at their feasts to play at draw- 
ing lots, and [in accordance with the lot] to 
command one another to prophesy, giving forth 
as oracles what is in harmony with their own 
desires, — it will follow that he who commands 
is greater and of higher authority than the pro- 
phetic spirit, though he is but a man, which is 
impossible. But such spirits as are commanded 
by these men, and speak when they desire it, 
are earthly and weak, audacious and inipudent, 
sent forth by Satan for the seduction and perdi- 
tion of those. who do not hold fast that well- 
compacted faith which they received at first 
through the Church. 

5. Moreover, that this Marcus compounds 
philters and love-potions, in order to insult the 
persons of some of these women, if not of all, 
those of them who have returned to the Church 
of God —a thing which frequently occurs — 
have acknowledged, confessing, too, that they 
have been defiled by him, and that they were 
filled with a burning passion towards him. A sad 
example of this occurred in the case of a certain 
Asiatic, one of our deacons, who had received 
him (Marcus) into his house. His wife, a wo- 
man of remarkable beauty, fell a victim both in 
mind and body to this magician, and, for a long 
time, travelled about with him. At last, when, 
with no small difficulty, the brethren had con- 








335 


verted her, she spent her whole time in the ex- 
ercise of public confession, weeping over and 
lamenting the defilement which she had received 
from this magician. 

6. Some of his disciples, too, addicting them- 
selves? to the same practices, have deceived 
many silly women, and defiled them. They pro- 
claim themselves as being “ perfect,” so that no 
one can be compared to them with respect to 
the immensity of their knowledge, nor even were 
you to mention Paul or Peter, or any other of 
the apostles. They assert that they themselves 
know more than all others, and that they alone 
have imbibed the greatness of the knowledge of 
that power which is unspeakable. They also 
maintain that they have attained to a height 
above all power, and that therefore they are free 
in every respect to act as they please, having no 
one to fear in anything. For they affirm, that 
because of the “ Redemption ”’3 it has come to 
pass that they can neither be apprehended, nor 
even seen by the judge. But even if he should 
happen to lay hold upon them, then they might 
simply repeat these words, while standing in his 
presence along with the “ Redemption:” “O 
thou, who sittest beside God,* and the mystical, 
eternal Sige, thou through whom the angels 
(mightiness), who continually behold the face of 
the Father, having thee as their guide and intro- 
ducer, do derive their forms 5 from above, which 
she in the greatness of her daring inspiring with 
mind on account of the goodness of the Propa- 
tor, produced us as their images, having her 
mind then intent upon the things above, as in a 
dream, — behold, the judge is at hand, and the 
crier orders me to make my defence. But do 
thou, as being acquainted with the affairs of 
both, present the cause of both of us to the 
judge, inasmuch as it is in reality but one cause.’’® 
Now, as soon as the Mother hears these words, 
she puts the Homeric” helmet of Pluto upon 
them, so that they may invisibly escape the judge. 
And then she immediately catches them up, con- 
ducts them into the bridal chamber, and hands 
them over to their consorts. 








1 [Note this manner of primitive “ confession;” and see Bingham, 
Antiquities, book xv. cap. 8.] : - 

2 We here follow the rendering of Billius, ‘‘ in iisdem studiis ver- 
santes,” Others adhere to the received text, and translate TepiToAi= 
ortes “ going about idly.” 


3 Grabe is of opinion that reference is made in this term to an im- 
precatory formula in use among the Marcosians, analogous to the 
form of thanksgiving employed night and morning by the Jews for 
their redemption from Egypt. Harvey refers the word to the second 
baptism practised among these and other heretics, by which it was 
supposed they were removed from the cognizance of the Demiurge, 
who is styled the “judge” in the close of the above sentence. 

4 That is, Sophia, of whom Achamoth, afterwards referred to, was 
the emanation. ~ 

5 The angels accompanying Soter were the consorts of spiritual 
Gnostics, to whom they were restored after death. 

6 The syntax in this long sentence 1s very confused, but the mean- 
ing is tolerably plain. The gist of it , that these Gnostics, as being 
the spiritual seed, claimed a consubstantiality with Achamoth, an 
consequently escaped from the material Demiurge, and attained at 
last to the Pleroma. pedi: 

7 Rendering the wearer invisible. See /7., v. 844. 


336 





7. Such are the words and deeds by which, 
in our own district of the Rhone, they have de- 
luded many women, who have their consciences 
seared as with a hot iron.t Some of them, in- 
deed, make a public confession of their sins ; 
but others of them are ashamed to do this, and 
in a tacit kind of way, despairing of [attaining 
to] the life of God, have, some of them, aposta- 
tized altogether; while others hesitate between 
the two courses, and incur that which is implied 
in the proverb, “neither without nor within ;” 
possessing this as the fruit from the seed of the 
children of knowledge. 


CHAP. XIV.— THE VARIOUS HYPOTHESES OF MARCUS 
AND OTHERS. THEORIES RESPECTING LETTERS 
AND SYLLABLES. 


1. This Marcus? then, declaring that he alone 
was the matrix and receptacle of the Sige of 
Colorbasus, inasmuch as he was only-begotten, 
has brought to the birth in some such way as 
follows that which was committed to him of the 
defective Enthymesis. He declares that the 
infinitely exalted Tetrad descended upon him 
from the invisible and indescribable places in 
the form of a woman (for the world could not 
have borne it coming in its male form), and ex- 
pounded to him alone its own nature, and the 
origin of all things, which it had never before 
revealed to any one either of gods ormen. This 
was done in the following terms: When first the 
unoriginated, inconceivable Father, who is with- 
out material substance,3 and is neither male nor 
female, willed to bring forth that which is ineffa- 
ble to Him, and to endow with form that which 
is invisible, He opened His mouth, and sent 
forth the Word similar to Himself, who, standing 
near, showed Him what He Himself was, inas- 
much as He had been manifested in the form 
of that which was invisible. Moreover, the pro- 
nunciation of His name took place as follows: 
— He spake the first word of it, which was the 
beginning‘ [of all the rest], and that utterance 
consisted of four letters. He added the second, 
and this also consisted of four letters. Next He 
uttered the third, and this again embraced ten 
letters. Finally, He pronounced the fourth, 





I 2 Tim. iii. 6. 

2 This sentence has completely baffled all the critics. {Its banter, 
or mock gravity, has not been self-evident.] We cannot enter 
upon the wide field of discussion which it has opened up, but 


would simply state that Irenzeus here seems to us, as often, to be} 


playing upon the terms which were in common use among these 
eretics. Marcus probably received his system from Colorbasus, 
and is here declared, by the use of that jargon which Irenzeus means 
to ridicule while so employing it, to have proceeded to develop it in 
the way described. 

3 Such appears to be the meaning of avovcvos in this passage. 
The meaning of ovaia fluctuated for a time in the early Church, and 
was sometimes used to denote saterzal substance, instead of its usual 
significance of dezng. 

4 The old Latin preserves 4oxy untranslated, implying that this 
was the first word which the Father spoke. Some modern editors 
adopt this view, while others hold the meaning simply to be, as given 
ubove, that that first sound which the Father uttered was the origin 
vf all the rest. 














IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


which was composed of twelve letters. Thus 
took place the enunciation of the whole name, 
consisting of thirty letters, and four distinct ut- 
terances. Each of these elements has its own 
peculiar letters, and character, and pronuncia- 
tion, and forms, and images, and there is not 
one of them that perceives the shape of that 
[utterance] of which it is an element. Neither 
does any one know itself, nor is it acquainted 
with the pronunciation of its neighbour, but each 
one imagines that by its own utterance it does 
in fact name the whole. For while every one 
of them is a part of the whole, it imagines its 
own sound to be the whole name, and does not 
leave off sounding until, by its own utterance, it 
has reached the last letter of each of the ele- 
ments. , This teacher declares that the restitu- 
tion of all things will take place, when all these, 
mixing into one letter, shall utter one and the 
same sound. He imagines that the emblem of 
this utterance is found in Amen, which we pro- 
nounce in concert.° The diverse sounds (he 
adds) are those which give form to that Aton who 
is without material substance and unbegotten, 
and these, again, are the forms which the Lord 
has called angels, who continually behold the 
face of the Father.7 

2. Those names of the elements which may 
be told, and are common, he has called Zons, 
and words, and roots, and seeds, and fulnesses, 
and fruits. He asserts that each of these, and 
all that is peculiar to every one of them, is to be 
understood as contained in the name Ecclesia. 
Of these elements, the last letter of the last one 
uttered its voice, and this sound® going forth 
generated its own elements after the image of 
the [other] elements, by which he affirms, that 
both the things here below were arranged into 
the order they occupy, and those that preceded 
them were called into existence. He also main- 
tains that the letter itself, the sound of which 
followed that sound below, was received up again 
by the syllable to which it belonged, in order to 
the completion of the whole, but that the sound 
remained below as if cast outside. But the ele- 
ment itself from which the letter with its special 
pronunciation descended to that below, he affirms 
to consist of thirty letters, while each of these 
letters, again, contains other letters in itself, by 
means of which the name of the letter is ex- 
pressed. And thus, again, others are named by 
other letters, and others still by others, so that 
the multitude of letters swells out into infinitude. 
You may more clearly understand what I mean 
by the following example :—The word De/za con- 


ee Se ee 


5 The letters are here confounded with the Zons, which they rep- 
resented. 

6 4 Cor. xiv. 16,] 

7 Matt. xviii. ro. 

8 By this Achamoth is denoted, who was said to give rise to the 
material elements, after the image of the Divine. 


IRENAAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


33/ 





tains five letters, viz., D, E, L, T, A: these letters, 
again, are written by other letters,’ and others 


still by others. If, then, the entire composition 
of the word Delta [when thus analyzed] runs 
out into infinitude, letters continually generating 
other letters, and following one another in con- 
stant succession, how much vaster than that 
[one] word is the [entire] ocean of letters! And 
if even one letter be thus infinite, just consider 
the immensity of the letters in the entire name, 
out of which the Sige of Marcus has taught us 
the Propator is composed. For which reason 
the Father, knowing the incomprehensibleness 
of His own nature, assigned to the elements, 
which He also terms AZons, [the power] of each 
one uttering its own enunciation, because no one 
of them was capable by itself of uttering the 
whole. 

3. Moreover, the Tetrad, explaining these 
things to hirn more fully, said: — 1 wish to show 
thee Aletheia (Truth) herself; for I have brought 
her down. from the dwellings above, that thou 
mayest see her without a veil, and understand 
her beauty——that thou mayest also hear her 
speaking, and admire her wisdom. Behold, then, 
her head on high, 4a and Omega ; her neck, 
Beta and Psi; her shoulders with her hands, 
Gamma and Chi; her breast, Delta and Put; 
her diaphragm, Zsilon and Upsilon ; her back, 
Zeta and Tau; her belly, Zia and Sigma, her 
thighs, Zheca and Rho, her knees, /ofa and 
Pi; her legs, Kappa and Omicron ; her ancles, 
Lambda and Xi; her feet, Mu and Mu. Such 
is the body of Truth, according to this ma- 
gician, such the figure of the element, such the 
character of the letter. And he calls this ele- 
ment Anthropos (Man), and says that is the 
fountain of all speech, and the beginning of all 
sound, and the expression of all that is unspeak- 
able, and the mouth of the silent Sige. This 
indeed is the body of Truth. But do thou, ele- 
vating the thoughts of thy mind on high, listen 
from the mouth of Truth to the self-begotten 
Word, wh» is also the dispenser of the bounty 
of the Father. 

4. When she (the Tetrad) had spoken these 
things, Aletheia looked at him, opened her mouth, 
and uttered a word. ‘That word was a name, and 
the name was this one which we do know and 
speak of, viz., Christ Jesus. When she had ut- 
tered this name, she at once relapsed into silence. 
And as Marcus waited in the expectation that 
she would say something more, the Tetrad again 
came forward and said, ‘“‘Thou hast reckoned as 
contemptible that word which thou hast heard 
from the mouth of Aletheia. This which thou 
knowest and seemest to possess, is not an an- 
cient name. For thou possessest the sound of 


Le a ee 
I That is, their names are spelt by other letters. 











it merely, whilst thou art ignorant of its power. 
For Jesus (‘Iycots) is a name arithmetically? 
symbolical, consisting of six letters, and. is 
known by all those that belong to the called. 
But that which is among the Zons of the Pleroma 
consists of many parts, and is of another form 
and shape, and is known by those [angels] who 
are joined in affinity with Him, and whose 
Bene (mightinesses) are always present with 

im. 

5. Know, then, that the four-and-twenty letters 
which you possess are symbolical emanations of 
the three powers that contain the entire number 
of the elements above. For you are to reckon 
thus — that the nine mute} letters are [the 
images] of Pater and Aletheia, because they are 
without voice, that is, of such a nature as cannot 
be uttered or pronounced. But the semi-vowels + 
represent Logos and Zoe, because they are, as it 
were, midway between the consonants and the 
vowels, partaking 5 of the nature of both. The 
vowels, again, are representative of Anthropos 
and Ecclesia, inasmuch as a voice proceeding 
from Anthropos gave being to them all; for the 
sound of the voice imparted to them form. 
Thus, then, Logos and Zoe possess eight [of 
these letters] ; Anthropos and Ecclesia seven ; 
and Pater and Aletheia nine. But since the 
number allotted to each was unequal, He who 
existed in the Father came down, having been 
specially sent by Him from whom He was sepa- 
rated, for the rectification of what had taken place, 
that the unity of the Pleromas, being endowed 
with equality, might develop in all that one 
power which flows from all. Thus that division 
which had only seven letters, received the power 
of eight,° and the three sets were rendered alike 
in point of number, all becoming Ogdoads ; 
which three, when brought together, constitute the 
number four-and-twenty. The three elements, 
too (which he declares to exist in conjunction 
with three powers,’ and thus form the six from 
which have flowed the twenty-four letters), being 
quadrupled by the word of the ineffable Tetrad, 
give rise to the same number with them ; and 
these elements he maintains to belong to Him 
who cannot be named. ‘These, again, were en- 
dowed by the three powers with a resemblance 
to Him who is invisible. And he says that those 
letters which we call double*® are the images of 
See eS 


2 The old Latin version renders érionuov, znszgne, illustrious, 
but there seems to be a reference to the Valentinian notion of the 
mystic number of 888 formed (10+8+200+70+400+200) by the nu- 
merical value of the letters in the word "Ingots. 

3 The mutes are 7, Ky T, B, Ys 5, by Xs 9- 

4 The semi-vowels are A, /4) Vy) Py 7 Sy &y We ; : 

5 It seems scarcely possible to give a more definite rendering of 
this clause: it may be literally translated thus: “ And because they 
receive the outflow of those above, but the turning back again of those 
below.” 

6 The ninth letter being taken from the mutes and added to the 
semi-vowels, an equal division of the twenty-four was thus secured. 

7 Viz., Pater, Athropos, and Logos. 

8 Viz.,S, & p=ds, Ks, mS- 


338 





the images of these elements ; and if these be 
added to the four-and-twenty letters, by the force 
of analogy they form the number thirty. 

6. He asserts that the fruit of this arrange- 
ment and analogy has been manifested in the 
likeness of an image, namely, Him who, after 
six days, ascended‘ into the mountain along 
with three others, and then became one of six 
(the sixth),? in which character He descended, 
and was contained in the Hebdomad, since He 
was the illustrious Ogdoad,3 and contained in 
Himself the entire number of the elements, 
which the descent of the dove (who is Alpha 
and Omega) made clearly manifest, when He 
came to be baptized; for the number of the 
dove is eight hundred and one. And for this 
reason did Moses declare that man was formed 
on the sixth day ; and then, again, according to 
arrangement, it was on the sixth day, which is 
the preparation, that the last man appeared, for 
the regeneration of the first. Of this arrange- 
ment, both the beginning and the end were 
formed at that sixth hour, at which He was 
nailed to the tree. For that perfect being. Nous, 
knowing that the number six had the power 
both of formation and regeneration, declared to 
the children of light, that regeneration which 
has been wrought out by Him who appeared as 
the £Z7semon in regard to that number. Whence 
also he declares it is that the double letters 5 
contain the Episemon number; for this Epise- 
mon, when joined to the twenty-four elements, 
completed the name of thirty letters. 

7. He employed as his instrument, as the Sige 
of Marcus declares, the power of seven letters,° 
in order that the fruit of the independent will 
[of Achamoth] might be revealed. “ Consider 
this present Lpisemon,” she says — “ Him who 
was formed after the [original] Zpisemon, as 
being, as it were, divided or cut into two parts, 
and remaining outside ; who, by His own power 
and wisdom, through means of that which had 
been produced by Himself, gave life to this 
world, consisting of seven powers,’ after the 
likeness of the power of the Hebdomad, and so 
formed it, that it is the soul of everything visi- 
ble. And He indeed uses this work Himself as 
if it had been formed by His own free will ; but 
the rest, as being images of what cannot be 





1 Matt. xvii. 7; Mark ix, 2. 
? Moses and Elias being added to the company, 
3 Referring to the word Xpetords, according to Harvey, who re- 
eS that “ generally the Ogdoad was the receptacle of the spiritual 
e 


4 The Saviour, as Alpha and Omega, was symbolized by the dove, 
the sum of the Greek numerals, 1, e, py ty 05 7, €, py a Cac 
dove), being, like that of A and Q, 8or. 

5 That is, the letters ¢, €, wall contain s, whose value is stx, and 
which was called érionjov by the Greeks. 
, Referring to Aletheta, which, in Greek, contains seven let- 
ers. 

7 By these seven powers are meant the seven heavens (also called 
angels), formed by the Demiurge 








IREN/ZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





[fully] imitated, are subservient to the Enthy- 
mesis of the mother. And the first heaven in- 
deed pronounces A/pha, the next to this Epsilon, 
the third 7a, the fourth, which is also in the 
midst of the seven, utters the sound of Jo/a, 
the fifth Omicron, the sixth Upsidon, the seventh, 
which is also the fourth from the middle, utters 
the elegant Omega,’’—as the Sige of Marcus, 
talking a deal of nonsense, but uttering no 
word of truth, confidently asserts. ‘And these 
powers,” she adds, “being all simultaneously 
clasped in each other’s embrace, do sound out 
the glory of Him by whom they were produced ; 
and the glory of that sound is transmitted up- 
wards to the Propator.’”” She asserts, moreover, 
that “the sound of this uttering of praise, having 
been wafted to the earth, has become the Framer 
and the Parent of those things which are on the 
earth.” 

8. He instances, in proof of this, the case of in- 
fants who have just been born, the cry of whom, 
as soon as they have issued from the womb, is 
in accordance with the sound of every one of 
these elements. As, then, he says, the seven 
powers glorify the Word, so also does the com- 
plaining soul of infants. For this reason, too, 
David said: “Out of the mouth of babes and 
sucklings Thou hast perfected praise ;”9 and 
again : “The heavens declare the glory of God.” 
Hence also it comes to pass, that when the soul 
is involved in difficulties and distresses, for its 
own relief it calls out, “Oh” (Q), in honour of 
the letter in question,’ so that its cognate soul 
above may recognise [its distress], and send 
down to it relief. 

9. Thus it is, that in regard to the whole 
name,’* which consists of thirty letters, and 
Bythus, who receives his increase from the let- 
ters of this [name], and, moreover, the body of 
Aletheia, which is composed of twelve members, 
each of which consists of two letters, and the 
voice which she uttered without having spoken 
at all, and in regard to the analysis of that name 
which cannot be expressed in words, and the 
soul of the world and of man, according as they 
possess that arrangement, which is after the image 
[of things above], he has uttered his nonsensi- 
cal opinions. It remains that I relate how the 
Tetrad showed him from the names a powe. 
equal in number; so that nothing, my friend, 
which I have received as spoken by him, may 
remain unknown to thee ; and thus thy request, 
often proposed to me, may be fulfilled. 





8 We here follow the text of Hippolytus: the ordinary text and 
the old Latin read, ‘ So does the soul of infants, weeping and mourn- 
ing over Marcus, deify him.” ; 

9 Ps. viii. 2. 

To Ps. xix. r. 

tt The text is here altogether uncertain: we have given the proba- 
ble meaning. > 

12 That is, the name of Soter, the perfect result of the whole Ple 
roma, 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


339 





CHAP. XV.— SIGE RELATES TO MARCUS THE GEN- 
ERATION OF THE TWENTY-FOUR ELEMENTS AND 
OF JESUS. EXPOSURE OF THESE ABSURDITIES. 


1. The all-wise Sige then announced the pro- 
duction of the four-and-twenty elements to him 
as follows: — Along with Monotes there co- 
existed Henotes, from which sprang two produc- 
tions, as we have remarked above, Monas and 
Hen, which, added to the other two, make four, 
for twice two are four. And again, two and four, 
when added together, exhibit the number six. 
And further, these six being quadrupled, give 
rise to the twenty-four forms. And the names 
of the first Tetrad, which are understood to be 
most holy, and not capable of being expressed 
in words, are known by the Son alone, while the 
father also knows what they are. The other 
names which are to be uttered with respect, and 
faith, and reverence, are, according to ‘him, Arr- 
hetos and Sige, Pater and Aletheia. Now the 
entire number of this Tetrad amounts to four-and- 
twenty letters; for the name Arrhetos contains 
in itself seven letters, Seige * five, Pater five, and 
Aletheia seven. If all these be added together 
— twice five, and twice seven — they complete 
the number twenty-four. In like manner, also, 
the second Tetrad, Logos and Zoe, Anthropos 
and Ecclesia, reveal the same number of ele- 
ments. Moreover, that name of the Saviour 
which may be pronounced, viz., Jesus [Ingots], 
consists of six letters, but His unutterable name 
comprises four-and-twenty letters. The name 
Christ the Son? (vids Xpeords) comprises 
twelve letters, but that which is unpronounceable 
in Christ contains thirty letters. And for this 
reason he declares that He is Aha and Omega, 
that he may indicate the dove, inasmuch as that 
bird has this number [in its name]. 

2. But Jesus, he affirms, has the following 

unspeakable origin. From the mother of all 
things, that is, the first Tetrad, there came forth 
the second Tetrad, after the manner of a daugh- 
ter; and thus an Ogdoad was formed, from 
which, again, a Decad proceeded : thus was pro- 
duced a Decad and an Ogdoad. The Decad, 
then, being joined with the Ogdoad, and multi- 
plying it ten times, gave rise to the number 
eighty; and, again, multiplying eighty ten times, 
produced the number ezght hundred. Thus, 
then, the whole number of the letters proceeding 
from the Ogdoad [multiplied] into the Decad, 
is eight hundred and eighty-eight.3 This is the 
name of Jesus; for this name, if you reckon up 
the numerical value of the letters, amounts to 
eight hundred and eighty-eight. ,Thus, then, 





I Manifestly to be so spelt here, as in the sequel Chreistus, for 
Christus. i 

2 The text is here altogether uncertain, and the meaning obscure. 

3 The reading is exceedingly doubtful: some prefer the number 
etghty-erght. 








you have a clear statement of their opinion as to 
the origin of the supercelestial Jesus. Where- 
fore, also, the alphabet of the Greeks contains 
eight Monads, eight Decads, and eight Heca- 
tads*, which present the number eight hundred 
and eighty-eight, that is, /esws, who is formed of 
all numbers ; and on this account He is called 
Alpha and Omega, indicating His origin from 
all. And, again, they put the matter thus: If 
the first Tetrad be added up according to the 
progression of number, the number ten appears. 
For one, and two, and three, and four, when 
added together, form ten ; and this, as they will 
have it, is Jesus. Moreover, Chreistus, he says, 
being a word of eight letters, indicates the first 
Ogdoad, and this, when multiplied by ten, gives 
birth to Jesus (888). And Christ the Son, he 
says, is also spoken of, that is, the Duodecad. 
For the name Son, (vids) contains four letters, 
and Christ (Chreistus) eight, which, being com- 
bined, point out the greatness of the Duodecad. 
But, he alleges, before the LZfisemon of this 
name appeared, that is Jesus the Son, mankind 
were involved in great ignorance and error. 
But when this name of six letters was manifested 
(the person bearing it clothing Himself in flesh, 
that He might come under the apprehension of 
man’s senses, and having in Himself these six 
and twenty-four letters), then, becoming ac- 
quainted with Him, they ceased from their igno- 
rance, and passed from death unto life, this name 
serving as their guide to the Father of truth.5 
For the Father of all had resolved to put an end 
to ignorance, and to destroy death, But this 
abolishing of ignorance was just the knowledge 
of Him. And therefore that man (Anthropos) 
was chosen according to His will, having been 
formed after the image of the [corresponding ] 
power above. 

3. As to the AZons, they proceeded from the 
Tetrad, and in that Tetrad were Anthropos and 
Ecclesia, Logos and Zoe. The powers, then, he 
declares, who emanated from these, generated 
that Jesus who appeared upon the earth. The 
angel Gabriel took the place of Logos, the Holy 
Spirit that of Zoe, the Power of the Highest that 
of Anthropos, while the Virgin pointed out the 
place of Ecclesia. And thus, by a special dis- 
pensation, there was generated by Him, through 
Mary, that man, whom, as He passed ‘through 
the womb, the Father of all chose to [obtain] 
the knowledge of Himself by means of the Word. 
And on His coming to the water [of baptism], 
there descended on Him, in the form of a dove, 





4 There were, as Harvey here observes, three extraneous charac- 
ters introduced into the Greek alphabet for the sake of numeration — 
the three ¢fzsema for 6,90, and goo respectively. The true alphabet, 
then, as employed to denote number, included eight units, eight tens, 
and eight hundreds. kes 

S Or, goeetng it the Greek text, ‘being as the way to the 


Father; ” comp. John xiv. 6. 


340 





that Being who had formerly ascended on high, 
and completed the twelfth number, in whom 
there existed the seed of those who were pro- 
duced contemporaneously with Himself, and 
who descended and .ascended along with Him. 
Moreover, he maintains that that power which 
descended was the seed of the Father, which 
had in itself both the Father and the Son, as 
well as that power of Sige which is known by 
means of them, but cannot be expressed in lan- 
guage, and also all the AXons. And this was that 
Spirit who spoke by the mouth of Jesus, and who 
confessed that He was the son of Man as well as 
revealed the Father, and who, having descended 
into Jesus, was made one with Him. And he 
says that the Saviour formed by special dispen- 
sation did indeed destroy death, but that Christ 
made known the Father." He maintains, there- 
fore, that Jesus is the name of that man formed 
by a special dispensation, and that He was 
formed after the likeness and form of that [heav- 
enly ] Anthropos, who was about to descend upon 
Him. After He had received that Aton, He 
possessed Anthropos himself, and Logos himself, 
and Pater, and Arrhetus, and Sige, and Aletheia, 
and Ecclesia, and Zoe. 

4. Such ravings, we may now well say, go be- 
yond Ju, Ju, Pheu, Pheu, and every kind of 
tragic exclamation or utterance of misery.? For 
who would not detest one who is the wretched 
contriver of such audacious falsehoods, when he 
perceives the truth turned by Marcus into a mere 
image, and that punctured all over with the let- 
ters of the alphabet? The Greeks confess that 
they first received sixteen letters from Cadmus, 
and that but recently, as compared with the be- 
ginning, [the vast antiquity of which is implied ] 
in the common proverb: “Yesterday and be- 
fore ;”’3 and afterwards, in the course of time, 
they themselves invented at one period the as- 
pirates, and at another the double letters, while, 
last of all, they say Palamedes added the long 
letters to the former. Was it so, then, that until 
these things took place among the Greeks, truth 
had no existence? For, according to thee, Mar- 
cus, the body of truth is posterior to Cadmus 
and those who preceded him — posterior also to 
those who added the rest of the letters — pos- 
terior even to thyself! For thou alone hast 
formed that which is called by thee the truth 
into an [outward, visible] image. ‘ 

5. But who will tolerate thy nonsensical Sige, 
who names Him that cannot be named, and ex- 
pounds the nature of Him that is unspeakable, 
and searches out Him that is unsearchable, and 
declares that He whom thou maintainest to be 





t [he text is here uncertain: we follow that suggested by Grabe. 
2 pee: cap. xi. 4, supra. ] 
_ 3 Comp. Gen. xxxi. 2.—We here follow the punctuation of 
Scaliger, now generally accepted by the editors, though entirely dif- 
ferent from the old Latin, 






IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


destitute of body and form, opened His mouth » 
and sent forth the Word, as if He were included 
among organized beings; and that His Word, 
while like to His Author, and bearing the image 
of the invisible, nevertheless consisted of thirty 
elements and four syllables? It will follow, then, 
according to thy theory, that the Father of all, in 
accordance with the likeness of the Word, con- 
sists of thirty elements and four syllables! Or, 
again, who will tolerate thee in thy juggling with 
forms and numbers,—at one time thirty, at 
another twenty-four, and at another, again, only 
six, — whilst thou shuttest up [in these] the Word 
of God, the Founder, and Framer, and Maker 
of all things; and then, again, cutting Him up 
piecemeal into four syllables and thirty elements ; 
and bringing down the Lord of all who founded 
the heavens to the number eight hundred and 
eighty-eight, so that He should be similar to the 
alphabet ; and subdividing the Father, who can- 
not be contained, but contains all things, into a 
Tetrad, and an Ogdoad, and a Decad, and a Duo- 
decad ; and by such multiplications, setting forth 
the unspeakable and inconceivable nature of the 
Father, as thou thyself declarest it to be? And 
showing thyself a very Dzedalus for evil invention, 
and the wicked architect of the supreme power, 
thou dost construct a nature and substance for 
Him whom thou callest incorporeal and imma- 
terial, out of a multitude of letters, generated the 
one by the other. And that power whom thou 
affirmest to be indivisible, thou dost nevertheless 
divide into consonants, and vowels, and semi- 
vowels ; and, falsely ascribing those letters which 
are mute to the Father of all things, and to His 
Ennoea (thought), thou hast driven on all that 
place confidence in thee to the highest point of 
blasphemy, and to the grossest impiety.* ; 

6. With good reason, therefore, and very fit- 
tingly, in reference to thy rash attempt, has that 
divine elder 5 and preacher of the truth burst 
forth in verse against thee as follows : — 








“Marcus, thou former of idols, inspector of portents, 

Skill’d in consulting the stars, and deep in the black 
arts of magic, 

Ever by tricks such as these confirming the doctrines of 
error, 

Furnishing signs unto those involved by thee in decep- 
tion, 

Wonders of power that is utterly severed from God 
and apostate, 

Which Satan, thy true father, enables thee still to ac- 
complish, 

By means of Azazel, that fallen and 

Thus making thee the precursor of 
actions.” 


Such are the words of the saintly elder. And 
I shall endeavour to state the remainder of their 
mystical system, which runs out to great length, 
in brief compass, and to bring to the light what 


et mighty angel,— 
his own impious 


4 fetosneien thinks this Marcus was a lunatic.] 
5 [Some think Pothinus.] i 


IRENAAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


341 





has for a long time been concealed. For in this 
way such things will become easily susceptible 
of exposure by all. 


CHAP. XVI. — ABSURD INTERPRETATIONS OF THE 
MARCOSIANS, 


1. Blending in one the production of their 
own AZons, and the straying and recovery of the 
sheep [spoken of in the Gospel '], these persons 
endeavour to set forth things in a more mystical 
style, while they refer everything to numbers, 
maintaining that the universe has been formed 
out of a Monad and a Dyad. And then, reckon- 
ing from unity on to four, they thus generate 
the Decad. For when one, two, three, and four 
are added together, they give rise to the number 
of the ten AZons. And, again, the Dyad advan- 
cing from itself [by twos] up to six— two, and 
four, and six — brings out the Duodecad. Once 
more, if we reckon in the same way up to ten, the 
number thirty appears, n which are found eight, 
and ten, and twelve. They therefore term the 
Duodecad— because it contains the Episemon,? 
and because the Episemon [so to speak] waits 
upon it—the passion. And for this reason, be- 
cause an error occurred in connection with the 
twelfth number,3 the sheep frisked off, and went 
astray; for they assert that a defection took 
place from the Duodecad. In the same way 
they oracularly declare, that one power having 
departed also from the Duodecad, has perished ; 
and this was represented by the woman who lost 
the drachma,‘ and, lighting a lamp, again found 
it. Thus, therefore, the numbers that were left, 
viz., nine, as respects the pieces of money, and 
eleven in regard to the sheep,5 when multiplied 
together, give birth to the number mnety-nine, 
for nine times eleven are ninety-nine. Where- 
fore also they maintain the word “ Amen” con- 
tains this number. 

2. I will not, however, weary thee by recount- 
ing their other interpretations, that you may per- 
ceive the results everywhere. They maintain, 
for instance, that the letter 7a (m) along with 
the Zpisemon (s) constitutes an Ogdoad, inas- 
much as it occupies the eighth place from the 
first letter. Then, again, without the Lpzsemon, 
reckoning the number of the letters, and adding 
them up till we come to Z/a, they bring out the 
Triacontad. For if one begins at Adpha and 
ends with Z¢a, omitting the Zpsemon, and adds 
together the value of the letters in succession, he 
will find their number altogether to amount to 
thirty. For up to Zpsidon (c) fifteen are formed ; 





1 Luke xv. 4. ; 

2 All the educate, Grabe, Massuet, Stieren, and Harvey, differ as 
to the text and interpretation of this sentence. We have given what 
seems the simplest rendering of the text as it stands. 

3 Referring to the last of the twelve tons. 

4 Luke xv. 8. ‘ 

5 Meaning the Zon who left the Duodecad, when eleven remained, 
and not referring to the lost sheep of the parable. 





then adding seven to that number, the sum of 
twenty-two is reached. Next, Aza being added 
to these, since its value is eight, the most won- 
derful Triacontad is completed. And hence 
they give forth that the Ogdoad is the mother 
of the thirty A°ons. Since, therefore, the num- 
ber thirty is composed of three powers [the 
Ogdoad, Decad, and Duodecad], when multi- 
plied by three, it produces ninety, for three 
times thirty are ninety. Likewise this Triad, 
when multiplied by itself, gives rise to nine. 
Thus the Ogdoad generates, by these means, 
ninety-nine. And since the twelfth Aon, by her 
defection, left eleven in the heights above, they 
maintain that therefore the position of the letters 
is a true co-ordinate of the method of their cal- 
culation ® (for Lambda is the eleventh in order 
among the letters, and represents the number 
thirty), and also forms a representation of the 
arrangement of affairs above, since, on from 
Alpha, omitting Zfzsemon, the number of the 
letters up to Lambda, when added together ac- 
cording to the successive value of the letters, and 
including Zaméda itself, forms the sum of ninety- 
nine ; but that this Zamdda, being the eleventh 
in order, descended to seek after one equal to 
itself, so as to complete the number of twelve 
letters, and when it found such a one, the num- 
ber was completed, is manifest from the very 
configuration of the letter; for Lambda being 
engaged, as it were, in the quest of one similar 
to itself, and finding such an one, and clasp- 
ing it to itself, thus filled up the place of the 
twelfth, the letter 4Z~ (M) being composed of 
two Lambdas (AA). Wherefore also they, by 
means of their “knowledge,” avoid the place 
of ninety-nine, that is, the defection—a type 
of the left hand,7 — but endeavour to secure one 
more, which, when added to the ninety and nine, 
has the effect of changing their reckoning to the 
right hand. 

3. I well know, my dear friend, that when thow 
hast read through all this, thou wilt indulge in ¢ 
hearty laugh over this their inflated wise folly . 
But those men are really worthy of being mourned 
over, who promulgate such a kind of religion, 
and who so frigidly and perversely pull to pieces 
the greatness of the truly unspeakable power, 
and the dispensations of God in themselves 
so striking, by means of Alpha and Beta, and 
through the aid of numbers. But as many as 
separate from the Church, and give heed to such 
old wives’ fables as these, are truly self-con- 
demned; and these men Paul commands us, 
“after a first and second admonition, to avoid.” ® 





6 Harvey gives the above paraphrase of the very obscure original; 
others propose to read A’ instead of Acyou. : 

7 Massuet explains this and the following reference, by eee 
that the ancients used the fingers of the hand in counting; by the left 
hand they indicated all the numbers below a hundred, but by the 
right hand all above that sum. —Comp. Juvenal, Saz., x. 249. 

8 Tit. ili, 10. 


342 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


Tee cee TS TEE = 


And John, the disciple of the Lord, has inten- 
sified their condemnation, when he desires us 
not even to address to them the salutation of 
“ good-speed ;” for, says he, “He that bids 
them be of good-speed is a partaker with their 
evil deeds ;”? and that with reason, “ for there 
is no good-speed to the ungodly,” saith the 
Lorp. Impious indeed, beyond all impiety, are 
these men, who assert that the Maker of heaven 
and earth, the only God Almighty, besides whom 
there is no God, was produced by means of a 
defect, which itself sprang from another defect, 
so that, according to them, He was the product 
of the third defect. Such an opinion we should 
detest and execrate, while we ought everywhere 
to flee far apart from those that hold it; and in 
proportion as they vehemently maintain and re- 
joice in their fictitious doctrines, so much the 
more should we be convinced that they are under 
the influence of the wicked spirits of the Ogdoad, 
—just as those persons who fall into a fit of 
frenzy, the more they laugh, and imagine them- 
selves to be well, and do all things as if they 
were in good health [both of body and mind], 
yea, some things better than those who really 
are so, are only thus shown to be the more seri- 
ously diseased. In like manner do these men, 
the more they seem to excel others in wisdom, 
and waste their strength by drawing the bow too 
tightly,t the greater fools do they show them- 
selves. For when the unclean spirit of folly has 
gone forth, and when afterwards he finds them not 
waiting upon God, but occupied with mere worldly 
questions, then, “ taking seven other spirits more 
wicked than himself,’ 5 and inflating the minds 
of these men with the notion of their being able 
to conceive of something beyond God, and having 
fitly prepared them for the reception of deceit, he 
implants within them the Ogdoad of the foolish 
spirits of wickedness. 


CHAP. XVII.— THE THEORY OF THE MARCOSIANS, 
THAT CREATED THINGS WERE MADE AFTER THE 
IMAGE OF THINGS INVISIBLE. 


1. I wish also to explain to thee their theory 
as to the way in which the creation itself was 
formed through the mother by the Demiurge 
(as it were without his knowledge), after the 
image of things invisible. ‘They maintain, then, 
that first of all the four elements, fire, water, 
earth, and air, were produced after the image 
of the primary Tetrad above, and that then, if 
we add their operations, viz., heat, cold, dryness, 
and humidity, an exact likeness of the Ogdoad 





1 2 John ro, 11. 

2 Isa, xlviii. 22. 

3 The Demiurge being the fruit of the abortive conversion of the 
re passion of Achamoth, who, again, was the abortive issue of 
Sophia. 

. * we., by aiming at what transcends their ability, they fall into 
absurdity, as a bow is brokea by bending it too far, 

> Matt. xii. 43. 








is presented. They next reckon up ten powers 
in the following manner:— There are seven 
globular bodies, which they also call heavens ,; 
then that globular body which contains these, 
which also they name the eighth heaven ; and, 
in addition to these, the sun and moon. These, 
being ten in number, they declare to be types 
of the invisible Decad, which proceeded from 
Logos and Zoe. As to the Duodecad, it is indi- 
cated by the zodiacal circle, as it is called; for 
they affirm that the twelve signs do most mani- 
festly shadow forth the Duodecad, the daughter 
of Anthropos and Ecclesia. And since the high- 
est heaven, bearing upon the very sphere [of the 
seventh heaven], has been linked with the most 
rapid precession of the whole system, as a check, 
and balancing that system with its own gravity, 
so that it completes the cycle from sign to sign 
in thirty years, — they say that this is an image 
of Horus, encircling their thirty-named mother.® 
And then, again, as the moon travels through 
her allotted space of heaven in thirty days, they 
hold, that by these days she expresses the num- 
ber of the thirty AZons. The sun also, who runs 
through his orbit in twelve months, and then 
returns to the same point in the circle, makes 
the Duodecad manifest by these twelve months ; 
and the days, as being measured by twelve hours, 
are a type of the invisible Duodecad. Moreover, 
they declare that the hour, which is the twelfth 
part of the day, is composed? of thirty parts, in 
order to set forth the image of the Triacontad. 
Also the circumference of the zodiacal circle 
itself contains three hundred and sixty degrees 
(for each of its signs comprises thirty) ; and thus 
also they affirm, that by means of this circle an 
image is preserved of that connection which 
exists between the twelve and the thirty. Still 
further, asserting that the earth is divided into 
twelve zones, and that in each zone it receives 
power from the heavens, according to the per- 
pendicular [position of the sun above it], bring- 
ing forth productions corresponding to that power 
which sends down its influence upon it, they 
maintain that this is a most evident type of the 
Duodecad and its offspring. 

2. In addition to these things, they declare 
that the Demiurge, desiring to imitate the infini- 
tude, and eternity, and immensity, and freedom 
from all measurement by time of the Ogdoad 
above, but, as he was the fruit of defect, being 
unable to express its permanence and eternity, 
had recourse to the expedient of spreading out 
its eternity into times, and seasons, and vast 
numbers of years, imagining, that by the multi- 
tude of such times he might imitate its immen- 


6 Such is the translation which Harvey, following the text pre- 
pred by Hippolytus, gives of the above intricate and obscure sen- 
ence. 

7 Literally, ‘is adorned with.” 


IRENZZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


343 





sity. They declare further, that the truth having 
escaped him, he followed that which was false, 
and that, for this reason, when the times are 
fulfilled, his work shall perish. 


CHAP. XVIII. — PASSAGES FROM MOSES, WHICH THE 
HERETICS PERVERT TO THE SUPPORT OF THEIR 
HYPOTHESIS. 


1. And while they affirm such things as these 
concerning the creation, every one of them gen- 
erates something new, day by day, according 
to his ability ; for no one is deemed “ perfect,” 
who does not develop among them some mighty 
fictions. It is thus necessary, first, to indicate 
what things they metamorphose [to their own 
use] out of the prophetical writings, and next, 
to refute them. Moses, then, they declare, by 
his mode of beginning the account of the crea- 
tion, has at the commencement pointed out the 
mother of all things when he says, “ In the begin- 
ning God created the heaven and the earth ;”: 
for, as they maintain, by naming these four, — 
God, beginning, heaven, and earth,—he set 
forth their Tetrad. Indicating also its invisible 
and hidden nature, he said, ‘“‘ Now the earth was 
invisible and unformed.”? They will have it, 
moreover, that he spoke of the second Tetrad, 
the offspring of the first, in this way — by naming 
an abyss and darkness, in which were also water, 
and the Spirit moving upon the water. Then, 
proceeding to mention the Decad, he names 
light, day, night, the firmament, the evening, the 
morning, dry land, sea, plants, and, in the tenth 
place, tre¢és. Thus, by means of these ten 
names, he indicated the ten Afons. The power 
of the Duodecad, again, was shadowed forth by 
him thus:— He names the sun, moon, Stars, 
seasons, years, whales, fishes, reptiles, birds, 
quadrupeds, wild beasts, and after all these, in 
the twelfth place, man. Thus they teach that the 
Triacontad was spoken of through Moses by the 
Spirit. Moreover, man also, being formed after 
the image of the power above, had in himself 
that ability which flows from the one source. 
This ability was seated in the region of the brain, 
from which four faculties proceed, after the 
image of the Tetrad above, and these are called : 
the first, sight, the second, hearing, the third, 
smell, and the fourth, zas¢e. And they say that 
the Ogdoad is indicated by man in this way: 
that he possesses two ears, the like number of 
eyes, also two nostrils, and a twofold taste, 
namely, of bitter and sweet. Moreover, they 
teach that the whole man contains the entire 
image of the Triacontad as follows: In_ his 
hands, by means of his fingers, he bears the 


ee aaa 


1 Gen. i, 1. 
2 Gen. i. 2. ~ 
3 One of the senses was thus capriciously cancelled by these 


heretics, 











Decad ; and in his whole body the Duodecad, 
inasmuch as his body is divided into twelve 
members ; for they portion that out, as the body 
of Truth is divided by them —a point of which 
we have already spoken.4 But the Ogdoad, as 
being unspeakable and invisible, is understood 
as hidden in the viscera. 

2. Again, they assert that the sun, the great 
light-giver, was formed on the fourth day, with 
a reference to the number of the Tetrad. So 
also, according to them, the courts5 of the tab- 
ernacle constructed by Moses, being composed 
of fine linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, 
pointed to the same image. Moreover, they 
maintain that the long robe of the priest falling 
over his feet, as being adorned with four rows of 
precious stones,° indicates the Tetrad; and if 
there are any other things in the Scriptures which 
can possibly be dragged into the number four, 
they declare that these had their being with a 
view to the Tetrad. The Ogdoad, again, was 
shown as follows:— They affirm that man was 
formed on the eighth day, for sometimes they 
will have him to have been made on the sixth 
day, and sometimes on the eighth, unless, per- 
chance, they mean that his earthly part was 
formed on the sixth day, but his fleshly part on 
the eighth, for these two things are distinguished 
by them. Some of them also hold that one man 
was formed after the image and likeness of God, 
masculo-feminine, and that this was the spiritual 
man ; and that another man was formed out of 
the earth. 

3. Further, they declare that the arrangement 
made with respect to the ark in the Deluge, by 
means of which eight persons were saved,’ most 
clearly indicates the Ogdoad which brings salva- 
tion. David also shows forth the same, as hold- 
ing the eighth place in point of age among his 
brethren.’ Moreover, that circumcision which 
took place on the eighth day, represented the 
circumcision of the Ogdoad above. In a word, 
whatever they find in the Scriptures capable of 
being referred to the number e7gh¢, they declare 
to fulfil the mystery of the Ogdoad. With re- 
spect, again, to the Decad, they maintain that it 
is indicated by those ten nations which God 
promised to Abraham for a possession." The 
arrangement also made by Sarah when, after ten 
years, she gave ™ her handmaid Hagar to him, 
that by her he might have a son, showed the 
same thing. Moreover, the servant of Abraham 
who was sent to Rebekah, and presented her at 
the well with ten bracelets of gold, and her 








4 See above, chap. xiv. 2. : 

5 Or, rather, perhaps “‘curtains.” Ex, xxvi. 1. 
6 Ex, xxviii. 17. 

7 Gen. vi. 18; 1 Pet. iii, ae. 

8 y Sam. xvi. 10. 

9 Gen. xvii. 12. 

10 Gen. xv. 19. 

11 Gen. xvi. 2 


344 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


= 





brethren who detained her for ten days ;‘ Jero- 
boam also, who received the ten sceptres? 
(tribes), and the ten courts3 of the tabernacle, 
and the columns of ten cubits+ [high], and the 
ten sons of Jacob who were at first sent into 
Egypt to buy corn,’ and the ten apostles to 
whom the Lord appeared after His resurrection, 
— Thomas® being absent,—represented, ac- 
cording to them, the invisible Decad. 

4. As to the Duodecad, in connection with 
which the mystery of the passion of the defect 
occurred, from which passion they maintain that 
all things visible were framed, they assert that is 
to be found strikingly and manifestly everywhere 
[in Scripture]. For they declare that the twelve 
sons of Jacob,? from whom also sprung twelve 
tribes, —the breastplate of the high priest, which 
bore twelve precious stones and twelve little 
bells,’ —the twelve stones which were placed 
by Moses at the foot of the mountain,? — the 
same number which was placed by Joshua in 
the river,’? and again, on the other side, the 
bearers of the ark of the covenant,'! — those 
stones which were set up by Elijah when the 
heifer was offered as a burnt-offering ; ? the num- 
ber, too, of the apostles; and, in fine, every 
event which embraces in it the number ‘weve, 
—set forth their Duodecad. And then the 
union of all these, which is called the Triacon- 
tad, they strenuously endeavour to demonstrate 
by the ark of Noah, the height of which was 
thirty cubits ; "3 by the case of Samuel, who as- 
signed Saul the chief place among thirty guests ; ' 
by David, when for thirty days he concealed 
himself in the field ;‘5 by those who entered along 
with him into the cave ; also by the fact that the 
length (height) of the holy tabernacle was thirty 
cubits ;'° and if they meet with any other like 
numbers, they still apply these to their Triacontad. 


CHAP. XIX.— PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE BY WHICH 
THEY ATTEMPT TO PROVE THAT THE SUPREME 
FATHER WAS UNKNOWN BEFORE THE COMING OF 
CHRIST. 


1. I judge it necessary to add to these details 
also. what, by garbling passages of Scripture, 
they try to persuade us concerning their Propa- 





t Gen. xxiv. 22, 25. 

2 x Kings xi. 31. 

3 Ex, xxvi. 1, xxxvi. 8. 

4 Ex. xxxvi. 21, 

5 Gen. xlii. 3. 

& John xx, 24. 

7 Gen. xxxv. 22, xlix. 28, 

© Ex, xxviii. 2, — There is no mention of the zumder of the bells 
‘i Scripture, ? 

SOBX.. XXIV. 4. 

1) Josh. iv, 3. 

Tl Josh. iii, 12. 

1 1 Kings xviii. 31. 

I Gen. vi. 15, 

14 1 Sam. ix. 22, 

220) Sal, XX,.5. 

1 Ex. xxvi. 8. Mmbers appear to have been often capriciously 


introduced by these heretics to give a colour of support to their own 
theories, ; f F 








tor, who was unknown to all before the coming 
of Christ. Their object in this is to show 
that our Lord announced another Father than 
the Maker of this universe, whom, as we said 
before, they impiously declare to have been the 
fruit of a defect. For instance, when the 
prophet Isaiah says, “ But Israel hath not known 
Me, and My people have not understood Me,” ’7 
they pervert his words to meen ignorance of the 
invisible Bythus. And that which is spoken by 
Hosea, “There is no truth in them, nor the 
knowledge of God,” *® they strive to give the 
same reference. And, “There is none that un- 
derstandeth, or that seeketh after God: they 
have all gone out of the way, they are together 
become unprofitable,” *9 they maintain to be said 
concerning ignorance of Bythus. Also that 
which is spoken by Moses, “No man shall see 
God and live,” 7° has, as they would persuade us, 
the same reference. 

2. For they falsely hold, that the Creator was 
seen by the prophets. But this passage, “‘ No 
man shall see God and live,” they would inter- 
pret as spoken of His greatness unseen and un- 
known by all ; and indeed that these words, ‘‘ No 
man shall see God,” are spoken concerning the 
invisible Father, the Maker of the universe, is 
evident to us all; but that they are not used 
concerning that Bythus whom they conjure into 
existence, but concerning the Creator (and He 
is the invisible God), shall be shown as we pro- 
ceed. They maintain that Daniel also set forth 
the same thing when he begged of the angels 
explanations of the parables, as being himself 
ignorant of them. But the angel, hiding from 
him the great mystery of Bythus, said unto him, 
“Go thy way quickly, Daniel, for these sayings 
are closed up until those who have understand- 
ing do understand them, and those who are 
white be made white.” ?! Moreover, they vaunt 
themselves as being the whz¢e and the men of 
good understanding. 


CHAP. XX.— THE» APOCRYPHAL AND SPURIOUS 
SCRIPTURES OF THE MARCOSIANS, WITH PAS- 
SAGES OF THE GOSPELS WHICH THEY PERVERT. 


1. Besides the above [misrepresentations], 
they adduce an unspeakable number of apocry- 
phal and spurious writings, which they them- 
selves have forged, to bewilder the minds of 
foolish men, and of such as are ignorant of the 
Scriptures of truth. Among other things, they 
bring forward that false and wicked story 2? which 





17 Tsa, i. 3. 

18 Hos. iv. 1. 

t9)Rom. iil, ony) Psi xives: 

20 Ex. xxxiii. 20. : 

_ 7% Dan. xii, 9,10. The words in the above quotation not occur- 
ring in the Hebrew text of the passage, seem to have been interpo- 
lated by these heretics. 

22 [From the Protevangel of Thomas. Compare the curious 
work of Dominic Deodati, De Christo Grace loquente, P» 95: 
London, 1843.) S 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES, 


345 


relates that our Lord, when He was a boy learn- 
ing His letters, on the teacher saying to Him, as is 
usual, “ Pronounce Alpha,” replied [as He was 
bid], “Alpha.” But when, again, the teacher 
bade Him say, “ Beta,” the Lord replied, “Do 
thou first tell me what Alpha is, and then I will tell 
thee what Beta is.” This they expound as mean- 
ing that He alone knew the Unknown, which He 
revealed under its type Alpha. 

2. Some passages, also, which occur in the 
Gospels, receive from them a colouring of the 
same kind, such as the answer which He gave 
His mother when He was twelve years of age: 
‘“‘Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s 
business?” * Thus, they say, He announced to 
them the Father of whom they were ignorant. 
On this account, also, He sent forth the disciples 
to the twelve tribes, that they might proclaim to 
them the unknown God. And to the person who 
said to Him, “Good Master,’? He confessed 
that God who is truly good, saying, “ Why callest 
thou. Me good: there is One who is good, the 
Father in the heavens ;’’3 and they assert that 
in this passage the AZons receive the name of 
heavens. Moreover, by His not replying to 
those who said to Him, “ By what power doest 
Thou this?” 4 but by a question on His own side, 
put them to utter confusion; by His thus not 
replying, according to their interpretation, He 
showed the unutterable nature of the Father. 
Moreover, when He said, “I have often desired 
to hear one of these words, and I had no one 
who could utter it,” 5 they maintain, that by this 
expression “one’’ He set forth the one true God 
whom they knew not. Further, when, as He 
drew nigh to Jerusalem, He wept over it and 
said, “If thou hadst known, even thou, in this 
thy day, the things that belong unto thy peace, 
but they are hidden from thee,” ® by this word 
“hidden” He showed the abstruse nature of 
Bythus. And again, when He said, “ Come unto 
Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and 
I will give you rest, and learn of Me,”7 He an- 
nounced the Father of truth. For what they 
knew not, these men say that He promised to 
teach them. 

3. But they adduce the following passage as 
the highest testimony,® and, as it were, the very 
crown of their system:— “I thank Thee, O 
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou 
hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, 
and hast revealed them to babes. Even so, my 
Father ; for so it seemed good in Thy sight. 





I Luke ii. 49. 

2 Mark x. 17. 

3 Luke xviii. 18, 

4 Matt. xxi. 23. &. 

5 Taken from some apocryphal writing. 

6 Luke xix. 42, loosely quoted. 

7 Matt. xi. 28, he is , 

8 The translator evidently read tov for meee in which case the 
rendering will be ‘ proof of those most high,” but the Greek text 
seems preferable. 











All things have been delivered to Me by My 
Father ; and no one knoweth the Father but the 
Son, or the Son but the Father, and he to whom 
the Son will reveal Him.” 9 In these words they 
affirm that He clearly showed that the Father 
of truth, conjured into existence by them, was 
known to no one before His advent. And they 
desire to construe the passage as if teaching that 
the Maker and Framer [of the world] was always 
known by all, while the Lord spoke these words 
concerning the Father unknown to all, whom 
they now proclaim. 


CHAP, XXI.— THE VIEWS OF REDEMPTION ENTER- 
TAINED BY THESE HERETICS, 


1. It happens that their tradition respecting 
redemption *° is invisible and incomprehensible, 
as being the mother of things which are incom- 
prehensible and invisible ; and on this account, 
since it is fluctuating, it is impossible simply and 
all at once to make known its nature, for every 
one of them hands it down just as his own in- 
clination prompts. Thus there are as many: 
schemes of “ redemption” as there are teachers 
of these mystical opinions. And when we come 
to refute them, we shall show in its fitting-place, 
that this class of men have been instigated by 
Satan to a denial of that baptism which is regen- 
eration to God, and thus to a renunciation of the 
whole [Christian] faith. 

2. They maintain that those who have attained 
to perfect knowledge must of necessity be re- 
generated into that power which is above all. 
For it is otherwise impossible to find admittance 
within the Pleroma, since this [regeneration] it 
is which leads them down into the depths of 
Bythus. For the baptism instituted by the visi- 
ble Jesus was for the remission of sins, but the 
redemption brought in by that Christ who de- 
scended upon Him, was for perfection ; and they 
allege that the former is animal, but the latter 
spiritual. And the baptism of John was pro- 
claimed with a view to repentance, but the re- 
demption by Jesus * was brought in for the sake 
of perfection. And to this He refers when He 
says, “And I have another baptism to be bap- 
tized with, and I hasten eagerly towards it.” ? 
Moreover, they affirm that the Lord added this 
redemption to the sons of Zebedee, when their 
mother asked that they might sit, the one on 
His right hand, and the other on His left, in His 
kingdom, saying, “Can ye be baptized with the 
baptism which I shall. be baptized with?” 3 
Paul, too, they declare, has often set forth, in 
express terms, the redemption which is in Christ 





9 Matt. xi. 25-27. 

10 Comp. chap. xiii. 6.. 

II The Latin reads “ Christ.” 

12 Luke xii, 50. The text was probably thus corrupted by the 
heretics, 

13 Mark x. g. 


346 





and this was the same which is handed 


esus ; 
hie: by them in so varied and discordant forms. 
3. For some of them prepare a nuptial couch, 
and perform a sort of mystic rite (pronouncing 
certain expressions) with those who are being 
initiated, and affirm that it is a spiritual marriage 
which is celebrated by them, after the likeness 


of the conjunctions above. Others, again, lead 
them to a place where water is, and baptize 
them, with the utterance of these words, “ Into 
the name of the unknown Father of the universe 
—§into truth, the mother of all things — into 
Him who descended on Jesus — into union, and 
redemption, and communion with the powers.”’ 
Others still repeat certain Hebrew words, in or- 
der the more thoroughly to bewilder those who 
are being initiated, as follows: “ Basema, Cha- 
mosse, Bacenaora, Mistadia, Ruada, Kousta, 
Babaphor, Kalachthei.”* ‘The interpretation of 
these terms runs thus: “I invoke that which is 
above every power of the Father, which is called 
light, and good Spirit, and life, because Thou hast 
reigned in the body.” Others, again, set forth 
the redemption thus: The name which is hid- 
den from every deity, and dominion, and truth, 
which Jesus of Nazareth was clothed with in the 
lives? of the light of Christ—of Christ, who 
lives by the Holy Ghost, for the angelic redemp- 
tion. The name of restitution stands thus: 
Messia, Uphareg, Namempsceman, Chaldceaur, 
Mosomedcea, Acphrance, Psaua, Jesus Nazaria.3 
The interpretation of these words is as follows: 
“TI do not divide the Spirit of Christ, neither 
the heart nor the supercelestial power which is 
merciful ; may I enjoy Thy name, O Saviour of 
truth!’’ Such are words of the initiators ; but 
he who is initiated, replies, “I am established, 
and I am redeemed; I redeem my soul from 
this age (world), and from all things connected 
with it in the name of Iao, who redeemed his 
own soul into redemption in Christ who liveth.” 
Then the bystanders add these words, “‘ Peace 
be to all on whom this name rests.” After this 
they anoint the initiated person with balsam ; for 
they assert that this unguent is a type of that 
sweet odour which is above all things. 

4. But there are some of them who assert that 
it is superfluous to bring persons to the water, 
but mixing oil and water together, they place 
this mixture on the heads of those who are to be 
initiated, with the use of some such expressions 
as we have already mentioned. And this they 
maintain to be the redemption. They, too, are 
accustomed to anoint with balsam. Others, how- 
ever, reject all these practices, and maintain that 
the mystery of the unspeakable and _ invisible 





1 We have given these words as they stand in the Greek text: a 
very different list, but equally unmeaning, is found in the Latin. 

i ae Latin reads zonis, ‘‘ zones,” instead of “lives,” as in the 

reck. 


3 Here, again, are many variations. 








IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





power ought not to be performed by visible and 
corruptible creatures, nor should that of those 
[beings] who are inconceivable, and incorporeal, 
and beyond the reach of sense, [be performed ] 
by such as are the objects of sense, and pos- 
sessed of a body. These hold that the knowl- 
edge of the unspeakable Greatness is itself perfect 
redemption. For since both defect and passion 
flowed from ignorance, the whole substance of 
what was thus formed is destroyed by knowledge ; 
and therefore knowledge is the redemption of the 
inner man. This, however, is not of a corporeal 
nature, for the body is corruptible ; nor is it ani- 
mal, since the animal soul is the fruit of a defect, 
and is, as it were, the abode of the spirit. The 
redemption must therefore be of a spiritual na- 
ture ; for they affirm that the inner and spiritual 
man is redeemed by means of knowledge, and 
that they, having acquired the knowledge of all 
things, stand thenceforth in need of nothing else. 
This, then, is the true redemption. 

s. Others still there are who continue to re- 
deem persons even up to the moment of death, 
by placing on their heads oil and water, or the 
pre-mentioned ointment with water, using at the 
same time the above-named invocations, that 
the persons referred to may become incapable 
of being seized or seen by the principalities and 
powers, and that their inner man may ascend on 
high in an invisible manner, as if their body were 
left among created things in this world, while 
their soul is sent forward to the Demiurge. And 
they instruct them, on their reaching the princi- 
palities and powers, to make use of these words : 
“TI am a son from the Father—the Father who 
had a pre-existence, and a son in Him who is pre- 
existent. I have come to behold all things, both 
those which belong to myself and others, although, 
strictly speaking, they do not belong to others, 
but to Achamoth, who is female in nature, and 
made these things for herself. For I derive be- 
ing from Him who is pre-existent, and I come 
again to my own place whence I went forth.” 
And they affirm that, by saying these things, he 
escapes from the powers. He then advances to 
the companions of the Demiurge, and thus ad- 
dresses them : — “‘I am a vessel more precious 
than the female who formed you. If your mother 
is ignorant of her own descent, I know myself, 
and am aware whence I am, and I call upon the 
incorruptible Sophia, who is in the Father, and 
is the mother of your mother, who has no father, 
nor any male consort; but a female springing 
from a female formed you, while ignorant of 
her own mother, and imagining that she alone 
existed ; but I call upon her mother.” And they 
declare, that when the companions of the Demi- 
urge hear these words, they are greatly agitated, 
and upbraid their origin and the race of their 
mother. But he goes into his own place, having 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





thrown [off ] his chain, that is, his animal nature. 
These, then, are the particulars which have 
reached us respecting “redemption.”' But 
since they differ so widely among themselves 
both as respects doctrine and tradition, and since 
those of them who are recognised as being most 
modern make it their effort daily to invent some 
new opinion, and to bring out what no one ever 
before thought of, it is a difficult matter to de- 
scribe all their opinions. 


CHAP. XXII. — DEVIATIONS OF HERETICS FROM THE 
TRUTH. 


1. The rule? of truth which we hold, is, that 
there is one God Almighty, who made all things 
by His Word, and fashioned and formed, out of 
that which had no existence, all things which 
exist. Thus saith the Scripture, to that effect: 
“By the Word of the Lord were the heavens es- 
tablished, and all the might of them, by the 
spirit of His mouth.”3 And again, “ All things 
were made by Him, and without Him was noth- 
ing made.”4 ‘There is no exception or deduc- 
tion stated ; but the Father made all things by 
Him, whether visible or invisible, objects of sense 
or of intelligence, temporal, on account of a cer- 
tain character given them, or eternal ; and these 
eternal 5 things He did not make by angels, or 
by any powers separated from His Ennoea. For 
God needs none of all these things, but is He 
who, by His Word and Spirit, makes, and dis- 
poses, and governs all things, and commands 
all things into existence,— He who formed the 
world (for the world is of all), — He who fash- 
ioned man, — He [who]° is the God of Abra- 
ham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of 
Jacob, above whom there is no other God, nor 
initial principle, nor power, nor pleroma, — He 
is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as we shall 
prove. Holding, therefore, this rule, we shall 
easily show, notwithstanding the great variety 
and multitude of their opinions, that these men 
have deviated from the truth ; for almost all the 
different sects of heretics admit that there is one 
God; but then, by their pernicious doctrines, 
they change [this truth into error], even as the 
Gentiles do through idolatry, — thus proving 
themselves ungrateful to Him that created them. 
Moreover, they despise the workmanship of God, 
speaking against their own salvation, becoming 
peeereers meee eh os Sst cee oe ee 


1 The Greek text, which has hitherto been preserved almost en- 
tire, ends atthis point. With only brief extracts from the original, 
now and then, we are henceforth exclusively dependent on the old 
Latin version, with some Syriac and Armenian fragments recently 
discovered, ; ‘ 

2 The Latin here begins with the words ‘‘ cum teneamus, and the 
apodosis is found afterwards at. “facile arguimus.” But we have 
broken up the one long sentence into several, 

3 Ps, xxxiii. 6. 

4 John i. 3. 

S The text is 
be referred to, not as regarded substance, 


here uncertain and obscure: eternal things seem to 
but the forms assigned 


them. 
6 This word would perhaps be better cancelled. 





347 


their own bitterest accusers, and being false wit- 
nesses [against themselves]. Yet, reluctant as 
they may be, these men shall one day rise again 
in the flesh, to confess the power of Him who 
raises them from the dead ; but they shall not be 
numbered among the righteous on account of 
their unbelief. 

2. Since, therefore, it is a complex and multi- 
form task to detect and convict all the heretics, 
and since our design is to reply to them all 
according to their special characters, we have 
judged it necessary, first of all, to give an ac- 
count of their source and root, in order that, 
by getting a knowledge of their most exalted 
Bythus, thou mayest understand the nature of 
the tree which has produced such fruits. 


CHAP. XXIII. — DOCTRINES AND PRACTICES OF SIMON 
MAGUS AND MENANDER. 


1. Simon the Samaritan was that magician of 
whom Luke, the disciple and follower of the 
apostles, says, “ But there was a certain man, 
Simon by name, who beforetime used magical 
arts in that city, and led astray the people of 
Samaria, declaring that he himself was some 
great one, to whom they all gave heed, from the 
least to the greatest, saying, This is the power 
of God, which is called great. And to him they 
had regard, because that of long time he had 
driven them mad by his sorceries.”7 This 
Simon, then — who feigned faith, supposing that 
the apostles themselves performed their cures by 
the art of magic, and not by the power of God ; 
and with respect to their filling with the Holy 
Ghost, through the imposition of hands, those 
that believed in God through Him who was 
preached by them, namely, Christ Jesus — sus- 
pecting that even this was done through a kind 
of greater knowledge of magic, and offering 
money to the apostles, thought he, too, might re- 
ceive this power of bestowing the Holy Spirit on 
whomsoever he would, — was addressed in these 
words by Peter: “Thy money perish with thee, 
because thou hast thought that the gift of God 
can be purchased with money : thou hast neither 
part nor lot in this matter, for thy heart is not 
right in the sight of God; for I perceive that 
thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the 
bond of iniquity.” He, then, not putting faith 
in God a whit the more, set himself eagerly to 
contend against the apostles, in order that he 
himself might seem to be a wonderful being, 
and applied himself with still greater zeal to the 
study of the whole magic art, that he might the 
better bewilder and overpower multitudes of 
men. Such was his procedure in the reign of 
Claudius Czsar, by whom also he is said to have 
been honoured with a statue, on account of his 


7 Acts viii. 9-11. 
8 Acts vidi. 20, 21, 25. 


348° 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


alk ee ve TSOTSI prmeetnee 


magical power.' This man, then, was glorified 
by many as if he were a god ; and he taught that 
it was. himself who appeared among the Jews as 
the Son, but descended in Samaria as the Father, 
while he came to other nations in the character 
of the Holy Spirit. He represented himself, in 
a word, as being the loftiest of all powers, that 
is, the Being who is the Father over all, and he 
allowed himself to. be called by whatsoever title 
men were pleased to address him. 

2. Now this Simon of Samaria, from whom all 
sorts of heresies derive their origin, formed his 
sect out of the following materials : — Having 
redeemed from slavery at Tyre, a city of Phe- 
nicia, a certain woman named. Helena, he was 
in the habit of carrying her about with him, de- 
claring that this woman was the first conception 
of his mind, the mother of all, by whom, in 
the beginning, he conceived in his mind [the 
thought] of forming angels and archangels. For 
this Enncea leaping forth from him, and com- 
prehending the will of her father, descended to 
the lower regions [of space], and generated 
angels and powers, by whom also he declared 
this world was formed.. But after she had pro- 
duced them, she was detained by them through 
motives of jealousy, because they were unwilling 
to be looked upon as the progeny of any other 
being. As to himself, they had no knowledge 
of him whatever; but his Ennoea was detained 
by those powers and angels who had been pro- 
duced by her. She suffered all kinds of con- 
tumely from them, so that she could not return 
upwards to her father, but was even shut up in 
a human body, and for ages passed in succession 
from one female body to another, as from vessel 
to vessel. She was, for example, in that Helen 
on.whose account the Trojan war was under- 
taken ;: for whose sake also Stesichorus? was 
struck blind, because he had cursed her in his 
verses, but afterwards, repenting and writing 
what. are called palinodes, in which he sang 
her.praise, he was restored to sight. Thus she, 
passing from body to body, and suffering insults 
in every one.of them, at last became a common 
prostitute ; and she it was that was meant by the 
lost sheep.3 

3. For,this purpose, then, he had come that 
he might win her first, and free her from slavery, 
while he conferred salvation upon men, by making 
himself. known to them. For since the angels 
ruled the world ill because each one of them 
coveted the principal power for himself, he had 
come to amend matters, and had descended, 
transfigured and assimilated to powers and prin- 





_ 1 Comp. Just. Mart., Agol., i. 26. It is generally supposed that 
Simon Magus was thus confounded with the Sabine god, Semo San- 
cus; but see our note, Joc. cit. [And mine at end of the First Apol- 
ogy. Consult Orelli's Inscriptions there noted. ] 

? A lyric poet of Sicily, said to have been dealt with, as stated 
above, by Castor and Pollux, 
3 Matt. xviii. 12, 








cipalities and angels, so that he might appear. 
among men to be a man, while yet he was not 
aman; and that thus he was thought to have 
suffered in Judzea, when he had not suffered. 
Moreover, the prophets uttered their predictions 
under the inspiration of those angels who formed 
the world; for which reason those who place 
their trust in him and Helena no longer regarded 
them, but, as being free, live as they please ; for 
men are saved through his grace, and not on ac- 
count of their own righteous actions. For such 
deeds are not righteous in the- nature of things, 
but by mere accident, just as those angels who 
made the world, have thought fit to constitute 
them, seeking, by means of such precepts, to 
bring men into bondage. On this account, he 
pledged himself that the world should be dis- 
solved, and that those who are his should be freed 
from the rule of them who made the world. 

4. Thus, then, the mystic priests belonging 
to this sect both lead profligate lives and prac-. 
tise magical arts, each one to the extent of his 
ability. They use exorcisms and incantations. 
Love-potions, too, and charms, as well as those 
beings who are called “ Paredri” (familiars) and 
“ Oniropompi” (dream-senders), and whatever 
other curious arts can be had recourse to, are. 
eagerly pressed into their service. They also 
have an image of Simon fashioned after the like- 
ness of Jupiter, and another of Helena in the 
shape of Minerva; and these they worship. In 
fine, they have a name derived from Simon, the 
author of these most impious doctrines, being. 
called Simonians ; and from them “ knowledge, 
falsely so called,” + received its beginning, as one 
may learn even from their own assertions. 

5. The successor of this man was Menander, 
also a Samaritan by birth, and he, too, was a 
perfect adept in the practice of magic. He af- 
firms that the primary Power continues unknown 
to all, but that he himself is the person who has. 
been sent forth from the presence of the invisible 
beings as a saviour, for the deliverance of men. 
The world was made by angels, whom, like 
Simon, he maintains to have been produced by 
Enncea. He gives, too, as he affirms, by means 
of that magic which he teaches, knowledge to 
this effect, that one may overcome thosé very 
angels that made the world; for his disciples 
obtain the resurrection by being baptized into 
him, and can die no more, but remain in the 
possession of immortal youth, 


CHAP. XXIV. — DOCTRINES OF SATURNINUS AND 
BASILIDES. 


1. Arising among these men, Saturninus (who 
was of that Angioch which is near Daphne) and 
Basilides laid hold of some favourable oppor- 
tunities, and promulgated different systems of 





4x Tim. vi. 20, 


IREN#US AGAINST HERESIES. 


349 





doctrine — the one in Syria, the other at Alex- 
andria. Saturninus, like Menander, set forth one 
father unknown to all, who made angels, arch- 
angels, powers, and potentates. The world, again, 
and all things therein, were made by a certain 
company of seven angels. Man, too, was the 
workmanship of angels, a shining image bursting 
forth below from the presence of the supreme 
power ; and when they could not, he says, keep 
hold of this, because it immediately darted up- 
wards again, they exhorted each other, saying, 
“Let us make man after our image and like- 
ness.””* He was accordingly formed, yet was 
unable to stand erect, through the inability of 
the angels to convey to him that power, but 
wriggled [on the ground] like a worm. Then 
the power above taking pity upon him, since he 
was made after his likeness, sent forth a spark of 
life, which gave man an erect posture, compacted 
his joints, and made him live. He declares, 
therefore, that this spark of life, after the death 
of aman, returns to those things which are of 
the same nature with itself, and the rest of the 
body is decomposed into its original elements. 

2. He has also laid it down as a truth, that 
the Saviour was without birth, without body, and 
without figure, but was, by supposition, a visible 
man; and he maintained that the God of the 
Jews was one of the angels ; and, on this account, 
because all the powers wished to annihilate his 
father, Christ came to destroy the God of the 
Jews, but to save such as believe in him ; that is, 
those who possess the spark of his life. This 
heretic was the first to affirm that two kinds of 
men were formed by the angels, — the one 
wicked, and the other good. And since the 
demons assist the most wicked, the Saviour came 
for the destruction of evil men and of the 
demons, but for the salvation of the good. They 
declare also, that marriage and generation are 
from Satan.2 Many of those, too, who belong 
to his school, abstain from animal food, and 
draw away multitudes by a feigned temperance 
of this kind. They hold, moreover, that some 
of the prophecies were uttered by those angels 
who made the world, and some by Satan ; whom 
Saturninus represents as being himself an angel, 
the enemy of the creators of the world, but 
especially of the God of the Jews. 

3. Basilides again, that he may appear to have 
discovered something more sublime and plausi- 
ble, gives an immense development to his doc- 
trines. He sets forth that Nous was first born 
of the unborn father, that from him, again, was 
born Logos, from Logos Phronesis, from Phro- 
nesis Sophia and Dynamis, and from Dynamis 
and Sophia the powers, and principalities, and 
angels, whom he also calls the first; and that 


wo  — — 


T Gen. i. 26. 
2 [x. Tim. iv. 3.] 














by them the first heaven was made. Then 
other powers, being formed by emanation from 
these, created another heaven similar to the first ; 
and in like manner, when others, again, had 
been formed by emanation from them, corre- 
sponding exactly to those above them, these, 
too, framed another third heaven; and then from 
this third, in downward order, there was a fourth 
succession of descendants ; and so on, after the 
same fashion, they declare that more and more 
principalities and angels were formed, and three 
hundred and sixty-five heavens. Wherefore the 
year contains the same number of days in con- 
formity with the number of the heavens. 

4. Those angels who occupy the lowest heaven, 
that, namely, which is visible to us, formed all 
the things which are in the world, and made 
allotments among themselves of the earth and 
of those nations which are upon it. The chief of 
them is he who is thought to be the God of the 
Jews ; and inasmuch as he desired to render the’ 
other nations subject to his own people, that is,. 
the Jews, all the other princes resisted and op- 
posed him. Wherefore all other nations were at 
enmity with his nation. But the father without 


-birth and without name, perceiving that they 


would be destroyed, sent his own first-begotten 
Nous (he it is who is called Christ) to bestow 
deliverance on them that believe in him, from 
the power of those who made the world. He 
appeared, then, on earth as a man, to the nations 
of these powers, and wrought miracles. Where- 
fore he did not himself suffer death, but Simon, 
a certain man of Cyrene, being compelled, bore 
the cross in his stead; so that this latter being 
transfigured by him, that he might be thought 
to be Jesus, was crucified, through ignorance and 
error, while Jesus himself received the form of 
Simon, and, standing by, laughed at them. For 
since he was an incorporeal power, and the Nous 
(mind) of the unborn father, he transfigured 
himself as he pleased, and thus ascended to him 
who had sent him, deriding them, inasmuch as 
he could not be laid hold of, and was invisible 
to all. Those, then, who know these things have 
been freed from the principalities who formed 
the world ; so that it is not incumbent on us to 
confess him who was crucified, but him who 
came in the form of a man, and was thought to 
be crucified, and was called Jesus, and was sent 
by the father, that by this dispensation he might 
destroy the works of the makers of the world. 
If any one, therefore, he declares, confesses the 
crucified, that man is still a slave, and under the 
power of those who formed our bodies ; but he 
who denies him has been freed from these be- 
ings, and is acquainted with the dispensation of | 
the unborn father. 


3 The ordinary text reads, “‘ three hundred and seventy-five,” but 
it should manifestly be corrected as above. 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





5. Salvation belongs to the soul alone, for the 
body is by nature subject to corruption. He 
declares, too, that the prophecies were derived 
from those powers who were the makers of the 
world, but the law was specially given by their 
chief, who led the people out of the land of 
Egypt. He attaches no importance to [the 
question regarding] meats offered in sacrifice to 
idols, thinks them of no consequence, and makes 
use of them without any hesitation; he holds 
also the use of other things, and the practice of 
every kind of lust, a matter of perfect indiffer- 
ence. These men, moreover, practise magic, 
and use images, incantations, invocations, and 
every other kind of curious art. Coining also 
certain names as if they were those of the angels, 
they proclaim some of these as belonging to the 
first, and others to the second heaven ; and then 
they strive to set forth the names, principles, 
angels, and powers of the three hundred and 
sixty-five imagined heavens. They also affirm 
that the barbarous name in which the Saviour 
ascended and descended, is Caulacau.* 

6. He, then, who has learned [these things], 
and known all the angels and their causes, is 
rendered invisible and incomprehensible to the 
angels and all the powers, even as Caulacau also 
was. And as the son was unknown to all, so 
must they also be known by no one; but while 
they know all, and pass through all, they them- 
selves remain invisible and unknown to all ; for, 
“ Do thou,” they say, “ know all, but let nobody 
know thee.’”’ For this reason, persons of such a 
persuasion are also ready to recant [their opin- 
ions ], yea, rather, it is impossible that they should 
suffer on account of a mere name, since they 
are like to all. The multitude, however, cannot 
understand these matters, but only one out of a 
thousand, or two out of ten thousand. They 
declare that they are no longer Jews, and that 
they are not yet Christians ; and that it is not at 
all fitting to speak openly of their mysteries, but 
right to keep them secret by preserving silence. 

7. They make out the local position of the 
three hundred and sixty-five heavens in the 
same way as do mathematicians. For, accept- 
ing the theorems of these latter, they have 
transferred them to their own type of doctrine. 
They hold that their chief is Advaxas ;? and, on 
this account, that word contains in itself the 
numbers amounting to three hundred and sixty- 
five. 





' This sentence is wholly unintelligible as it stands in the Latin 
version. Critics differ greatly as to its meaning; Harvey tries to 
bring out of it something like the translation given above. [This 


name is manufactured from a curious abuse of (1p? 1p Isaiah 


xxviii, 10-13, which is variously understood. See (Epiphanius ed. 
Oehler, vol. 1.) Philastr., p. 38.] 

2 So written in Latin, but in Greek "ASpacdé, the numerical value 
of the letters in which is three hundred and sixty-five. [See A ug. 
(ed. Mzgne), vol. viii. p. 26.) It is doubtful to whom or what this 
word refers; probably to the heavens. 





CHAP. XXV.— DOCTRINES OF CARPOCRATES. 


1. Carpocrates, again, and his followers main- 
tain that the world and the things which are 
therein were created by angels greatly inferior 
to the unbegotten Father. They also hold that 
Jesus was the son of Joseph, and was just like 
other men, with the exception that he differed 
from them in this respect, that inasmuch as his 
soul was stedfast and pure, he perfectly remem- 
bered those things which he had witnessed 3 
within the sphere of the unbegotten God. On 
this account, a power descended upon him from 
the Father, that by means of it he might escape 
from the creators of the world; and they say 
that it, after passing through them all, and re- 
maining in all points free, ascended again to 
him, and to the powers,* which in the same way 
embraced like things to itself. They further 
declare, that the soul of Jesus, although edu- 
cated in the practices of the Jews, regarded 
these with contempt, and that for this reason he 
was endowed with faculties, by means of which 
he destroyed those passions which dwelt in men 
as a punishment [for their sins]. 

2. The soul, therefore, which is like that of 
Christ can despise those rulers who were the 
creators of the world, and, in like manner, re- 
ceives power for accomplishing the same results. 
This idea has raised them to such a pitch of 
pride, that some of them declare themselves 
similar to Jesus ; while others, still more mighty, 
maintain that they are superior to his disciples, 
such as Peter and Paul, and the rest of the 
apostles, whom they consider to be in no respect 
inferior to Jesus. For their souls, descending 
from the same sphere as his, and therefore de- 
spising in like manner the creators of the world, 
are deemed worthy of the same power, and 
again depart to the same place. But if any one 
shall have despised the things in this world more 
ee he did, he thus proves himself superior to 

im. 

3. They practise also magical arts and incan- 
tations ; philters, also, and love-potions; and 
have recourse to familiar spirits, dream-sending 
demons, and other abominations, declaring that 
they possess power to rule over, even now, the 
princes and formers of this world ; and not only 
them, but also all things that are in it. These 
men, even as the Gentiles, have been sent forth 
by Satan 5 to bring dishonour upon the Church, 
so that, in one way or another, men hearing the 
things which they speak, and imagining that we 
all are such as they, may turn away their ears 
from the preaching of the truth ; or, again, see- 
ing the things they practise, may speak evil of 
a ES ee ee ee See 


3 o note again this “‘ Americanism.” 
4 Such seems to be the meaning of the Latin, but the original 
text is conjectural. 
See cap. xxvii. 3.] 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


oases SH 


351 





us all, who have in fact no fellowship with them, 
either in doctrine or in morals, or in our daily 
conduct. But they lead a licentious life,’ and, 
to conceal their impious doctrines, they abuse 
the name [of Christ], as a means of hiding 
their wickedness ; so that “ their condemnation 
is just,” when they receive from God a recom- 
pense suited to their works. 

4. So unbridled is their madness, that they 
declare they have in their power all things which 
are irreligious and impious, and are at liberty to 
practise them ; for they maintain that things are 
evil or good, simply in virtue of human opinion.3 
They deem it necessary, therefore, that by means 
of transmigration from body to body, souls 
should have experience of every kind of life as 
well as every kind of action (unless, indeed, by 
a single incarnation, one may be able to prevent 
any need for others, by once for all, and with 
equal completeness, doing all those things which 
we dare not either speak or hear of, nay, which 
we must not even conceive in our thoughts, nor 
think credible, if any such thing is mooted 
among those persons who are”our fellow-citi- 
zens), in order that, as their writings express it, 
their souls, having made trial of every kind of 
life, may, at their departure, not be wanting in 
any particular. It is necessary* to insist upon 
this, lest, on account of some one thing being 
still wanting to their deliverance, they should be 
compelled once more to become incarnate. 
They affirm that for this reason Jesus spoke the 
following parable : —“ Whilst thou art with thine 
adversary in the way, give all diligence, that 
thou mayest be delivered from him, lest he give 
thee up to the judge, and the judge surrender 
thee to the officer, and he cast thee into prison. 
Verily, I say unto thee, thou shalt not go out 
thence until thou pay the very last farthing.” > 
They also declare the “adversary” is one of 
those angels who are in the world, whom they 
call the Devil, maintaining that he was formed 
for this purpose, that he might lead those souls 
which have perished from the world to the 
Supreme Ruler. They describe him also as 
being chief among the makers of the world, and 
maintain that he delivers such souls [as have 
been mentioned] to another angel, who minis- 
ters to him, that he may shut them up in other 
bodies ; for they declare that the body is “ the 
prison.” Again, they interpret these expres- 
sions, “Thou shalt not go out thence until thou 
pay the very last farthing,” as meaning that no 
one can escape from the power of those angels 
EEE EE Ee re ee 


I The text is here defective, but the above meaning seems to be 
indicated by Epiphanius. 

2 Rom. iii. 8. 5 

3 [Isaiah v. 20, Horne Tooke derives our word Truth from 
what any one troweth.] F 

4 The text here has greatly Hebe the editors. We follow the 
simple emendation proposed by Harvey. 

5 Matt. v. 25, 260; Luke xi. 58. 








who made the world, but that he must pass from 
body to body, until he has experience of every 
kind of action which can be practised in this 
world, and when nothing is longer wanting to 
him, then his liberated soul should soar upwards 
to that God who is above the angels, the makers 
of the world. In this way also all souls are 
saved, whether their own which, guarding against 
all delay, participate in all sorts of actions dur- 
ing one incarnation, or those, again, who, by 
passing from body to body, are set free, on ful- 
filling and accomplishing what is requisite in 
every form of life into which they are sent, so 
that at length they shall no longer be [shut up] 
in the body. 

5. And thus, if ungodly, unlawful, and for- 
bidden actions are committed among them, I 
can no longer find ground for believing them to 
be such. And in their writings we read as fol- 
lows, the interpretation which they give [of their 
views], declaring that Jesus spoke in a mystery 
to His disciples and apostles privately, and that 
they requested and obtained permission to hand 
down the things thus taught them, to others 
who should be worthy and believing. We are 
saved, indeed, by means of faith and love; but 
all other things, while in their nature indifferent, 
are reckoned by the opinion of men—some 
good and some evil, there being nothing really 
evil by nature. 

6. Others of them employ outward marks, 
branding their disciples inside the lobe of the 
right ear.. From among these also arose Mar- 
cellina, who came to Rome under [the episco- 
pate of ] Anicetus, and, holding these doctrines, 
she led multitudes astray. They style them- 
selves Gnostics. They also possess images, 
some of them painted, and others formed from 
different kinds of material ; while they maintain 
that a likeness of Christ was made by Pilate at 
that time when Jesus lived among them.? They 
crown these images, and set them up along with 
the images of the philosophers of the world ; 
that is to say, with the images of Pythagoras, 
and Plato, and Aristotle, and the rest. They 
have also other modes of honouring these im- 
ages, after the same manner of the Gentiles. 


CHAP. XXVI.— DOCTRINES OF CERINTHUS, THE 
EBIONITES, AND NICOLAITANES. 


r. Cerinthus, again, a man who was educated : 
in the wisdom of the Egyptians, taught that the 
world was not made by the primary God, but 
by a certain Power far separated from him, and 
at a distance from that Principality who is su- 





6 The meaning is here very doubtful, but Tertullian understood 
the words as above. If sinning were a necessity, then it could no 
longer be regarded as. evil. : a 

7 [This censure of images as a Gnostic peculiarity, and as a heath- 
enish corruption, should be noted. ’ F 

8 We here follow the text as preserved by Hippolytus. The Latin 
has, “a certain man in Asia.” 5 


352 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES, 











preme over the universe, and ignorant of him 
who is above all. He represented Jesus as 
having not been born of a virgin, but as being 
the son of Joseph and Mary according to the 
ordinary course of human generation, while he 
nevertheless was more righteous, prudent, and 
wise than other men. Moreover, after his bap- 
tism, Christ descended upon him in the form of 
a dove from the Supreme Ruler, and that then 
he proclaimed the unknown Father, and per- 
formed miracles. Bnt at last Christ departed 
from Jesus, and that then Jesus suffered and 
rose again, while Christ remained impassible, 
inasmuch as he was a spiritual being. 

2. Those who are called Ebionites agree that 
the world was made by God ; but their opinions 
with respect to the Lord are similar to those 
of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They use the 
Gospel according to Matthew only, and repu- 
diate the Apostle Paul, maintaining that he was 
an apostate from the law. As to the prophetical 
writings, they endeavour to expound them ina 
somewhat singular manner: they practise cir- 
cumcision, persevere in the observance of those 
customs which are enjoined by the law, and are 
so Judaic in their style of life, that they even 
adore Jerusalem as if it were the house of God. 

3. The Nicolaitanes are the followers of that 
Nicolas who was one of the seven first ordained 
to the diaconate by the apostles.' They lead 
lives of unrestrained indulgence. The character 
of these men is very plainly pointed out in the 
Apocalypse of John, [when they are represented ] 
as teaching that it is a matter of indifference to 
practise adultery, and to eat things sacrificed to 
idols. Wherefore the Word has also spoken of 
them thus: “ But this thou hast, that thou hatest 
the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also 
hate.’’* 


CHAP. XXVII.— DOCTRINES OF CERDO AND MAR- 
CION. 


1. Cerdo was one who took his system from 
the followers of Simon, and came to live at 
Rome in the time of Hyginus, who held the 
ninth place in the episcopal succession from the 
apostles downwards. He taught that the God 
proclaimed by the law and the prophets was not 
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the 
former was known, but the latter unknown; 
while the one also was righteous, but the other 
benevolent. 

2. Marcion of Pontus succeeded him, and 
developed his doctrine. In so doing, he ad- 
vanced the most daring blasphemy against Him 
who is proclaimed as God by the law and the 
prophets, declaring Him to be the author of 
evils, to take delight in war, to be infirm of pur- 


I eee disputed by other primitive’ authorities. ] 
% Rey. ii. 6, 











pose, and even to be contrary to Himself. But 
Jesus being derived from that father who is 
above the God that made the world, and coming 
into Judza in the times of Pontius Pilate the 
governor, who was the procurator of Tiberius 
Ceesar, was manifested in the form of a man to 
those who were in Judza, abolishing the prophets 
and the law, and all the works of that God who 
made the world, whom also he calls Cosmocra- 
tor. Besides this, he mutilates the Gospel which 
is according to Luke, removing all that is written 
respecting the generation of the Lord, and set- . 
ting aside a great deal of the teaching of the 
Lord, in which the Lord is recorded as most 
clearly confessing that the Maker of this universe 
is His Father. He likewise persuaded his dis- 
ciples that he himself was more worthy of credit 
than are those apostles who have handed down 
the Gospel to us, furnishing them not with the 
Gospel, but merely a fragment of it. In like 
manner, too, he dismembered the Epistles of 
Paul, removing all that is said by the apostle 
respecting that God who made the world, to the 
effect that He is the Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and also those passages from the pro- 
phetical writings which the apostle quotes, in 
order to teach us that they announced before- 
hand the coming of the Lord. 

3. Salvation will be the attainment only of 
those souls which had learned his doctrine; 
while the body, as having been taken from the 
earth, is incapable of sharing in salvation. In 
addition to his blasphemy against God Himself, 
he advanced this also, truly speaking as with 
the mouth of the devil, and saying all things 
in direct opposition to the truth,— that Cain, 
and those like him, and the Sodomites, and the 
Egyptians, and others like them, and, in fine, all 
the nations who walked in all sorts of abomina- 
tion, were saved by the Lord, on His descending 
into Hades, and on their running unto Him, 
and that they welcomed Him into their king- 
dom. But the serpent} which was in Marcion 
declared that Abel,-and Enoch, and Noah, and 
those other righteous men who sprang‘ from 
the patriarch Abraham, with all the prophets, 
and those who were pleasing to God, did not 
partake in salvation. For since these men, he 
says, knew that their God was constantly tempt- 
ing them, so now they suspected that He was 
tempting them, and did not run to Jesus, or 
believe His announcement: and for this reason 
he declared that their souls remained in Hades. 

4. But since this man is the only one who has 
dared openly to mutilate the Scriptures, and 
unblushingly above all others to inveigh against 
God, I purpose specially to refute him; convict- 





3 [Comp. cap. xxv. 3.] 
_4 We here follow the amended version proposed by the Benedictine 
Tr. 


IRENAZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





ing him out of his own writings ; and, with the 
help of God, I shall overthrow him out of those? 
discourses of the Lord and the apostles, which 
are of authority with him, and of which he makes 
use. At present, however, I have simply been 
led to mention him, that thou mightest know 
that all those who in any way corrupt the truth, 
and injuriously affect the preaching of the Church, 
are the disciples and successors of Simon Magus 
of Samaria. Although they do not confess the 
name of their master, in order all the more to 
seduce others, yet they do teach his doctrines. 
They set forth, indeed, the name of Christ Jesus 
as a sort of lure, but in various ways they 
introduce the impieties of Simon ; and thus they 
destroy multitudes, wickedly disseminating their 
own doctrines by the use of a good name, and, 
through means of its sweetness and beauty, 
extending to their hearers the bitter and malig- 
nant poison of the serpent, the great author of 
apostasy.? 


CHAP. XXVIII.— DOCTRINES OF TATIAN, THE 
ENCRATITES, AND OTHERS. 


1. Many offshoots of numerous heresies have 
already been formed from those heretics we have 
described. This arises from the fact that numbers 
of them—=indeed, we may say all—desire them- 
selves to be teachers, and to break off from the 
particular heresy in which they have been in- 
volved. Forming one set of doctrines out of a 
totally different system of opinions, and then again 
others from others, they insist upon teaching 
something new, declaring themselves the inventors 
of any sort of opinion which they may have been 
able to call into existence. To give an example: 
Springing from Saturninus and Marcion, those who 
are called Encratites (self-controlled) preached 
against marriage, thus setting aside the original 
creation of God, and indirectly blaming Him 
who made the male and female for the propaga- 
tion of the human race. Some of those reckoned 
among them have also introduced abstinence 
from animal food, thus proving themselves un- 
grateful to God, who formed all things. They 
deny, too, the salvation of him who was first 
created. It is but lately, however, that this 
opinion has been invented among them. A 
certain man named Tatian first introduced the 
blasphemy. He was a hearer of Justin’s, and as 
long as he continued with him he expressed no 
such views ; but after his martyrdom he separated 
from the Church, and, excited and puffed up by 
the thought of being a teacher, as if he were 
superior to others, he composed his own peculiar 
type of doctrine. He invented a system of cer- 
tain invisible Atons, like the followers of Valen- 





1 A promise never fulfilled: comp. book iii, r2,and Euseb., 7st. 
Eccl, Vv. & 
2 [Rev. xil. 9. 








i) 


tinus ; while, like Marcion and Saturninus, he 
declared that marriage was nothing else than 


corruption and fornication.3 But his denial of 
Adam’s salvation was an opinion due entirely to 
himself. 

2. Others, again, following upon Basilides and 
Carpocrates, have introduced promiscuous in- 
tercourse and a plurality of wives, and are indif- 
ferent about eating meats sacrificed to idols, 
maintaining that God does not greatly regard 
such matters. But why continue? For it is an 
impracticable attempt to mention all those who, 
in a way or another, have fallen away from the 
truth, 


CHAP. XXIX.— DOCTRINES OF VARIOUS OTHER 
GNOSTIC SECTS, AND ESPECIALLY OF THE BAR- 
BELIOTES OR BORBORIANS. 


1. Besides those, however, among these here- 
tics who are Simonians, and of whom we have 
already spoken, a multitude of Gnostics have 
sprung up, and have been manifested like mush- 
rooms growing out of the ground. I now pro- 
ceed to describe the principal opinions held by 
them. Some of them, then, set forth a certain 
Z£on who never grows old, and exists in a virgin 
spirit: him they style Barbelos.+ They declare 
that somewhere or other there exists a certain 
father who cannot be named, and that he was 
desirous to reveal himself to this Barbelos. 
Then this Ennoea went forward, stood before his 
face, and demanded from him Prognosis. (pre- 
science). But when Prognosis had, [as was 
requested,} come forth, these two asked for 
Aphtharsia (incorruption) , which also came forth, 
and after that Zoe Aionios (eternal life). Bar- 
belos, glorying in these, and contemplating their 
greatness, and in conception’ [thus formed], 
rejoicing in this greatness, generated light similar 
to it. They declare that this was the beginning 
both of light and of the generation of all things ; 
and that the Father, beholding this light, anointed 
it with his own benignity, that it might be ren- 
dered perfect. Moreover, they maintain that 
this was Christ, who again, according to them, 
requested that Nous should be given him as an 
assistant; and Nous came forth accordingly. 
Besides these, the Father sent forth Logos. The 
conjunctions of Ennoea and Logos, and of Aph- 
tharsia and Christ, will thus be formed; while 
Zoe Aionios was united to Thelema, and Nous to 
Prognosis. These, then, magnified the great 
light and Barbelos. 

2. They also affirm that Autogenes was after- 
wards sent forth from Ennoea and Logos, to be 





3 [The whole casuistical system of the Trent divines, De Matrt- 
monto, proceeds on this principle: marriage 1s licensed evil. ] 

4 Harvey. supposes this name to be derived from two Syriac words, 
meaning “God in a Tetrad.” Matter again derives it from two 
Hebrew words, denoting “‘ Daughter of the Lord.” 

5 Both the text and meaning are here altogether doubtful, 


354 


a representation of the great light, and that he 
was greatly honoured, all things being rendered 
subject unto him. Along with him was sent forth 
Aletheia, and a conjunction was formed between 
Autogenes and Aletheia. But they declare that 
from the Light, which is Christ, and from Aph- 
tharsia, four luminaries were sent forth to sur- 
round Autogenes ; and again from Thelema and 
Zoe Aionios four other emissions took place, to 
wait upon these four luminaries ; and these they 
name Charis (grace), Thelesis (will), Synesis 
(understanding), and Phronesis (prudence). 
Of these, Charis is connected with the great and 
first luminary : him they represent as Soter (Sav- 
iour), and style Armogenes.' Thelesis, again, is 
united to the second luminary, whom they also 
name Raguel; Synesis to the third, whom they 
call David; and Phronesis to the fourth, whom 
they name Eleleth. 

3. All these, then, being thus settled, Auto- 
genes moreover produces a perfect and true man, 
whom they also call Adamas, inasmuch as neither 
has he himself ever been conquered, nor have 
those from whom he sprang; he also was, along 
with the first light, severed from Armogenes. 
Moreover, perfect knowledge was sent forth by 
Autogenes along with man, and was united to 
him ; hence he attained to the knowledge of him 
that is above all. Invincible power was also 
conferred on him by the virgin spirit; and all 
things then rested in him, to sing praises to the 
great Aton. Hence also they declare were mani- 
fested the mother, the father, the son; while 
from Anthropos and Gnosis that Tree was pro- 
duced which they also style Gnosis itself. 

4. Next they maintain, that from the first angel, 
who stands by the side of Monogenes, the Holy 
Spirit has been sent forth, whom they also term 
Sophia and Prunicus.? He then, perceiving that 
all the others had consorts, while he himself was 
destitute of one, searched after a being to whom 
he might be united; and not finding one, he 
exerted and extended himself to the uttermost, 
and looked down into the lower regions, in the 
expectation of there finding a consort; and still 
not meeting with one, he leaped forth [from his 
place] in a state of great impatience, [which 
had come upon him] because he had made his 
attempt without the good-will of his father. 
Afterwards, under the influence of simplicity 
and kindness, he produced a work in which 
were to be found ignorance and audacity. This 
work of his they declare to be Protarchontes, 
the former of this [lower] creation. But they 
relate that a mighty power carried him away 
from his mother, and that he settled far away 








1 Harvey refers to the cabbalistic books in explanation of this and 
the following names, but their meanings are very uncertain. 
_ ? Various explanations of this word have been proposed, but its 
signification remains altogether doubtful, 








IRENZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


from her in the lower regions, and formed the 
firmament of heaven, in which also they affirm 
that he dwells. And in his ignorance he formed 
those powers which are inferior to himself — 
angels, and firmaments, and all things earthly. 
They affirm that he, being united to Authadia 
(audacity), produced Kakia (wickedness) , Zelos 
(emulation), Phthonos (envy), Erinnys (fury), 
and Epithymia (lust). When these were gen- 
erated, the mother Sophia deeply grieved, fled 
away, departed into the upper regions, and be- 
came the last of the Ogdoad, reckoning it down- 
wards. On her thus departing, he imagined he 
was the only being in existence; and on this 
account declared, “I am a jealous God, and 
besides me there is no one.”3 Such are the 
falsehoods which these people invent. 


CHAP. XXX. — DOCTRINES OF THE OPHITES AND 
SETHIANS. 


1. Others, again, portentously declare that 
there exists, in the power of Bythus, a certain 
primary light, blessed, incorruptible, and infinite : 
this is the Father of all, and is styled the first 
man. They also maintain that his Enncea, going 
forth from him, produced a son, and that this is 
the son of man—the second man. Below these, 
again, is the Holy Spirit, and under this superior 
spirit the elements were separated from each 
other, viz., water, darkness, the abyss, chaos, 
above which they declare the Spirit was borne, 
calling him the first woman. Afterwards, they: 
maintain, the first man, with his son, delighting 
over the beauty of the Spirit—that is, of the 
woman — and shedding light upon her, begat by 
her an incorruptible light, the third male, whom 
they call Christ, — the son of the first and sec- 
ond man, and of the Holy Spirit, the first woman. 

2. The father and son thus both had inter- 
course with the woman (whom they also call the 
mother of the living). When, however, she 
could not bear nor receive into herself the great- 
ness of the lights, they declare that she was filled 
to repletion, and became ebullient on the left 
side; and that thus their only son Christ, as 
belonging to the right side, and ever tending to 
what was higher, was immediately caught up with 
his mother to form an incorruptible Aton. This 
constitutes the true and holy Church, which has 
become the appellation, the meeting together, 
and the union of the father of all, of the first 
man, of the son, of the second man, of Christ 
their son, and of the woman who has been men- 
tioned. 

3. They teach, however, that the power which 
proceeded from the woman by ebullition, being 
besprinkled with light, fell downward from the 
place occupied by its progenitors, yet possessin 





3 Ex, xx. 5; Isa. xlv. 5, 6. 
4 The punctuation is here difficult and doubtful. 


IRENAZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


355 





by its own will that besprinkling of light ; and it 
they call Sinistra, Prunicus, and Sophia, as well 
as masculo-feminine. This being, in its sim- 
plicity, descended into the waters while they 
were yet in a state of immobility, and imparted 
motion to them also, wantonly acting upon them 
even to their lowest depths, and assumed from 
them a body. For they affirm that all things 
rushed towards and clung to that sprinkling of 
light, and begirt it all round. Unless it had 
possessed that, it would perhaps have been to- 
tally absorbed in, and overwhelmed by, material 
substance. Being therefore bound down by a 
body which was composed of matter, and greatly 
burdened by it, this power regretted the course 
it had followed, and made an attempt to escape 
from the waters and ascend to its mother: it 
could not effect this, however, on account of the 
weight of the body lying over and around it. 
But feeling very ill at ease, it endeavoured at 
least to conceal that light which came from above, 
fearing lest it too might be injured by the inferior 
elements, as had happened to itself. And when 
it had received power from that besprinkling of 
light which it possessed, it sprang back again, 
and was borne aloft; and being on high, it ex- 
tended itself, covered [a portion of space], and 
formed this visible heaven out of its body; yet 
remained under the heaven which it made, as 
still possessing the form of a watery body. But 
when it had conceived a desire for the light 
_ above, and had received power by all things, it 
laid down this body, and was freed from it. This 
body which they speak of that power as having 
thrown off, they call a female from a female. 

4. They declare, moreover, that her son had 
also himself a certain breath of incorruption left 
him by his mother, and that through means of 
it he works ; and becoming powerful. he himself, 
as they affirm, also sent forth from the waters a 
son without a mother ; for they do not allow him 
either to have known a mother. His son, again, 
after the example of his father, sent forth another 
son. This third one, too, generated a fourth ; 
the fourth also generated a son: they maintain 
that again a son was generated by the fifth ; 
and the sixth, too, generated a seventh. Thus 
was the Hebdomad, according to them, com- 
pleted, the mother possessing the eighth place ; 
and as in the case of their generations, so also 
in regard to dignities and powers, they precede 
each other in turn. 

5. They have also given names to [the sev- 
eral persons] in their system of falsehood, such 
as the following: he who was the first descend- 
ant of the mother is called Ialdabaoth ;' he, 





1 The probable meaning of this and the following names is thus 
given by Harvey: laldabaoth, Lord God of the Fathers; lao, Fe- 
hovah» Oreus, Light, Astanpheus, Crown : Sabaoth, of course, 
means Hosts ; Adoneus, Lord ; and Eloeus, God. All the names are 
derived from the cabbalistic theology of the Jews. 





again, descended from him, is named Iao; he, 
from this one, is called Sabaoth ; the fourth is 
named Adoneus; the fifth, Eloeus; the sixth, 
Oreus ; and the seventh and last of all, Astan- 
pheeus. Moreover, they represent these heavens, 
potentates, powers, angels, and creators, as sit- 
ting in their proper order in heaven, according 
to their generation, and as invisibly ruling over 
things celestial and terrestrial. The first of 
them, namely Ialdabaoth, holds his mother in 
contempt, inasmuch as he produced sons and 
grandsons without the permission of any one, 
yea, even angels, archangels, powers, potentates, 
and dominions. After these things had been 
done, his sons turned to strive and quarrel with 
him about the supreme power, — conduct which 
deeply grieved Ialdabaoth, and drove him to 
despair. In these circumstances, he cast his 
eyes upon the subjacent dregs of matter, and 
fixed his desire upon it, to which they declare 
his son owes his origin. ‘This son is Nous him- 
self, twisted into the form of a serpent ;? and 
hence were derived the spirit, the soul, and all 
mundane things: from this too were generated 
all oblivion, wickedness, emulation, envy, and 
death. They declare that the father imparted 3 
still greater crookedness to this serpent-like and 
contorted Nous of theirs, when he was with their 
father in heaven and Paradise. 

6. On this account, Ialdabaoth, becoming up- 
lifted in spirit, boasted himself over all those 
things that were below him, and exclaimed, “I 
am father, and God, and above me there is no 
one.” But his mother, hearing him speak thus, 
cried out against him, “ Do not lie, Ialdabaoth: 
for the father of all, the first Anthropos (man), 
is above thee ; and so is Anthropos the son of 
Anthropos.” Then, as all were disturbed by 
this new voice, and by the unexpected procla- 
mation, and as they were inquiring whence the 
noise proceeded, in order to lead them away 
and attract them to himself, they affirm that 
Jaldabaoth exclaimed, “‘ Come, let us make man 
after our image.” 4 The six powers, on hearing 
this, and their mother furnishing them with the 
idea of a man (in order that by means of him 
she might empty them of their original power), 
jointly formed a man of immense size, both in 
regard to breadth and length. But as he could 
merely writhe along the ground, they carried 
him to their father ; Sophia so labouring in this 
matter, that she might empty him (Ialdabaoth) 
of the light with which he had been sprinkled, 
so that he might no longer, though still power- 
ful, be able to lift up himself against the powers 
above. They declare, then, that by breathing 


el 





2 Hence their name of Ophites, from odis, a serpent. 
3 The Latin has evertisse, implying that thus Nous was more 


degraded. 
4 Gen. i. 26. 


356 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


iinet iih Se ee hen ee 


into man the spirit of life, he was secretly emptied 
of his power ; that hence man became a possessor 
of nous (intelligence) and enthymesis (thought) ; 
and they affirm that these are the faculties which 
partake in salvation. He [they further assert | at 
once gave thanks to the first Anthropos (man), 
forsaking those who had created him. 

7. But Ialdabaoth, feeling envious at this, was 
pleased to form the design of again emptying 
man by means of woman, and produced a woman 
from his own enthymesis, whom that Prunicus 
[above mentioned] laying hold of, imperceptibly 
emptied her of power. But the others coming 
and admiring her beauty, named her Eve, and 
falling in love with her, begat sons by her, whom 
they also declare to be the angels. But their 
mother (Sophia) cunningly devised a scheme to 
seduce Eve and Adam, by means of the serpent, 
to transgress the command of Ialdabaoth. Eve 
listened to this as if it had proceeded from a son 
of God, and yielded an easy belief. She also 
persuaded Adam to eat of the tree regarding 
which God had said that they should not eat of 
it. They then declare that, on their thus eating, 
they attained to the knowledge of that power 
which is above all, and departed from those who 
had created them.t When Prunicus perceived 
that the powers were thus baffled by their own 
creature, she greatly rejoiced, and again cried 
out, that since the father was incorruptible, he 
(Ialdabaoth) who formerly called himself the 
father was a liar ; and that, while Anthropos and 
the first woman (the Spirit) existed previously, 
this one (Eve) sinned by committing adultery. 

8. Ialdabaoth, however, through that oblivion 
in which he was involved, and not paying any 


regard to these things, cast Adam and Eve out 


of Paradise, because they had transgressed his 
commandment. For he had a desire to beget 
sons by Eve, but did not accomplish his wish, 
because his mother opposed him in every point, 
and secretly emptied Adam and Eve of the light 
with which they had been sprinkled, in order 
that that spirit which proceeded from the su- 
preme power might participate neither in the 
curse nor opprobrium [caused by transgression ]. 
They also teach that, thus being emptied of the 
divine substance, they were cursed by him, and 
cast down from heaven to this world.? But the 
serpent also, who was acting against the father, 
was cast down by him into this lower world ; -he 
reduced, however, under his power the angels 
here, and begat six sons, he himself forming the 
seventh person, after the example of that Heb- 
domad which surrounds the father. They fur- 
ther declare that these are the seven mundane 
demons, who always oppose and resist the human 





_ 3 That is, from Ialdabaoth, etc. 
rayepreten é 

2 There is constant reference in this section to rabbinical conceits 
and follies. 


[PAilastr. (ut supra), Oehler, 











race, because it was on their account that their 
father was cast down to this lower world. 

9. Adam and Eve previously had light, and 
clear, and as it were spiritual bodies, such as 
they were at their creation ; but when they came 
to this world, these*changed into bodies more 
opaque, and gross, and sluggish. Their soul 
also was feeble and languid, inasmuch as they 
had received from their creator a merely mun- 
dane inspiration. This continued until Prunicus, 
moved with compassion towards them, restored 
to them the sweet savour of the besprinkling of 
light, by means of which they came to a remem- 
brance of themselves, and knew that they were 
naked, as well as that the body was a material 
substance, and thus recognised that they bore 
death about with them. They thereupon be- 
came patient, knowing that only for a time they 
would be enveloped in the body. They also 
found out food, through the guidance of Sophia ; 
and when they were satisfied, they had carnal 
knowledge of each other, and begat Cain, whom 
the serpent, that had been cast down along with 
his sons, immediately laid hold of and destroyed 
by filling him with mundane oblivion, and urging 
into folly and audacity, so that, by slaying his 
brother Abel, he was the first to bring to light 
envy and death. After these, they affirm that, 
by the forethought of Prunicus, Seth was begot- 
ten, and then Norea,3 from whom they represent 
all the rest of mankind as being descended. 
They were urged on to all kinds of wickedness 
by the inferior Hebdomad, and to apostasy, 
idolatry, and a general contempt for everything 
by the superior holy Hebdomad,‘ since the 
mother was always secretly opposed to them, 
and carefully preserved what was peculiarly her 
own, that is, the besprinkling of light. They 
maintain, moreover, that the holy Hebdomad is 
the seven stars which they call planets; and 
they affirm that the serpent cast down has two 
names, Michael and Samael. 

10. Ialdabaoth, again, being incensed with 
men, because they did not worship or honour 
him as father and God, sent forth a deluge upon 
them, that he might at once destroy them all. 
But Sophia opposed him in this point also, and 
Noah and his family were saved in the ark by 
means of the besprinkling of that light which 
proceeded from her, and through it the world 
was again filled with mankind. Ialdabaoth him- 
self chose a certain man named Abraham from 
among these, and made a covenant with him, 
to the effect that, if his seed continued to serve 
him, he would give to them the earth for an 
inheritance. Afterwards, by means of Moses, he 


3 A name probably derived from the Hebrew J rl, but 

of the person referred to we know nothing, Be pe F ia 

_ 4 We here follow the emendation of Grabe: the defection of Pru- 
micus is intended, : eA 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





357 





brought forth Abraham’s descendants from Egypt, 
and gave them the law, and made them the Jews. 
Among that people he chose seven days,’ which 
they also call the holy Hebdomad. Each of 
these receives his own herald for the purpose 
of glorifying and proclaiming God ; so that, when 
the rest hear these praises, they too may serve 
those who are announced as gods by the prophets. 

11. Moreover, they distribute the prophets in 
the following manner: Moses, and Joshua the 
son of Nun, and Amos, and Habakkuk, belonged 
to Ialdabaoth ; Samuel, and Nathan, and Jonah, 
and Micah, to Iao; Elijah, Joel, and Zechariah, 
to Sabaoth ; Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Dan- 
iel, to Adonai; Tobias and Haggai to Eloi; 
Michaiah and Nahum to Oreus; Esdras and 
Zephaniah to Astanpheus. Each one of these, 
then, glorifies his own father and God, and they 
maintain that Sophia herself has also spoken 
many things through them regarding the first 
Anthropos (man),? and concerning that Christ 
who is above, thus admonishing and reminding 
men of the incorruptible light, the first Anthropos, 
and of the descent of Christ. The [other] 
powers being terrified by these things, and mar- 
velling at the novelty of those things which were 
announced by the prophets, Prunicus brought it 
about by means of Ialdabaoth (who knew not 
what he did), that emissions of two men took 
place, the one from the barren Elizabeth, and 
the other from the Virgin Mary. 

12. And since she herself had no rest either 
in heaven or on earth, she invoked her mother 
to assist her in her distress. Upon this, her 
mother, the first woman, was moved with com- 
passion towards her daughter, on her repentance, 
and begged from the first man that Christ should 
be sent to her assistance, who, being sent forth, 
descended to his sister, and to the besprinkling 
of light. When he recognised her (that is, the 
Sophia below), her brother descended to her, and 
announced his advent through means of John, 
and prepared the baptism of repentance, and 
adopted Jesus beforehand, in order that on Christ 
descending he might find a pure vessel, and that 
by the son of that Ialdabaoth the woman might be 
announced by Christ. They further declare that 
he descended through the seven heavens, having 
assumed the likeness of their sons, and grad- 
ually emptied them of their power. For they 
maintain that the whole besprinkling of light 
rushed to him, and that Christ, descending to 
this world, first clothed his sister Sophia [with 
it], and that then both exulted in the mutual 





I The Latin here is “ex quibus,” and the meaning is exceedingly 
obscure. Harvey thinks it is the representative ef Ov (Xpovwy) in the 
Greek, but we prefer to refer it to ‘‘ Judzos,” as above, The next 
sentence scems ma ptclligiies but, sccoreing %0 Harvey, ““each dei- 

< had his ministering prophets. 
eee tacis ‘ec acersaptibili Alone,” but this 
‘ems better rejected as a glossarial interpolation. 








refreshment they felt in each other’s society : 
this scene they describe as relating to bridegroom 
and bride. But Jesus, inasmuch as he was be- 
gotten of the Virgin through the agency of God, 
was wiser, purer, and more righteous than all 
other men: Christ united to Sophia descended 
into him, and thus Jesus Christ was produced. 
13. They affirm that many of his disciples 
were not aware of the descent of Christ into 
him; but that, when Christ did descend on 
Jesus, he then began to work miracles, and heal, 
and announce the unknown Father, and openly 
to confess himself the son of the first man. The 
powers and the father of Jesus were angry at 
these proceedings, and laboured to destroy him ; 
and when he was being led away for this pur- 
pose, they say that Christ himself, along with 
Sophia, departed from him into the state of an 
incorruptible AXon, while Jesus was crucified. 
Christ, however, was not forgetful of his Jesus, 
but sent down a certain energy into him from 
above, which raised him up again in the body, 
which they call both animal and spiritual ; for he 
sent the mundane parts back again into the world. 
When his disciples saw that he had risen, they did 
not recognise him —no, not even Jesus himself, 
by whom he rose again from the dead. And they 
assert that this very great error prevailed among 
his disciples, that they imagined he had risen in 
a mundane body, not knowing that “flesh? and 
blood do not attain to the kingdom of God.” 
14. They strove to establish the descent and 
ascent of Christ, by the fact that neither before 
his baptism, nor after his resurrection from the 
dead, do his disciples state that he did any 


‘mighty works, not being aware that Jesus was 


united to Christ, and the incorruptible Aton to 
the Hebdomad ; and they declare his mundane 
body to be of the same nature as that of animals. 
But after his resurrection he tarried [on earth] 
eighteen months; and knowledge descending 
into him from above, he taught what was clear. 
He instructed a few of his disciples, whom he 
knew to be capable of understanding so great 
mysteries, in these things, and was then received 
up into heaven, Christ sitting down at the right 
hand of his father Ialdabaoth, that he may re- 
ceive to himself the souls of those who have 
known them,‘ after they have laid aside their 
mundane flesh, thus enriching himself without 
the knowledge or perception of his father; so 
that, in proportion as Jesus enriches himself with 
holy souls, to such an extent does his father suf- 
fer loss and is diminished, being emptied of his 
own power by these souls. For he will not now 
possess holy souls to send them down again into 








3 x Cor. xy. 50. The Latin text reads “apprehendunt,” which 


can scarcely be the translation of «Aypovoujoae in the Greek text of 
the New Testament. 
4 That is, Christ and Jesus. 


358 






the world, except those only which are of his 
substance, that is, those into which he has 
breathed. But the consummation [of all things] 
will take place, when the whole besprinkling of 
the spirit of light is gathered together, and is 
carried off to form an incorruptible Aton. 

15. Such are the opinions which prevail among 
these persons, by whom, like the Lernzean hydra, 
a many-headed beast has been generated from 
the school of Valentinus. For some of them 
assert that Sophia ‘herself became the serpent ; 
on which account she was hostile to the creator 
of Adam, and implanted knowledge in men, for 
which reason the serpent was called wiser than 
all others. Moreover, by the position of our 
intestines, through which the food is conveyed, 
and by the fact that they possess such a figure, 
our internal configuration‘ in the form of a ser- 
pent reveals our hidden generatrix. 


CHAP, XXXI.— DOCTRINES OF THE CAINITES. 


1. Others again declare that Cain derived his 
being from the Power above, and acknowledge 
that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such 
persons, are related to themselves. On this 
account, they add, they have been assailed by 
the Creator, yet no one of them has suffered 
injury. For Sophia was in the habit of carrying 
off that which belonged to her from them to 
herself. They declare that Judas the traitor 
was thoroughly acquainted with these things, 
and that he alone, knowing the truth as no 
others did, accomplished the mystery of the 
betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and 
heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. 
They produce a fictitious history of this kind, 
which they style the Gospel of Judas. 

2. I have also made a collection of their 
writings in which they advocate the abolition 
of the doings of Hystera.2 Moreover, they call 
this Hystera the creator of heaven and earth. 
They also hold, like Carpocrates, that men can- 
not be saved until they have gone through all 
kinds of experience. An angel, they maintain, 
attends them in every one of their sinful and 
abominable actions, and urges them to venture 
on audacity and incur pollution. Whatever may 
be the nature3 of the action, they declare that 
they do it in the name of the angel, saying, “O 
thou angel, I use thy work; O thou power, I 
accomplish thy operation!” And they main- 
tain that this is “perfect knowledge,” without 
shrinking to rush into such actions as it is not 
lawful even to name. 

3. It was necessary clearly to prove, that, as 
their very opinions and regulations exhibit them, 





_ 1 The'text of this sentence is hopelessly corrupt, but the meaning 
is as given above. 
2 According to Harvey, Hystera corresponds to the “ passions” 
of Achamoth. [Note the “ Americanism,” advocate used as a verb.] 
% The text is here imperfect, and the translation only conjectural, 














IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


those who are of the school of Valentinus derive 
their origin from such mothers, fathers, and an- 
cestors, and also to bring forward their doctrines, 
with the hope that perchance some of them, 
exercising repentance and returning to the only 
Creator, and God the Former of the universe, 
may obtain salvation, and that others may not 
henceforth be drawn away by their wicked, 
although plausible, persuasions, imagining that 
they will obtain from them the knowledge of 
some greater and more sublime mysteries. But 
let them rather, learning to good effect from us the 
wicked tenets of these men, look with contempt 
upon their doctrines, while at the same time they 
pity those who, still cleaving to these miserable 
and baseless fables, have reached such a pitch 
of arrogance as to reckon themselves superior to 
all others on account of such knowledge, or, as 
it should rather be called, ignorance. They have 
now been fully exposed ; and simply to exhibit 
their sentiments, is to obtain a victory over them. 

4. Wherefore I have laboured to bring for- 
ward, and make clearly manifest, the utterly ill- 
conditioned carcase of this miserable little fox.+ 
For there will not now be need of many words 
to overturn their system of doctrine, when it has 
been made manifest to all. It is as when, on 
a beast hiding itself in a wood, and by rushing 
forth from it is in the habit of destroying multi- 
tudes, one who beats round the wood and thor- 
oughly explores it, so as to compel the animal 
to break cover, does not strive to capture it, 
seeing that it is truly a ferocious beast; but 
those present can then watch and avoid its 
assaults, and can cast darts at it from all sides, 
and wound it, and finally slay that destructive 
brute. So, in our case, since we have brought 
their hidden mysteries, which they keep in 
silence among themselves, to the light, it will 
not now be necessary to use many words in de- 
stroying their system of opinions. For it is now 
in thy power, and in the power of all thy asso- 
ciates, to familiarize yourselves with what has 
been said, to overthrow their wicked and undi- 
gested doctrines, and to set forth doctrines 
agreeable to the truth. Since then the case is 
so, I shall, according to promise, and as my 
ability serves, labour to overthrow them, by 
refuting them all in the following book. Even 
to give an account of them is a tedious affair, as 
thou seest.s But I shall furnish means for over- 
throwing them, by meeting all their opinions in the 
order in which they have been described, that I 
may not only expose the wild beast to view, but 
may inflict wounds upon it from every side. 





4 rary ii. 15; St. Luke xiii. 32.] , 

5 [Let the reader bear in mind that the Greek of this original and 
very precious author exists only in fragments. We are reading the 
translation of a translation; the Latin very rude, and the subject 
itself full of difficulties. It may yet be discovered that some of the 
faulte of the work are not changeable to Irenisous. | 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


a 


BOOK II. 


PREFACE. 


1. In the first book, which immediately 
precedes this, exposing “ knowledge falsely so 
called,” ! I showed thee, my very dear friend, 
that the whole system devised, in many and 
opposite ways, by those who are of the school 
of Valentinus, was false and baseless. I also set 
forth the tenets of their predecessors, proving 
that they not only differed among themselves, 
but had long previously swerved from the truth 
itself. I further explained, with all diligence, 
the doctrine as well as practice of Marcus the 
magician, since he, too, belongs to these persons ; 
and I carefully noticed? the passages which they 
garble from the Scriptures, with the view of 
adapting them to their own fictions. Moreover, 
I minutely narrated the manner in which, by 
means of numbers, and by the twenty-four letters 
of the alphabet, they boldly endeavour to estab- 
lish [what they regard as] truth. I have also 
related how they think and teach that creation 
at large was formed after the image of their 
invisible Pleroma, and what they hold respecting 
the Demiurge, declaring at the same time the 
doctrine of Simon Magus of Samaria, their pro- 
genitor, and of all those who succeeded him. I 
mentioned, too, the multitude of those Gnostics 
who are sprung from him, and noticed? the points 
of difference between them, their several doc- 
trines, and the order of their succession, while 
I set forth all those heresies which have been 
originated by them. I showed, moreover, that 
all these heretics, taking their rise from Simon, 
have introduced impious and irreligious doctrines 
into this life ; and I explained the nature of their 
“redemption,” and their method of initiating 
those who are rendered “ perfect,” along with 
their invocations and their mysteries. I proved 
also that there is one God, the Creator, and that 
He is not the fruit of any defect, nor is there 
anything either above Him, or after Him. 
oe a eae aT 

ty Tim, vi 20. 

2 [Note this “ Americanism.”] 





' 


2. In the present book, I shall establish those 
points which fit in with my design, so far as 
time permits, and overthrow, by means of 
lengthened treatment under distinct heads, their 
whole system ; for which reason, since it is an 
exposure and subversion of their opinions, I 
have so entitled the composition of this work. 
For it is fitting, by a plain revelation and over- 
throw of their conjunctions, to put an end to 
these hidden alliances,3 and to Bythus himself, 
and thus to obtain a demonstration that he 
never existed at any previous time, nor now has 
any existence. 


CHAP. I.— THERE IS BUT ONE GOD: THE IMPOS- 
SIBILITY OF ITS BEING OTHERWISE. 


1. Ir is proper, then, that I should begin with 
the first and most important head, that is, God 
the Creator, who made the heaven and the 
earth, and all things that are therein (whom 
these men blasphemously style the fruit of a de- 
fect), and to demonstrate that there is nothing 
either above Him or after Him; nor that, influ- 
enced by any one, but of His own free will, He 
created all things, since He is the only God, the 
only Lord, the only Creator, the only Father, 
alone containing all things, and Himself com- 
manding all things into existence. 

2. For how can there be any other Fulness, 
or Principle, or Power, or God, above Him, 
since it is matter of necessity that God, the Ple- 
roma (Fulness) of all these, should contain all 
things in His immensity, and should be con- 
tained by no one? But if there ¢s anything 
beyond Him, He is not then the Pleroma of all, 
nor does He contain all. For that which they 
declare to be beyond Him will be wanting to 
the Pleroma, or, [in other words,] to that God 
who is above all things. But that which is 
wanting, and falls in any way short, is not the 





obscure: .we. have supplied “et,” which, 
have dropped out of the text. 


359 


3 This ‘passage is very 
as Harvey conjectures, may 


360 





Pleroma of all things. In such a case, He 
would have both beginning, middle, and end, 
with respect to those who are beyond Him. 
And if He has an end in regard to those things 
which are below, He has also a beginning with 
respect to those things which are above. In 
like manner, there is an absolute necessity that 
He should experience the very same thing at all 
other points, and should be held in, bounded, 
and enclosed by those existences that are out- 
side of Him. For that being who is the end 
downwards, necessarily circumscribes and sur- 
rounds him who finds his end init. And thus, 
according to them, the Father of all (that is, 
He whom they call Prodn and Proarche), with 
their Pleroma, and the good God of Marcion, 
is established and enclosed in some other, and 
is surrounded from without by another mighty 
Being, who must of necessity be greater, in- 
asmuch as that which contains is greater than 
that which is contained. But then that which 
is greater is also stronger, and in a greater 
degree Lord; and that which is greater, and 
stronger, and in a greater degree Lord — must 
be God. 

3. Now, since there exists, according to them, 
also something else which they declare to be 
outside of the Pleroma, into which they further 
hold there descended that higher power who 
went astray, it is in every way necessary that the 
Pleroma either contains that which is beyond, 
yet is contained (for otherwise, it will not be 
beyond the Pleroma; for if there is anything 
beyond the Pleroma, there will be a Pleroma 
within this very Pleroma which they declare to 
be outside of the Pleroma, and the Pleroma will 
be contained by that which is beyond: and with 
the Pleroma is understood also the first God) ; 
or, again, they must be an infinite distance sepa- 
rated from each other — the Pleroma [I mean], 
and that which is beyond it. But if they main- 
tain this, there will then be a third kind of exist- 
ence, which separates by immensity the Pleroma 
and that which is beyond it. This third kind of 
existence will therefore bound and contain both 
the others, and will be greater both than the 
Pleroma, and than that which is beyond it, inas- 
much as it contains both in its bosom. In this 
way, talk might go on for ever concerning those 
things which are contained, and those which 
contain. For if this third existence has its be- 
ginning above, and its end beneath, there is an 
absolute necessity that it be also bounded on 
the sides, either beginning or ceasing at certain 
other points, [where new existences begin. ] 
These, again, and others which are above and 
below, will have their beginnings at certain other 
points, and so on ad infinitum; so that their 
thoughts would never rest in one God, but, in 

‘consequence of seeking after more than exists, 








IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





would wander away to that which has no exist- 
ence, and depart from the true God. 
4. These remarks are, in like manner, appli- 
cable against the followers of Marcion. For his 
two gods will also be contained and circumscribed 
by an immense interval which separates them 
from one another. But then there is a necessity 
to suppose a multitude of gods separated by an 
immense distance from each other on every side, 
beginning with one another, and ending in one 
another. Thus, by that very process of reasoning 
on which they depend for teaching that there 
is a certain Pleroma or God above the Creator 
of heaven and earth, any one who chooses to 
employ it may maintain that there is another 
Pleroma above the Pleroma, above that again 
another, and above Bythus another ocean of 
Deity, while in like manner the same successions 
hold with respect to the sides; and thus, their 
doctrine flowing out into immensity, there will 
always be a necessity to conceive of other Plero- 
mata, and other Bythi, so as never at any time 
to stop, but always to continue seeking for others 
besides those already mentioned. Moreover, it 
will be uncertain whether these which we con- 
ceive of are below, or are, in fact, themselves the 
things which are above ; and, in like manner, [it 
will be doubtful] respecting those things which 
are said by them to be above, whether they are 
really above or below; and thus our opinions 
will have no fixed conclusion or certainty, but 
will of necessity wander forth after worlds with- 
out limits, and gods that cannot be numbered. . 
s. These things, then, being so, each deity will 
be contented with his own possessions, and will 
not be moved with any curiosity respecting the 
affairs of others ; otherwise he would be unjust, 
and rapacious, and would cease to be what God 
is. Each creation, too, will glorify its own maker, 
and will be contented with him, not knowing any 
other ; otherwise it would most justly be deemed 
an apostate by all the others, and would receive 
a richly-deserved punishment. For it must be 
either that there is one Being who contains all 
things, and formed in His own territory all those 
things which have been created, according to 
His own will; or, again, that there are numerous 
unlimited creators and gods, who begin from 
each other, and end in each other on every side ; 
and it will then be necessary to allow that all the 
rest are contained from without by some one who 
is greater, and that they are each of them. shut 
up within their own territory, and remain in it. 
No one of them all, therefore, is God. For there 
will be [much] wanting to every one of them, 
possessing [as he will do] only a very small part 
when compared with all the rest. The name of 
the Omnipotent will thus be brought to an end, 
and such an opinion will of necessity fall into 


impiety. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


361 


* 





CHAP. II. — THE WORLD WAS NOT FORMED BY 
ANGELS, OR BY ANY OTHER BEING, CONTRARY 
TO THE WILL OF THE MOST HIGH GOD, BUT WAS 
MADE BY THE FATHER THROUGH THE WORD.’ 


1. Those, moreover, who say that the world 
was formed by angels, or by any other maker of 
it, contrary to the will of Him who is the Supreme 
Father, err first of all in this very point, that they 
Maintain that angels formed such and so mighty 
a creation, contrary to the will of the Most High 
God. This would imply that angels were more 
powerful than God; or if not so, that He was 
either careless, or inferior, or paid no regard to 
those things which took place among His own 
possessions, whether they turned out ill or well, 
so that He might drive away and prevent the 
one, while He praised and rejoiced over the 
other. But if one would not ascribe such con- 
duct even to a man of any ability, how much 
less to God ! 

2. Next let them tell us whether these things 
have been formed within the limits which are 
contained by Him, and in His proper territory, 
or in regions belonging to others, and lying be- 
yond Him? But if they say [that these things 
were done] beyond Him, then all the absurdities 
already mentioned will face them, and the Su- 
preme God will be enclosed by that which is 
beyond Him, in which also it will be necessary 
that He should find His end. If, on the other 
hand, [these things were done] within His own 
proper territory, it will be very idle to say that 
the world was thus formed within His proper 
territory against His will by angels who are them- 
selves under His power, or by any other being, 
as if either He Himself did not behold all things 
which take place among His own possessions, 
or? was not aware of the things to be done by 
angels. 

3. If, however, [the things referred to were 
done] not against His will, but with His con- 
currence and knowledge, as some [of these men ] 
think, the angels, or the Former of the world 
[whoever that may have been], will no longer be 
the causes of that formation, but the will of God. 
For if He is the Former of the world, He too 
made the angels, or at least was the cause of 
their creation ; and 4 will be regarded as having 
made the world who prepared the causes of its 
formation. Although they maintain that the 
angels were made by a long succession down- 
wards, or that the Former of the world [sprang ] 
from the Supreme Father, as Basilides asserts ; 
nevertheless that which is the cause of those 
things which have been made will still be traced 
to Him who was the Author of such a succession. 
[The case stands] just as regards success in war, 








I ve noble chapter is a sort of homily on Hebrews i.] 
2 The common text has “ut: 


Erasmus and others. 





” we prefer to read “aut “4 el 


which is ascribed to the king who prepared those 
things which are the cause of victory; and, in 
like manner, the creation of any state, or of any 
work, is referred to him who prepared materials 
for the accomplishment of those results which 
were afterwards brought about. Wherefore, we 
do not say that it was the axe which cut the wood, 
or the saw which divided it; but one would 
very properly say that the man cut and divided 
it who formed the axe and the saw for this pur- 
pose, and [who also formed] at a much earlier 
date all the tools by which the axe and the saw 
themselves were formed. With justice, there- 
fore, according to an analogous process of reason- 
ing, the Father of all will be declared the Former 
of this world, and not the angels, nor any other 
[so-called] former of the world, other than He 
who was its Author, and had formerly 3 been the 
cause of the preparation for a creation of this 
kind. 

4. This manner of speech may perhaps be 
plausible or persuasive to those who know not 
God, and who liken Him to needy human beings, 
and to those who cannot immediately and with- 
out assistance form anything, but require many 
instrumentalities to produce what they intend. 
But it will not be regarded as at all probable by 
those who know that God stands in need of 
nothing, and that He created and made all things 
by His Word, while He neither required angels 
to assist Him in the production of those things 
which are made, nor of any power greatly in- 
ferior to Himself, and ignorant of the Father, not 
of any defect or ignorance, in order that he whe 
should know Him might become man.t But He 
Himself in Himself, after a fashion which we 
can neither describe nor conceive, predestinating 
all things, formed them as He pleased, bestow- 
ing harmony on all things, and assigning thein 
their own place, and the beginning of their 
creation. In this way He conferred on 1 spiritual 


things a spiritual and .invisible_nature, on super- 
celestial things a celestial, on angels an angelical, 
on animals an animal, on beings that swim a 
nature suited to the water, and on those that live 
on the land one fitted for the land— on all, in 
short, a nature suitable to the character of the 
life assigned them — while He formed all things 
that were made by His Word that never wearies. 

5. For this isa peculiarity of the pre-eminence 
of God, not to stand in need of other instruments 
for the creation of those things which are su- 
moned into existence. His own Word is both 
suitable and sufficient for the formation of all 
things, even as John, the disciple of the Lord, 





3 Vossius and others read “ primus” instead of “ prius,” but on 
defective ms. authority. é ‘ 

4 Harvey here observes: “‘ Grabe misses the meaning by apply- 
ing to the redeemed that which the author says of the Redeemer; ” 
but it may be doubted if this is really the case. Perhaps Massuet’s 
rendering of the clause, “‘ that that man might be formed who should 
know Him,” is, after all, preferable to that given above, 


362 





declares regarding Him: “ All things were made 
by Him, and without Him was nothing made.” ? 
Now, among the “all things” our world must be 
embraced. It too, therefore, was made by His 
Word, as Scripture tells us in the book of Gene- 
sis that He made all things connected with our 
world by His Word. David also expresses the 
same truth [when he says], “ For He spake, and 
they were made; He commanded, and they 
were created.’”’? Whom, therefore, shall we be- 
lieve as to the creation of the world — these 
heretics who have been mentioned that prate so 
foolishly and inconsistently on the subject, or 
the disciples of the Lord, and Moses, who was 
both a faithful servant of God and a prophet? 
He at first narrated the formation of the world 
in these words: “In the beginning God created 
the heaven and the earth,” 3 and all other things 
in succession ; but neither gods nor angels [had 
any share in the work]. 

Now, that this God is the Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, Paul the apostle also has declared, 
[saying,] “There is one God, the Father, who 
is above all, and through all things, and in us 
all.’4 I have indeed proved already that there 
is only one God ; but I shall further demonstrate 
this from the apostles themselves, and from the 
discourses of the Lord. For what sort of con- 
duct would it be, were we to forsake the utter- 
ances of the prophets, of the Lord, and of the 
apostles, that we might give heed to these per- 
sons, who speak not a word of sense? 


CHAP. Ill. — THE BYTHUS AND PLEROMA OF THE 
VALENTINIANS, AS WELL AS THE GOD OF MAR- 
CION, SHOWN TO BE ABSURD ; THE WORLD WAS 
ACTUALLY CREATED BY THE SAME BEING WHO 
HAD CONCEIVED THE IDEA OF IT, AND WAS NOT 
THE FRUIT OF DEFECT OR IGNORANCE. 


1. The Bythus, therefore, whom they conceive 
of with his Pleroma, and the God of Marcion, 
are inconsistent. If indeed, as they affirm, he 
has something subjacent and beyond himself, 
which they style vacuity and shadow, this vacuum 
is then proved to be greater than their Pleroma. 
But it is inconsistent even to make this state- 
ment, that while he contains all things within 
himself, the creation was formed by some other. 
For it is absolutely necessary that they acknowl- 
edge a certain void and chaotic kind of existence 
(below the spiritual Pleroma) in which this uni- 
verse was formed, and that the Propator pur- 
posely left this chaos as it was, either’ knowing 
beforehand what things were to happen in it, or 
seit he i aiie a oe 14 he ee 

: ; 

2 ee 9, cxlviii. 5. 


3 Gen. i. x, 


4 Eph, iv, 6, differing somewhat from Text. Rec, of New Testa- 
ment 


3 In the barbarous Latin version we here find utrum. 


+ an 
as the translation of ) . . . 7, instead of aut... aut. 











IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES, 


being ignorant of them. If he was really igno- 
rant, then God will not be prescient of all things. 
But they will not even [in that case] be able to 
assign a reason on what account He thus left this 
place void during so long a period of time. If, 
again, He is prescient, and contemplated men- 
tally that creation which was about to have a 
being in that place, then He Himself created it 
who also formed it beforehand [ideally] in Him- 
self. 

2. Let them cease, therefore, to affirm that the 
world was made by any other; for as soon as 
God formed a conception in His mind, that was 
also done which He had thus mentally con- 
ceived. For it was not possible that one Being 
should mentally form the conception, and an- 
other actually produce the things which had been 
conceived by Him in His mind. But God, ac- 
cording to these heretics, mentally conceived 
either an eternal world or a temporal one, doch 
of which suppositions cannot be true. Yet if 
He had mentally conceived of it as eternal, 
spiritual,° and visible, it would also have been 
formed such. But if it was formed such as it 
really is, then He made it such who had mentally 
conceived of it as such; or He willed it to exist 
in the ideality” of the Father, according to the 
conception of His mind, such as it now is, com- 
pound, mutable, and transient. Since, then, it 
is just such as the Father had [ideally] formed 
in counsel with Himself, it must be worthy of the 
Father. But to affirm that what was mentally 
conceived and pre-created by the Father of all, 
just as it has been actually formed, is the fruit of 
defect, and the production of ignorance, is to be 
guilty of great blasphemy. For, according to 
them, the Father of all will thus be [regarded 
as] generating in His breast, according to His 
own mental conception, the emanations of defect 
and the fruits of ignorance, since the things 
which He had conceived in His mind have 
actually been produced. 


CHAP. IV.— THE” ABSURDITY OF THE SUPPOSED 
VACUUM AND DEFECT OF THE HERETICS IS 
DEMONSTRATED. 


1. The cause, then, of such a dispensation on 
the part of God, is to be inquired after; but the 
formation of the world is not to be ascribed to 
any other. And all things are to be spoken of 
as having been so prepared by God beforehand, 
that they should be made as they have been 





& We have translated the text as it here stands in the Mss. Grabe 
omits spzrztalem et; Massuet proposes to read et znvzsibilem, and 
Stieren zzvdszbilem. 

7 In presentia: Grabe proposes zn presctentia, but without ms. 
authority. ‘‘ The reader,” says Harvey, “ will observe that there are 
three suppositions advanced by the author: that the world, as some 
heretics asserted, was eternal; that it was created in time, with no 
previous idea of it in the divine mind; or that it existed as a portion 
of the divine counsels from all eternity, though with no temporal sub- 
sistence until the time of its creation, —and of this the author now 
speaks.” ‘The whole passage is most obscurely expressed. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


363 


ga la aR Na 


made ; but shadow and vacuity are not to be 
conjured into existence. But whence, let me 
ask, came this vacuity [of which they speak]? 
If it was indeed produced by Him who, accord- 
ing to them, is the Father and Author of all 
things, then it is both equal in honour and re- 
lated to the rest of the Atons, perchance even 
more ancient than they are. Moreover, if it 
proceeded from the same source [as they did], 
it must be similar in nature to Him who pro- 
duced it, as well as to those along with whom it 
was produced. There will therefore be an abso- 
lute necessity, both that the Bythus of whom 
they speak, along with Sige, be similar in nature 
to a vacuum, that is, that He really is a vacuum ; 
and that the rest of the Avons, since they are 
the brothers of vacuity, should also be devoid' 
of substance. If, on the other hand, it has not 
been thus produced, it must have sprung from 
and been generated by itself, and in that case it 
will be equal in point of age to that Bythus who 
is, according to them, the Father of all; and 
thus vacuity will be of the same nature and of 
the same honour with Him who is, according to 
them, the universal Father. For it must of ne- 
cessity have been either produced by some one, 
or generated by itself, and sprung from itself. 
But if, in truth, vacuity was produced, then its 
producer Valentinus is also a vacuum, as are 
likewise his followers. If, again, it was not pro- 
duced, but was generated by itself, then that 
which is really a vacuum is similar to, and the 
brother of, and of the same honour with, that 
Father who has been proclaimed by Valentinus ; 
while it is more ancient, and dating its existence 
from a period greatly anterior, and more exalted 
in honour than the remaining AZons of Ptolemy 
himself, and Heracleon, and all the rest? who 
hold the same opinions. 

2. But if, driven to despair in regard to these 
points, they confess that the Father of all con- 
tains all things, and that there is nothing what- 
ever outside of the Pleroma (for it is an absolute 
necessity that, [if there be anything outside of 
it,] it should be bounded and circumscribed by 
something greater than itself ), and that they 
speak of what is wthout and what within in 
reference to knowledge and ignorance, and not 
with respect to local distance ; but that, in the 
Pleroma, or in those things which are contained 
by the Father, the whole creation which we 
know to have been formed, having been made 
by the Demiurge, or by the angels, is contained 
by the unspeakable greatness, as the centre is in 
a circle, or as a spot is in a garment, — then, in 
the first place, what sort of a being must that 





“ should also possess a vacant substance.” 


1 Literall 
ui “reliquis omnibus,” which would refer to the 


2 The text has ! ‘othe 
FEons; but we follow the emendation proposed by Massuet, “ reli- 
quorum omnium,” as the reference manifestly is to other heretics. 








Bythus be, who allows a stain to have place in 
His own bosom, and permits another one to 
create or produce within His territory, contrary 
to His own will? Such a mode of acting would 
truly entail [the charge of] degeneracy upon the 
entire Pleroma, since it might from the first 
have cut off that defect, and those emanations 
which derived their origin from it,3 and not have 
agreed to permit the formation of creation either 
in ignorance, or passion, or in defect. For he 
who can afterwards rectify a-defect, and does 
as it were, wash away a stain,* could at a much 
earlier date have taken care that no such stain 
should, even at first, be found among his pos- 
sessions. Or if at the first he allowed that the 
things which were made [should be as they are], 
since they could not, in fact, be formed other- 
wise, then it follows that they must always con- 
tinue in the same condition. For how is it 
possible, that those things which cannot at the 
first obtain rectification, should subsequently 
receive it? Or how can men say that they are 
called to perfection, when those very beings who 
are the causes from which men derive their 
origin — either the Demiurge himself, or the 
angels —are declared to exist in defect? And 
if, as is maintained, [the Supreme Being, | inas- 
much as He is benignant, did at last take pity 
upon men, and bestow on them perfection, He 
ought at first to have pitied those who were the 
creators of man, and to have conferred on them 
perfection. In this way, men too would verily 
have shared in His compassion, being formed 
perfect by those that were perfect. For if He 
pitied the work of these beings, He ought long 
before to have pitied shemsedves, and not to have 
allowed them to fall into such awful blindness. 
3. Their talk also about shadow and vacuity, 
in which they maintain that the creation with 
which we are concerned was formed, will be 
brought to nothing, if the things referred to were 
created within the territory which is contained 
by the Father. For if they hold that the hight 
of their Father is such that it fills all things 
which are inside of Him, and illuminates them 
all, how can any vacuum OF shadow possibly 
exist within that territory which is contained by 
the Pleroma, and by the light of the Father? 
For, in that case, it behoves them to point out 
some place within the Propator, or within the 
Pleroma, which is not illuminated, nor kept pos- 
session of by any one, and in which either the 
angels or the Demiurge formed whatever they 
pleased. Nor will it be a small amount of space 
in which such and so great a creation can be 





3 “ 43 0:” some refer “eo” to the Demiurge, but it is not un- 
usual for the Latin translator to follow the Greek gender, although 
different from that of the Latin word which he has himself employed, 
We may therefore here refer “e9” to “ labem,” which is the transla: 
tion of the neuter noun vorépyywa. , 

4 Labem is here repeated, probably by mistake, 


364 


IRENAZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





conceived of as having been formed. There 
will therefore be an absolute necessity that, 
within the Pleroma, or within the Father of 
whom they speak, they should conceive * of some 
place, void, formless, and full of darkness, in 
which those things were formed which have been 
formed. By such a supposition, however, the 
light of their Father would incur a reproach, as 
if He could not illuminate and fill those things 
which are within Himself. Thus, then, when 
they maintain that these things were the fruit of 
defect and the work of error, they do moreover 
introduce defect and error within the Pleroma, 
and into the bosom of the Father. 


CHAP. V.— THIS WORLD WAS NOT FORMED BY ANY 
OTHER BEINGS WITHIN THE TERRITORY WHICH 
IS CONTAINED BY THE FATHER. 


1. The remarks, therefore, which I made a 
little while ago? are suitable in answer to those 
who assert that this world was formed outside of 
the Pleroma, or under a “ good God ;” and such 
persons, with the Father they speak of, will be 
quite cut off from that which is outside the 
Pleroma, in which, at the same time, it is neces- 
sary that they should finally rest.3 In answer to 
those, again, who maintain that this world was 
formed by certain other beings within that terri- 
tory which is contained by the Father, all those 
points which have now‘ been noticed will pre- 
sent themselves [as exhibiting their] absurdities 
and incoherencies ; and they will be compelled 
either to acknowledge all those things which are 
within the Father, lucid, full, and energetic, or 
to accuse the light of the Father as if He could 
not illuminate all things ; or, as a portion of their 
Pleroma [is so described], the whole of it must 
be confessed to be void, chaotic, and full of 
darkness. And they accuse all other created 
things as if these were merely temporal, or [at 
the best], if eternal,5 yet material. But® these 
(the AXons) ought to be regarded as beyond the 
reach of such accusations, since they are within 
the Pleroma, or the charges in question will 
equally fall against the entire Pleroma; and 
thus the Christ of whom they speak is dis- 





t The Latin is Zerz eos: Massuet conjectures that the Greek had 
been toveta@ar avrovs, and that the translator rendered moveta@ar as 
a passive instead of a middle verb, fer for facere. 

2 See above, chap. i. 

3 The Latin text here is, “et concludentur tales cum patre suo ab 
€0 qui est extra Pleroma, in quo etiam et desinere eos necesse est.” 
None of the editors notice the difficulty or obscurity of the clause, but 
it appears to us absolutely untranslateable. We have rendered it as 
if the reading were “‘ab eo gwod,” though, if the strict grammatical 
construction be followed, the translation must be, ‘ from Hz» who,” 
But then to what does “in quo,” which follows, refer? It may be as- 
cribed either to the immediate antecedent Pleroma, or to Him who 
is described as being beyond it, 

4 Chap, ii., iii., iv. 

5 This is an extremely difficult passage. We follow the reading 
@ternochoica adopted by Massuet, but Harvey reads eterna chotca, 
and renders, ‘‘ They charge all other substance (i.e., spiritual) with 
the imperfections of the material creation, as though Aon substance 
were equally ephemeral and choic.” 

© The common reading is ‘aut; ” we adopt Harvey’s conjectural 
emendation of “at.” 











covered to be the author of ignorance. For, 
according to their statements, when He had 
given a form so far as substance was concerned 
to the Mother they conceive of, He cast her 
outside of the Pleroma; that is, He cut her off 
from knowledge. He, therefore, who separated 
her from knowledge, did in reality produce igno- 
rance in her. How then could the very same 
person bestow the gift of knowledge on the rest 
of the AZons, those who were anterior to Him 
[in production], and yet be the author of igno- 
rance to His Mother? For He placed her be- 
yond the pale of knowledge, when He cast her 
outside of the Pleroma. 

2. Moreover, if they explain being within and 
without the Pleroma as implying knowledge and 
ignorance respectively, as certain of them do 
(since he who has knowledge is within that 
which knows), then they must of necessity grant 
that the Saviour Himself (whom they designate 
All Things) was in a state of ignorance. For 
they maintain that, on His coming forth outside 
of the Pleroma, He imparted form to their 
Mother [Achamoth]. If, then, they assert that 
whatever is outside [the Pleroma] is ignorant of 
all things, and if the Saviour went forth to im- 
part form to their Mother, then He was situated 
beyond the pale of the knowledge of all things ; 
that is, He was in ignorance. How then could 
He communicate knowledge to her, when He 
Himself was beyond the pale of knowledge? 
For we, too, they declare to be outside the Ple- 
roma, inasmuch as we are outside of the knowl- 
edge which they possess. And once more: If 
the Saviour really went forth beyond the Pleroma 
to seek after the sheep which was lost, but the 
Pleroma is [co-extensive with] knowledge, then 
He placed Himself beyond the pale of knowl- 
edge, that is, in ignorance. For it is necessary 
either that they grant that what is outside the 
Pleroma is so in a local sense, in which case all 
the remarks formerly made will rise up against 
them ; or if they speak of that which is within in 
regard to knowledge, and of that which is with- 
out in respect to ignorance, then their Saviour, 
and Christ long before Him, must have been 
formed in ignorance, inasmuch as they went 
forth beyond the Pleroma, that is, beyond the 
pale.of knowledge, in order to impart form to 
their Mother. 

3. These arguments may, in like manner, be 
adapted to meet the case of all those who, in any 
way, maintain that the world was formed either 
by angels or by any other one than the true God. 
For the charges which they bring against the 
Demiurge, and those things which were made 
material and temporal, will in truth fall back on 
the Father; if indeed the? very things which 





‘ ee above clause is very obscure; Massuet reads it interroga: 
tively, 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


365 





were formed in the bosom of the Pleroma began 
by and by in fact to be dissolved, in accordance 
with the permission and good-will of the Father. 
The [immediate] Creator, then, is not the [real] 
Author of this work, thinking, as He did, that He 
formed it very good, but He who allows and 
approves of the productions of defect, and the 
works of error having a place among his own 
possessions, and that temporal things should be 
mixed up with eternal, corruptible with incorrupt- 
ible, and those which partake of error with those 
which belong to truth. If, however, these things 
were formed without the permission or approba- 
tion of the Father of all, then that Being must be 
more powerful, stronger, and more kingly, who 
made these things within a territory which prop- 
erly belongs to Him (the Father), and did so 
without His permission. If again, as some say, 
their Father permitted these things without ap- 
proving of them, then He gave the permission 
on account of some necessity, being either able 
to prevent [such procedure], or not able. But if 
indeed He could not [hinder it], then He is weak 
and powerless; while, if He could, He is a 
seducer, a hypocrite, and a slave of necessity, 
inasmuch as He does not consent [to such a 
course], and yet allows it as if He did consent. 
And allowing error to arise at the first, and to go 
onincreasing, He endeavours in later times to 
destroy it, when already many have miserably 
perished on account of the [original] defect. 

4. It is not seemly, however, to say of Him 
who is God over all, since He is free and inde- 
pendent, that He was a slave to necessity, or that 
anything takes place with His permission, yet 
against His desire; otherwise they will make 
necessity greater and more kingly than God, since 
that which has the most power is superior * to all 
[others]. And He ought at the very beginning 
to have cut off the causes of [the fancied] neces- 
sity, and not to have allowed Himself to be shut 
up to yielding to that necessity, by permitting 
anything besides that which became Him. For 
it would have been much better, more consistent, 
and more God-like, to cut off at the beginning 
the principle of this kind of necessity, than after- 
wards, as if moved by repentance, to endeavour 
to extirpate the results of necessity when they 
had reached such a development. And if the 
Father of all be a slave to necessity, and must 
yield to fate, while He unwillingly tolerates the 
things which are done, but is at the same time 
. powerless to do anything in opposition to neces- 
sity and fate (like the Homeric Jupiter, who says 
of necessity, “I have willingly given thee, yet with 
unwilling mind ”), then, according to this reason- 
ing, the Bythus of whom they speak will be found 
to be the slave of necessity and fate. 





1 The text has “ antiquius,” literally ‘‘ more ancient,” but it may 
here be rendered as above. 








CHAP. VI.— THE ANGELS AND THE CREATOR OF 
THE WORLD COULD NOT HAVE BEEN IGNORANT 
OF THE SUPREME GOD. 


1. How, again, could cither the angels, or the 
Creator of the world, have been ignorant of the 
‘Supreme God, seeing they were His property, and 
His creatures, and were contained by Him? He 
might indeed have been invisible to them on ac- 
count of His superiority, but He could by no 
means have been unknown to them on account 
of His providence. For though it is true, as 
they declare, that they were very far separated 
from Him through their inferiority [of nature], 
yet, as His dominion extended over all of them, 
it behoved them to know their Ruler, and to be 
aware of this in particular, that He who created 
them is Lord of all. For since His invisible es- 
sence is mighty, it confers on all a profound 
mental intuition and perception of His most 
powerful, yea, omnipotent greatness. Where- 
fore, although “no one knows the Father, except 
the Son, nor the Son except the Father, and 
those to whom the Son will reveal Him,”? yet 
all [beings] do know this one fact at least, be- 
cause reason, implanted in their minds, moves 
them, and reveals to them [the truth] that there 
is one God, the Lord of all. 

2. And on this account all things have been 
[by general consent] placed under the sway of 
Him who is styled the Most High, and the Al- 
mighty. By calling upon Him, even before the 
coming of our Lord, men were saved both from 
most wicked spirits, and from all kinds of demons, 
and from every sort of apostate power. This was 
the case, not as if earthly spirits or demons had 
seen Him, but because they knew of the existence 
of Him who is God over all, at whose invocation 
they trembled, as there does tremble every crea- 
ture, and principality, and power, and every be- 
ing endowed with energy under His government. 
By way of parallel, shall not those who live under 
the empire of the Romans, although they have 
never seen the emperor, but are far separated 
from him both by land and sea, know very well, 
as they experience his rule, who it is that pos- 
sesses the principal power in the state? How 
then could it be, that those angels who were su- 
perior to us [in nature], or even He whom they 
call the Creator of the world, did not know the 
Almighty, when even dumb animals tremble and 
yield at the invocation of His name? And as, 
although they have not seen Him, yet all things 
are subject to the name of our Lord,’ so must 
they also be to His who made and established all 
things by His word, since it was no other than He 
who formed the world. And for this reason do 





the Jews even now put demons to flight by means 





2 Matt. xi. ¢7. ; 
3 Massuet refers this to the Roman emperor, 


366 


of this very adjuration, inasmuch as all beings 
fear the invocation of Him who created them. 

3. If, then, they shrink from affirming that the 
angels are more irrational than the dumb animals, 
they will find that it behoved these, although they 
had not seen Him who is God over all, to know 
His power and sovereignty. For it will appear 
truly ridiculous, if they maintain that they them- 
selves indeed, who dwell upon the earth, know 
Him who is God over all whom they have never 
seen, but will not allow Him who, according to 
their opinion, formed them and the whole world, 
although He dwells in the heights and above the 
heavens, to know those things with which they 
themselves, though they dwell below, are ac- 
quainted. [This is the case], unless perchance 
they maintain that Bythus lives in Tartarus below 
the earth, and that on this account they have at- 
tained to a knowledge of Him before those angels 
who have their abode on high. Thus do they 
rush into such an abyss of madness as to pro- 
nounce the Creator of the world void of under- 
standing. They are truly deserving of pity, since 
with such utter folly they affirm that He (the 
Creator of the world) neither knew His Mother, 
nor her seed, nor the Pleroma of the A®ons, nor 
the Propator, nor what the things were which He 
made ; but that these are images of those things 
which are within the Pleroma, the Saviour having 
secretly laboured that they should be so formed 
[by the unconscious Demiurge], in honour of 
' those things which are above. 


CHAP. VII. — CREATED THINGS ARE NOT THE IM- 
AGES OF THOSE HONS WHO ARE WITHIN THE 
PLEROMA. 


1. While the Demiurge was thus ignorant of 
all things, they tell us that the Saviour conferred 
honour upon the Pleroma by the creation [which 
he summoned into existence] through means of 
his Mother, inasmuch as he produced similitudes 
and images of those things which are above. 
But I have already shown that it was impossible 
that anything should exist deyond the Pleroma 
(in which external region they tell us that images 
were made of those things which are within the 
Pleroma), or that this world was formed by any 
other one than the Supreme God. But if it is a 
pleasant thing to overthrow them on every side, 
and to prove them vendors of falsehood ; let us 
say, in opposition to them, that if these things 
were made by the Saviour to the honour of those 
which are above, after their likeness, then it be- 
hoved them always to endure, that those things 
which have been honoured should perpetually 
continue in honour. But if they do in fact pass 
away, what is the use of this very brief period of 
honour, — an honour which at one time had no 
existence, and which shall again come to noth- 
ing? In that case I shall prove that the Saviour 








IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


is rather an aspirant after vainglory, than* one 
who honours those things which are above. For 
what honour can those things which are temporal 
confer on such as are eternal and endure for ever? 
or those which pass away on such as remain? or 
those which are corruptible on such as are incor- 
ruptible? — since, even among men who are 
themselves mortal, there is no value attached 
to that honour which speedily passes away, but to 
that which endures as long as it possibly can. 
But those things which, as soon as they are made, 
come to an end, may justly be said rather to have 
been formed for the contempt of such as are 
thought to be honoured by them ; and that that 
which is eternal is contumeliously treated when 
its image is corrupted and dissolved. But what 
if their Mother had not wept, and laughed, and 
been involved in despair? The Saviour would 
not then have possessed any means of honouring 
the Fulness, inasmuch as her last state of con- 
fusion? did not have substance of its own by 
which it might honour the Propator. 

2. Alas for the honour of vainglory which at 
once passes away, and no longer appears! ‘There 
will be some? AXon, in whose case such honour 
will not be thought at all to have had an exist- 
ence, and then the things which are above will 
be unhonoured ; or it will be necessary to pro- 
duce once more another Mother weeping, and in 
despair, in order to the honour of the Pleroma. 
What a dissimilar, and at the same time blas- 
phemous image! Do you tell me that an image 
of the Only-begotten was produced by the former‘ 
of the world, whom 5 again ye wish to be consid- 
ered the Nous (mind) of the Father of all, and 
[yet maintain] that this image was ignorant of 
itself, ignorant of creation, — ignorant, too, of the 
Mother, — ignorant of everything that exists, and 
of those things which were made by it; and are 
you not ashamed while, in opposition to your- 
selves, you ascribe ignorance even to the Only- 
begotten Himself ? For if these things [below | 
were made by the Saviour after the similitude of 
those which are above, while He (the Demiurge) 
who was made after such similitude was in so great 
ignorance, it necessarily follows that around Him, 
and in accordance with Him, after whose like- 
ness he that is thus ignorant was formed, igno- 
rance of the kind in question spiritually exists. 


I Harvey supposes that the translator here read 7 guam instead 
of i gua (gloria); but Grabe, Massuet, and Stieren prefer to delete 
erit. 

2 Reference is here made to the supposed wretched state of Ach2- 
moth as lying in the region of shadow, vacuity, and, in fact, non- 
existence, until compassionated by the Christ above, who gave her 
form as respected substance, 

3 We have literally translated the above very obscure sentence. 
According to Massuet, the sense is: “‘ There will some time be, or 
perhaps even now there is, some /Eon utterly destitute of such hon- 
our, inasmuch as those things which the Saviour, for the sake of hon- 
ouring it, had formed after its image, have been destroyed; and then 
those things which are above will remain without honour,” etc, 

4 The Saviour is here referred to, as having formed all things 
through means of Achamoth and the Demiurge. 

assuet deletes guem, and reads nun as a genitive, 


IRENAAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





367 





For it is not possible, since both were produced 
spiritually, and neither fashioned nor composed, 
that in some the likeness was preserved, while 
in others the likeness of the image was spoiled, 
that image which was here produced that it 
might be according to the image of that produc- 
tion which is above. But if it is not similar, the 
charge will then attach to the Saviour, who pro- 
duced a dissimilar image, —of being, so to 
speak, an incompetent workman. For it is out 
of their power to affirm that the Saviour had not 
the faculty of production, since they style Him 
All Things. If, then, the image is dissimilar, he 
is a poor workman, and the blame lies, according 
to their hypothesis, with the Saviour. If, on the 
other hand, it is similar, then the same ignorance 
will be found to exist in the Nous (mind) of 
their Propator, that is, in the Only-begotten. 
The Nous of the Father, in that case, was igno- 
rant of Himself; ignorant, too, of the Father ; 
ignorant, moreover, of those very things which 
were formed by Him. But if He has knowl- 
edge, it necessarily follows also that he who was 
formed after his likeness by the Saviour should 
know the things which are like; and thus, ac- 
cording to their own principles, their monstrous 
blasphemy is overthrown. 

3. Apart from this, however, how can those 
things which belong to creation, various, mani- 
fold, and innumerable as they are, be the images 
of those thirty Zons which are within the Ple- 
roma, whose names, as these men fix them, I 
have set forth in the book which precedes this? 
And not only will they be unable to adapt the 
[vast] variety of creation at large to the [com- 
parative] smallness of their Pleroma, but they 
cannot do this even with respect to any one part 
of it, whether [that possessed by] celestial or 
terrestrial beings, or those that live in the waters. 
For they themselves testify that their Pleroma 
consists of thirty Atons ; but any one will under- 
take to show that, in a single department of those 
[created beings] which have been mentioned, 
they reckon that there are not thirty, but many 
thousands of species. How then can _ those 
things, which constitute such a multiform crea- 
tion, which are opposed in nature to each other, 
and disagree among themselves, and destroy the 
one the other, be the images and likenesses of 
the thirty A®ons of the Pleroma, if indeed, as 
they declare, these being possessed of one nature, 
are of equal and similar properties, and exhibit 
no differences [among themselves]? For it was 
incumbent, if these things are images of those 
Eons, — inasmuch as they declare that some 
men are wicked by nature, and some, on the 
other hand, naturally good, —to point out such 
differences also among their ons, and to main- 
tain that some of them were produced naturally 
good, while some were naturally evil, so that the 











supposition of the likeness of those things might 
harmonize with the A®ons. Moreover, since 
there are in the world some creatures that are 
gentle, and others that are fierce, some that are 
innocuous, while others are hurtful and destroy 
the rest ; some have their abode on the earth, 
others in the water, others in the air, and others 
in the heaven ; in like manner, they are bound 
to show that the A’ons possess such properties, 
if indeed the one are the images of the others. 
And besides ; ‘the eternal fire which the Father 
has prepared for the devil and his angels,” ? — 
they ought to show of which of those AZons that 
are above it is the image ; for it, too, is reckoned 
part of the creation. 

4. If, however, they say that these things are 
the images of the Enthymesis of that Aton who 
fell into passion, then, first of all, they will act 
impiously against their Mother, by declaring her 
to be the first cause of evil and corruptible 
images. And then, again, how can those things 
which are manifold, and dissimilar, and contrary 
in their nature, be the images of one and the 
same Being? And if they say that the angels of 
the Pleroma are numerous, and that those things 
which are many are the images of these — not 
in this way either will the account they give be 
satisfactory. For, in the first place, they are then 
bound to point out differences among the angels 
of the Pleroma, which are mutually opposed to 
each other, even as the images existing below 
are of a contrary nature among themselves. And 
then, again, since there are many, yea, innumer- 
able angels who surround the Creator, as all the 
prophets acknowledge, — [saying, for instance, ] 
“Ten thousand times ten thousand stood beside 
Him, and many thousands of thousands minis- 
tered unto Him,” ? — then, according 3 to them, 
the angels of the Pleroma will have as images 
the angels of the Creator, and the entire creation 
remains in the image of the Pleroma, but so that 
the thirty AXons no_longer correspond..to_the 
manifold variety of the creation. 

~s, Still further, if these things [below] were 
made after the similitude of those [above], after 
the likeness of which again will those then be 
made? ‘For if the Creator of the world did not 
form these things directly from His own‘ con- 
ception, but, like an architect of no ability, or a 
boy receiving his first lesson, copied them from 
archetypes furnished by others, then whence did 
their Bythus obtain the forms of that creation 
which He at first produced? It clearly follows 





I Matt. xxv. 41. ) 

2 Dan. vii. ro, agreeing neither with the Greek nor Hebrew text. 

3 This clause is exceedingly obscure. Harvey remarks upon it as 
follows: ‘ The reasoning of Irenzeus seems to be this: According to 
the Gnostic theory, the ASons.and angels of the Pleroma were homo- 
geneous. They were also the archetypes of things created. But things 
created are heterogeneous: therefore either these fEons are heteroge- 
neous, which is contrary to theory; or things created are homogeneous, 
which is contrary to fact.” 

4 Literally, “ from Himself.” 


IRENAZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





that He must have received the model from 
some other one who is above Him, and that one, 
in turn, from another. And none the less [for 
these suppositions], the talk about images, as 
about gods, will extend to infinity, if we do not 
at once fix our mind on one Artificer, and on 
one God, who of Himself formed those things 
which have been created. Or is it really the 
case that, in regard to mere men, one will allow 
that they have of themselves invented what is 
useful for the purposes of life, but will not grant 
to that God who formed the world, that of Him- 
self He created the forms of those things which 
have been made, and imparted to it its orderly 
arrangement ? 

6. But, again, how can these things [below] 
be images of those [above], since they are really 
contrary to them, and can in no respect have 
sympathy with them? For those things which 
are contrary to each other may indeed be de- 
structive of those to which they are contrary, 
but can by no means be their images —as, for 
instance, water and fire; or, again, light and 
darkness, and other such things, can never be the 
images of one another. In like manner, neither 
can those things which are corruptible and earthly, 
and of a compound nature, and transitory, be the 
images of those which, according to these men, 
are spiritual ; unless these very things themselves 
be allowed to be compound, limited in space, 
and of a definite shape, and thus no longer spir- 
itual, and diffused, and spreading into vast extent, 
and incomprehensible. For they must of neces- 
sity be possessed of a definite figure, and con- 
fined within certain limits, that they may be true 
images ; and then it is decided that they are not 
spiritual. If, however, these men maintain that 
they are spiritual, and diffused, and incompre- 
hensible, how can those things which are pos- 
sessed of figure, and confined within certain 
limits, be the images of such as are destitute of 
figure and incomprehensible ? 

7. If, again, they affirm that neither according 
to configuration nor formation, but according to 
number and the order of production, those things 
[above] are the images [of these below], then, 
in the first place, these things [below] ought not 
to be spoken of as images and likenesses of those 
Eons that are above. For how can the things 
which have neither the fashion nor shape of those 
[above] be their images? And, in the next 
place, they would adapt-both_the numbers and 
productions of the AZons aboye, so as to render 
them identical with and similar to thoseth at 
belong to the creation [below]. But now, since 
they refer to only thirty AZons, and declare that 
the vast multitude of things which are embraced 
within the creation [below] are images of those 
that are but thirty, we may justly condemn them 
as utterly destitute of sense. 








CHAP, VIII.—CREATED THINGS ARE NOT A SHADOW 
OF THE PLEROMA. 


1. If, again, they declare that these things 
[below] are a shadow of those [above], as some 
of them are bold enough to maintain, so that in 
this respect they are images, then it will be ne- 
cessary for them to allow that those things which 
are above are possessed of bodies. For those 
bodies which are above do cast a shadow, but 
spiritual substances do not, since they can in 
no degree darken others. If, however, we also 
grant them this point (though it is, in fact, an 
impossibility), that there is a shadow belonging 
to those essences which are spiritual and lucent, 
into which they declare their Mother descended ; 
yet, since those things [which are above] are 
eternal, and that shadow which is cast by them 
endures for ever, [it follows that] these things 
[below] are also not transitory, but endure along 
with those which cast their shadow over them. 
If, on the other hand, these things [below] are 
transitory, it is a necessary consequence that 
those [above] also, of which these are the 
shadow, pass away; while, if they endure, their 
shadow likewise endures. 

2. If, however, they maintain that the shadow 
spoken of does not exist as being produced by 
the shade of [those above], but simply in this 
respect, that [the things below] are far separated 
from those [above], they will then charge the 
light of their Father with weakness and insuffi- 
ciency, as if it cannot extend so far as these 
things, but fails to fill that which is empty, and 
to dispel the shadow, and that when no one is 
offering any hindrance. For, according to them, 
the light of their Father will be changed into 
darkness and buried in obscurity, and will come 
to an end in those places which are characterized 
by emptiness, since it cannot penetrate and fill 
all things. Let them then no longer declare that 
their Bythus is the fulness of all things, if indeed 
he has neither filled nor illuminated that which 
is vacuum and shadow ; or, on the other hand, let 
them cease talking of vacuum and shadow, if the 
light of their Father does in truth fill all things. 

3. Beyond the primary Father, then — that 
is, the God who is over all — there can neither 
be any Pleroma into which they declare the 
Enthymesis of that AXon who suffered passion, 
descended (so that the Pleroma itself, or the 
primary God, should not be limited and circum- 
scribed by that which is beyond, and should, in 
fact, be contained by it) ; nor can vacuum or 
shadow have any existence, since the Father 
exists beforehand, so that His light cannot fail, 
and find end in a vacuum. It is, moreover, 
irrational and impious to conceive of a place in 
which He who is, according to them, Propator, 
and Proarche, and Father, of all, and of this 


IRENAEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


369 





Pleroma, ceases and has an end. Nor, again, 
is it allowable, for the reasons' already stated, 
to allege that some other being formed so vast a 
creation in the bosom of the Father, either with 
or without His consent. For it is equally im- 
pious and infatuated to affirm that so great a 
creation was? formed by angels, or by some 
particular production ignorant of the true God 
in that territory which is His own. Nor is it 
possible that those things which are earthly and 
material could have been formed within their 
Pleroma, since that is wholly spiritual. And 
further, it is not even possible that those things 
which belong to a multiform creation, and have 
been formed with mutually opposite qualitisy, 
[could have been created] after the image of 
the things above, since these (i.e., the Xons) are 
said to be few, and of a like formation, and homo- 
geneous. Their talk, too, about the shadow of 
kenoma —that is, of a vacuum—has in all 
points turned out false. Their figment, then, 
[in what way soever viewed,] has been proved 
groundless,3) and their doctrines untenable. 
Empty, too, are those who listen to them, and 
are verily descending into the abyss of perdition. 


CHAP. IX. — THERE IS BUT ONE CREATOR OF THE 
WORLD, GOD THE FATHER: THIS THE CONSTANT 
BELIEF OF THE CHURCH. 


1. That God is the Creator of the world is 
accepted even by those very persons who in 
many ways speak against Him, and yet acknowl- 
edge Him, styling Him the Creator, and an an- 
gel, not to mention that all the Scriptures call 
out [to the same effect], and the Lord teaches 
us of this Father* who is in heaven, and no 
other, as I shall show in the sequel of this work. 
For the present, however, that proof which is 
derived from those who allege doctrines opposite 
to ours, is of itself sufficient, —all men, in fact, 
consenting to this truth: the ancients on their 
part preserving with special care, from the tradi- 
tion of the first-formed man, this persuasion, 
while they celebrate the praises of one God, the 
Maker of heaven and earth ; others, again, after 
them, being reminded of this fact by the proph- 
ets of God, while the very heathen learned it 
from creation itself. For even creation reveals 
Him who formed it, and the very work made 
suggests Him who made it, and the world mani- 
fests Him who ordered it. The Universal 
Church, moreover, through the whole world, has 


received this tradition from the apostles. 
a Ee ee Ee 
I See above, chap. ii. and v. 
2 The text has Webeasse) for which, says Massuet, should be 
read fubricatan esse; or fabricdsse itself must be taken in a pas- 
sive signification. It is possible, however, to translate, as Harve y 
indicates, ‘‘ that He (Bythus) formed so great a creation by angels, 
etc., though this seems ian and unsuitable. 
3 Literally, empty: there is a play on the words vacuum and 
vacut (which immediately follows), as there had been in the original 


reek. ’ 
4 Comp. e.g., Matt. v. 16, v. 45, Vi- 9, etc. 











2. This God, then, being acknowledged, as I 
have said, and receiving testimony from all to the 
fact of His existence, that Father whom they 
conjure into existence is beyond doubt untenable, 
and has no witnesses [to his existence]. (Simon , 
Magus was the first who said that he himself was~ 
God over all, and that the world was formed by 
his angels. Then those who succeeded him, as 
I have shown in the first book,5 by their several 
opinions, still further depraved [his teaching] 
through their impious_and _irreligious doctrines 
against the Creator. These [heretics now re- 
ferred to],° being the disciples of those men- 
tioned, render such as assent to them worse than 
the heathen. For the former “serve the creature 
rather than the Creator,” 7 and “ those which are 
not gods,” ® notwithstanding that they ascribe 
the first place in Deity to that God who was the 
Maker of this universe. But the latter maintain 
that He, [i.e., the Creator of this world,] is the 
fruit of a defect, and describe Him as being_of 
an animal nature, and as not knowing that cy 
which is above Him, while He also exclaims, 
“T am God, and besides Me there is no other 
God.” 9 Affirming that He lies, they are them- 
selves liars, attributing all sorts of wickedness to 
Him ; and conceiving of one who is not above 
this Being as really having an existence, they are 
thus convicted by their own views of blasphemy 
against that God who really exists, while they 
conjure into existence a god who has no exist- 
ence, to their own condemnation. And thus 
those who declare themselves “ perfect,’’ and as 
being possessed of the knowledge of all things, 
are found to be worse than the heathen, and to 
entertain more blasphemous opinions even against 
their own Creator. 


CHAP. X.—PERVERSE INTERPRETATIONS OF SCRIP- 
TURE BY THE HERETICS: GOD CREATED ALL 
THINGS OUT OF NOTHING, AND NOT FROM PRE- 
EXISTENT MATTER. 


1. It is therefore in the highest degree irra- 
tional, that we should take no account of Him 
who is truly God, and who receives testimony 
from all, while we inquire whether there is above 
Him that [other being] who really has no exist- 
ence, and has never been proclaimed by any one. 
For that nothing has been clearly spoken regard- 
ing Him, they themselves furnish testimony ; for 
since they, with wretched success, transfer to 
that being who has been conceived of by them, 
those parables [of Scripture] which, whatever 
the form in which they have been spoken, are 
sought after [for this purpose], it is manifest 
that they now generate another [god], who was 





5 See chap. xxiii; etc. 

6 Viz., the Valentinians. 
7 Rom. i. 25. 

8 Gal. iv. 8. 

9 Isa. xlvi. 9. 


eo 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 








never previously sought after. For by the fact 
that they thus endeavour to explain ambiguous 
passages of Scripture (ambiguous, however, not 
as if referring to another god, but as regards 
the dispensations of [the true] God), they have 
constructed another god, weaving, as I said be- 
fore, ropes of sand, and affixing a more impor- 

‘ tant toa less important question. Forno question 
can be solved by means of another which itself 
awaits solution; nor, in the opinion of those 
possessed of sense, can an ambiguity be ex- 
plained by means of another ambiguity, or enig- 
mas by means of another greater enigma, but 
things of such character receive their solution 
from those which are manifest, and consistent, 
and clear. 

2. But these [heretics], while striving to ex- 
plain passages of Scripture and parables, bring 
forward another more important, and indeed im- 
pious question, to this effect, “ Whether there be 
really another god above that God who was the 
Creator of the world?’’ They are not in the way 
of solving the questions [which they propose] ; 
for how could they find means of doing so? But 
they append an important question to one of less 
consequence, and thus insert [in their specula- 
tions | a difficulty incapable of solution. For in 

‘order that they may ' know “knowledge” itself 
(yet not learning this fact, that the Lord, when 
thirty years old, came to the baptism of truth), 
they do impiously despise that God who was the 
Creator, and who sent Him for the salvation of 
men. And that they may be deemed capable 
of informing us whence is the substance of mat- 
ter, while they believe not that God, according 
to His pleasure, in the exercise of His own will 
and power, formed all things (so that those 
things which now are should have an existence) 
out of what did not previously exist, they have 
collected [a multitute of] vain discourses, 
They thus truly reveal their infidelity ; they do 
not believe in that which really exists, and the 
have fallen away into [the belief of }] that which 
has, in fact, no existence. 

3. For, when they tell us that all moist sub- 
stance proceeded from the tears of Achamoth, 
all lucid substance from her smile, all solid—-sub- 
stance from her sadness, all mobile substance 
from her terror, and that thus they have sublime 
knowledge on account of which they are superior 
to others, — how can these things fail to be tre- 
garded as worthy of contempt, and truly ridicu- 
lous? They do not believe that God (being 
powerful, and rich in all resources) created matter 
itself, inasmuch as they know not how much a 
spiritual and divine essence can accomplish. 
But they do believe that their Mother, whom they 
style a female from a female, produced from 








I This clause is unintelligible in the Latin text: by a conjectural 
eeatoration of the Greek we have given the above tranalation. 











her passions aforesaid the so_vast_material_sub- 
stance of creation. They inquire, too, whence 
the substance Of creation was supplied to the 
Creator ; but they do not inquire whence [were 
supplied] to their Mother (whom they call the 
Enthymesis and impulse of the A%on that went 
astray) so great an amount of tears, or perspi- 
ration, or sadness, or that which produced the 
remainder of matter. 

4. For, to attribute the substance of created 
things to the power and will of Him who is God 
of all, is worthy both of credit and acceptance. 
It is also agreeable [to reason], and there may 
be well said regarding such a belief, that “the 
things which are impossible with men are possi- 
ble with God.”’?, While men, indeed, cannot make 
anything out of nothing, but only out of matter 
already existing, yet God is in this point pre- 
eminently superior to men, that He Himself 
called into being the substance of His creation, 
when previously it had no existence. But the 
assertion that matter was produced from the 
Enthymesis of an Aton going astray, and that 
the AZon [referred to] was far separated from 
her Enthymesis, and that, again, her passion and 
feeling, apart from herself, became matter — is 
incredible, infatuated, impossible, and untenable. 


CHAP. XI.— THE HERETICS, FROM THEIR DISBE- 
LIEF OF THE TRUTH, HAVE FALLEN INTO AN 
ABYSS OF ERROR: REASONS FOR INVESTIGATING 
THEIR SYSTEMS. 


1. They do not believe that He, who is God 
above all, formed by His Word, in His own 
territory, as He Himself pleased, the various and 
diversified [works of creation which exist], inas- 
much as He is the former of all things, like a 
wise architect, and a most powerful monarch. 
But they believe that angels, or some power 
separate from God, and who was ignorant of Him, 
formed this universe. By this course, therefore, 


y | not yielding credit to the truth, but wallowing in 


falsehood, they haye lost the bread of true life, 
and have fallen into vacuity3 and an abyss of 
shadow. They are like the dog of Asop, which 
dropped the bread, and made~an-attempt at 
seizing its shadow, thus losing the [real] food, 
It is easyto prove from the very words of the 
Lord, that He acknowledges one Father and 
Creator of the world, and Fashioner of man, who 
was proclaimed by the law and the prophets, 
while He knows no other, and that this One is 
really God over all; and that He teaches that 
that adoption of sons pertaining to the Father, 
which is eternal life, takes place through Him- 
self, conferring it [as He does] on all the right- 
eous. 





2 Luke xviii. 27. 


etprie ba upon the doctrines of the heretics with respect to macurts 


IRENAZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


371 





2. But since these men delight in attacking us, 
‘and in their true character of cavillers assail us 
with points which really tell not at all against 
us, bringing forward in opposition to us a multi- 
tude of parables and [captious] questions, I 
have thought it well, on the other side, first of 
all to put to them the following inquiries con- 
cerning their own doctrines, to exhibit their im- 
probability, and’to put an end to their audacity. 
After this has been done, [I intend] to bring 
forward the discourses of the Lord, so that they 
may not only be rendered destitute of the means 
of attacking us, but that, since they will be un- 
able reasonably to reply to those questions which 
‘are put, they may see that their plan of argu- 


ment is destroyed ; so that,either returning to’ 


the truth, and humbling themselves, and ceasing 


from their multifarious phantasies, they may pro- | 


pitiate God for those blasphemies they have 
uttered against Him, and obtain salvation; or 
that, if they still persevere in that system of 
vainglory which has taken possession of their 
minds, they may at least find it necessary to 


change their kind of argument against us. 





CHAP. XII. — THE TRIACONTAD OF THE HERETICS 
ERRS BOTH BY DEFECT AND EXCESS: SOPHIA 
COULD NEVER HAVE PRODUCED ANYTHING APART 
FROM HER CONSORT; LOGOS AND SIGE COULD 
NOT HAVE BEEN CONTEMPORARIES. 


1. We may‘ remark, in the first place, regard- 
ing their Triacontad, that the whole of it mar- 
vellously falls to ruin on both sides, that is, both 
as respects defect and excess. They say that to 
indicate it the Lord came to be baptized at the 
age of thirty years. But this assertion really 
amounts to a manifest subversion of their entire 
argument. As to defect, this happens as fol- 
lows : first of all, because they reckon the Propa- 
tor among the other Hons. For the Father of 
all ought not to be counted with other produc- 
tions; He who was not produced with that 
which was produced ; He who was unbegotten 
with that which was born; He whom no one 
comprehends with that which is comprehended 
by Him, and who is on this account [ Himself ] 
incomprehensible ; and He who is without figure 
with that which has a definite shape. For in- 
asmuch as He is superior to the rest, He ought 
not to: be numbered with them, ‘and that so that 
He who is impassible and not in error should 
be reckoned with an A®on subject to passion, 
and actually in error. For I have shown in the 
book which immediately precedes this, that, be- 
ginning with Bythus, they reckon up the Tricon- 
tad to Sophia, whom they describe as the erring 
fon ; and I have also there set forth the names 
of their [Atons] ; but if He be not reckoned, 


a la IL ec 


I The text vacillates between “‘ dicemus” and * dicamus.” 












there are no longer, on their own showing, thirty 
productions of A®ons, but these then become 
only twenty-nine. 

2. Next, with respect to the first production 
Enncea, whom they also term Sige, from whom 
again they describe Nous and Aletheia as having 
been sent forth, they err in both particulars. 
For it is impossible that the thought (Enncea) 
of any one, or his silence (Sige), should be un- 
derstood apart from himself; and that, being 
sent forth beyond him, it should possess a special 
figure of its own. But if they assert that the 
(Enncea) was not sent forth beyond Him, but 
continued one with the Propator, why then do 
they reckon her with the other AZons — with 
those who were not one [with the Father], and 
are on this account ignorant of His greatness? 
If, however, she was so united (let us take this 
also into consideration), there is then an abso- 
lute necessity, that from this united and insepara- 
ble conjunction, which constitutes but one being, 
there? should proceed an unseparated and united 
production, so that it should not be dissimilar to 
Him who sent it forth. But if this be so, then 
just as Bythus and Sige, so also Nous and Ale- 
theia will form one and the same being, ever 
cleaving mutually together. And inasmuch as 
the one cannot be conceived of without the 
other, just as water cannot [be conceived of ] 
without [the thought of] moisture, or fire with- 
out [the thought of] heat, or a stone without 
[the thought] of hardness (for these ‘things are 
mutually bound together, and the one cannot 
be separated from the other, but always co-exists 
with it), so it behoves Bythus to be united in the 
same way with Enncea, and Nous with Aletheia. 
Logos and Zoe again, as being sent forth by 
those that are thus united, ought themselves to 
be united, and to constitute only one being. 
But, according to such a process of reasoning, 
Homo and Ecclesia too, and indeed all the re- 
maining conjunctions of the A#ons produced, 
ought to be united, and always to co-exist, the 
one with the other. For there is a necessity in 
their opinion, that a female A‘on should exist 
side by side with a male one, inasmuch as she is, 
so to speak, [the forthputting of ] his affection. 

3. These things being so, and such opinions 
being proclaimed by them, they again venture, 
without a blush, to teach that the younger AZon 
of the Duodecad, whom they also style Sophia, 
did, apart from_union with her consort, whom 
they callcTheletu’, endure passion, and sepa- 
rately, without arly assistance from him, gave 
birth to a production which they name “a female 
from a female.” They thus rush into such utter 
frenzy, as to form two most clearly opposite 
opinions respecting the same point. For if 





2 This sentence is confused in the Latin text, but the meaning ig 
evidently that given above, 


EY fa 


IRENAZLUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


coe ee ee Ns be 


Bythus is ever one with Sige, Nous with Aletheia, 
Logos with Zoe, and so on, as respects the rest, 
how could Sophia, without union with her con- 
sort, either suffer or generate anything? And if, 
again, she did really suffer passion apart from 
him, it necessarily follows that the other con- 
junctions also admit of disjunction and separa- 
tion among themselves, — a thing which I have 
already shown to be impossible. It is also im- 
possible, therefore, sas Soph suffered passion 
apart from Theletus ; andthts, again, their whole 
system of argument is overthrown. For they 
have yet’ again derived the whole of remaining 
[material substance], like the composition of a 
tragedy, from that passion which they affirm she 
experienced apart from union with her consort. 

4. If, however, they impudently maintain, in 
order to preserve from ruin their vain imagina- 
tions, that the rest of the conjunctions also were 
disjoined and separated from one another on 
account of this latest conjunction, then [I reply 
that], in the first place, they rest upon a thing 
which is impossible. For how can they sepa- 
rate the Propator from his Enncea, or Nous from 
Aletheia, or Logos from Zoe, and so on with the 
rest? And how can they themselves maintain 
that they tend again to unity, and are, in fact, 
all at one, if indeed these very conjunctions, 
which are within the Pleroma, do not preserve 
unity, but are separate from one another; and 
that to such a degree, that they both endure pas- 
sion and perform the work of generation without 
union one with another, just as hens do apart 
from intercourse with cocks. 

5. Then, again, their first and first-begotten 
Ogdoad will be overthrown as follows: They 
must admit that Bythus and Sige, Nous and Ale- 
theia, Logos and Zoe, Anthropos and Ecclesia, 
do individually dwell in the same Pleroma. But 
it is impossible that Sige (silence) can exist in 
the presence of Logos (speech), or again, that 
Logos can manifest himself in the presence of 
Sige. For these are mutually destructive of 
each other, even as light and darkness can by no 
possibility exist in the same place: for if light 
prevails, there cannot be darkness ; and if dark- 
ness, there cannot be light, since, where light 
appears, darkness is put to flight. In like man- 
ner, where Sige is, there cannot be Logos; and 
where Logos is, there certainly cannot be Sige. 
But if they say that Logos simply exists within ? 
(unexpressed), Sige also will exist within, and 
will not the less be destroyed by the Logos 
within. But that he really is not merely con- 
ceived of in the mind, the very order of the pro- 
duction of their (AZons) shows. 





I It is difficult to see the meaning of “ iterum” here. 
begins a new paragraph with this sentence. 
_ ® évdid8eros — simply conceived in the mind—used in Opposi- 
ton to mpogopixos, expressed. 


Harvey 





6. Let them not then declare that the first 
and principal Ogdoad consists of Logos and 
Sige, but let them [as a matter of necessity] ex- 
clude either Sige or Logos; and then their first 
and principal Ogdoad is at an end. For if they 
describe the conjunctions [of the ons] as 
united, then their whole argument falls to piéces. 
Since, if they were united, how could Sophia 
have generated a defect without union with her 
consort? If, on the other hand, they maintain 
that, as in production, each of the Atons pos- 
sesses his own peculiar substance, then how can 
Sige and Logos manifest themselves in the same 
place? So far, then, with respect to defect. 

7. But again, their Triacontad is overthrown 
as to excess by the following considerations. 
They represent Horos (whom they call by a 
variety of names which I have mentioned in the 
preceding book) as having been produced by 
Monogenes just like the other Afons. Some of 
them maintain that this Horos was produced 
by Monogenes, while others affirm that he was 
sent forth by the Propator himself in His own 
image. They affirm further, that a production 
was formed by Monogenes —Christ and the 
Holy Spirit; and they do not reckon these in 
the number of the Pleroma, nor the Saviour 
either, whom they also declare to be Zotum3 
(all things). Now, it is evident even to a blind 
man, that not merely thirty productions, as they 
maintain, were sent forth, but four more along 
with these thirty. For they reckon the Propator 
himself in the Pleroma, and those too, who in 
succession were produced by one another. Why 
is it, then, that those [other beings] are not 
reckoned as existing with these in the same 
Pleroma, since they were produced in the same 
manner? For what just reason can they assign 
for not reckoning along with the other AXons, 
either Christ, whom they describe as having, ac- 
cording to the Father’s will, been produced by 
Monogenes, or the Holy Spirit, or Horos, whom 
they also call Soter+ (Saviour), and not even 
the Saviour Himself, who came to impart assist- 
ance and form to their Mother? Whether is this 
as if these latter were weaker than the former, 
and therefore unworthy of the name of Aons, 
or of being numbered among them, or as if 
they were superior and more excellent? But 
how could they be weaker, since they were pro- 
duced for the establishment and _ rectification 
of the others? And then, again, they cannot 
possibly be superior to the first and principal 
Tetrad, by which they were also produced ; for 
it, too, is reckoned in the number above men- 





iS Harvey remarks that ‘‘ the author perhaps wrote Opov (Horos), 
which was read by the translator” “OAov (¢otu). 

4 Since Setey does not occur among the various appellations of 
Horos mentioned by Irenzus (i. 11, 4 Cathe proposes to read Stau- 
ros, and Massuet Lytrotes; but Harvey conceives that the difficulty 
is explained by the fact that Horos was a fower of Soter (i. aaa e 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


373 


eS 


tioned. These latter beings, then, ought also to 
bave been numbered in the Pleroma of the Aons, 
or that should be deprived of the honour of those 
£ons waich bear this appellation (the Tetrad). 
8. Since, therefore, their Triacontad is thus 
brought to nought, as I have shown, both with 
respect to defect and excess (for in dealing with 
such a number, either excess.or defect [to any 
extent | will render the number untenable, and 
how much more so great Variations ?), it follows 
that what they maintain respecting their Ogdoad 
and Duodecad is a mere fable which cannot 
stand. ‘Their whole system, moreover, falls_to 
the ground, when their very foundation is..de- 


stroyed and dissolved into Bythus,' that is, into 


what has no existence. Let them, then, hence- 
forth seek to set forth some other reasons why 
the Lord came to be baptized at the age of thirty 
years, and [explain in some other way] the Duo- 
-decad of the apostles; and [the fact stated 
regarding] her who suffered from an issue of 
blood ; and all the other points respecting which 
they so madly labour in vain. 


CHAP. XIII.— THE FIRST ORDER OF PRODUCTION 
MAINTAINED BY THE HERETICS IS ALTOGETHER 
INDEFENSIBLE. 


1. I now proceed to show, as follows, that the 
first order of production, as conceived of by 
them, must be rejected. For they maintain that 
Nous and Aletheia were produced from Bythus 
and his Enncea, which is proved to be a contra- 
diction. For Nous is that which is itself chief, 
and highest, and, as it were, the principle and 
source of all understanding. Enncea, again, 
which arises from him, is any sort of emotion 
concerning any subject. It cannot be, therefore, 
that Nous was produced by Bythus and Enneea ; 


it would be more like the truth for them to main-. 


tain that Ennoea was produced as the daughter 
of the Propator and this Nous. For Enncea is 
not the daughter of Nous, as they assert, but 
Nous becomes the father of Enncea. For how 
can Nous have been produced by the Propator, 
when he holds the chief and primary place of 
that hidden and invisible affection which is within 
Him? By this affection sense is produced, and 
Enncea, and Enthymesis, and other things which 
are simply synonyms for Nous himself. As I 
have said already, they are merely certain defi- 
nite exercises in thought of that very power con- 
cerning some particular subject. We understand 
the [several] terms according to their? length 





I Trenzeus here, after his custom, plays upon the word Bythus 
(profundity), which, in the phraseology of the Valentinians, was a 
name of the Propator, but is in this passage used to denote ax uz- 
Jathomable abyss. 

2 This sentence appears to us, after loug study, totally untrans- 
lateable. The general meaning seems to be, that whatever name 1s 
given to mental acts, whether they are called Zanaa, Enthymests, 
or by whatever other appellation, they are all but exercises of the 
same fundamental power, styled Vous, Compare the following sec- 
tion. 








and breadth of meaning, not according to any 
[fundamental] change [of signification] ; and 
the [various exercises of thought] are limited 
by [the same sphere of] knowledge, and are 
expressed together by [the same] term, the 
[very same] sense remaining within, and creat- 
ing, and administering, and freely governing 
even by its own power, and as it pleases, the 
things which have been previously mentioned. 

2. For the first exercise of that [power] 
respecting anything, is styled Ennoea ; but when 
it continues, and gathers strength, and takes pos- 
session of the whole soul, it is called Enthymesis. 
This Enthymesis, again, when it exercises itself 
a long time on the same point, and has, as it 
were, been proved, is named Sensation. And this 
Sensation, when it is much developed, becomes 
Counsel. The increase, again, and greatly devel- 
oped exercise of this Counsel becomes the Ex- 
amination of thought (Judgment) ; and this 
remaining in the mind is most properly termed 
Logos (reason), from which the spoken Logos 
(word) proceeds.3 But all the [exercises of 
thought] which have been mentioned are [ funda- 
mentally ] one and the same, receiving their origin 
from Nous, and obtaining [ different] appellation 
according to their increase. Just as the human 
body, which is at one time young, then in the 
prime of life, and then old, has received [differ- 
ent] appellations according to its increase and 
continuance, but not according to any change 
of substance, or on account of any [real] loss of 
body, so is it with those [mental exercises]. For, 
when one [mentally] contempletes anything, he 
also thinks of it; and when he thinks of it, he has 
also knowledge regarding it ; and when he knows 
it, he also considers it ; and when he considers it, 
he also mentally handles it ; and when he mentally 
handles it, he also speaks of it. But, as I have 
already said, it is Nous who governs all these 
[mental processes |, while He is himself invisible, 
and utters speech of himself by means of those 
processes which have been mentioned, as it were 
by rays [proceeding from Him], but He himself 
is not sent forth by any other. 

3. These things may properly be said to hold 
good in men, since they are compound by na- 
ture, and consist of a body and a soul. But 
those who affirm that Enncea was sent forth from 
God, and Nous from Enncea, and then, in suc- 
cession, Logos from these, are, in the first place, 
to be blamed as having improperly used these 
productions; and, in the next place, as describ- 
ing the affections, and passions, and mental 
tendencies of men, while they [thus prove them- 





3 “ The following,” says Harvey, “may be considered to be 
consecutive steps in the evolution of Adyos as a psychological entity. 
Enncea, conceptron ; Enthymesis, zztention ; Sensation, thought ; 


Consilium, reasoning; Cogitationis Examinatio, judgmen¢,; in 
Mente Perseverans, Adyos evdua@eros ; Emissibiie Verbum, Aoyos 


mpodo:kds.”” 


v74 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 











selves] ignorant of God. By their manner of 
speaking, they ascribe those things which apply 
to men to the Father of all, whom they also de- 
clare to be unknown to all; and they deny that 
He himself made the world, to guard against 
attributing want of power’ to Him; while, at 
the same time, they endow Him with human 
affections and passions. But if they had known 
the Scriptures. and been taught by the truth, 
they would have known, beyond doubt, that God 
is not as men are; and that His thoughts are 
not like the thoughts of men.? For the Father 
of all is at a vast distance from those affections 
and passions which operate among men. He is 
a simple, uncompounded Being, without diverse 
members,3 and altogether like, ard equal to 
Himself, since ‘He is wholly understanding, and 
wholly spirit, and wholiy thought, and wholly 
intelligence, and wholly reason, and wholly hear- 
ing, and wholly seeing, and wholly light, and the 
whole source of all that is good —even as the 
religious and pious are wont to speak concern- 
ing God. 

4. He is, however, above [all] these proper- 
ties, and therefore indescribable. For He may 
well and properly be called an Understanding 
which comprehends all things, but He is not [on 
that account] like the understanding of men; 
and He may most properly be termed Light, but 
He is nothing like that light with which we are 
acquainted. And so, in all other particulars, the 
Father of all is in no degree similar to human 
weakness. He is spoken of in these terms ac- 
cording to the love [we bear Him]; but in 
point of greatness, our thoughts regarding Him 
transcend these expressions. If then, even in 
the case of human beings, understanding itself 
does not arise from emission, nor is that intelli- 
gence which produces other things separated 
from the living man, while its motions and affec- 
tions come into manifestation, much more will 
the mind of God, who is all understanding, never 
by any means be separated from Himself; nor 
can anything ¢ [in His case] be produced as if 
by a different Being. 

s. For if He produced intelligence, then He 
who did thus produce intelligence must be un- 
derstood, in accordance with their views, as a 
compound and corporeal Being; so that God, 
who sent forth [the intelligence referred to], is 
separate from it, and the intelligence which was 
sent forth separate [from Him]. But if they 
affirm that intelligence was sent forth from intel- 
ligence, they then cut asunder the intelligence of 





_ 1 That is, lest He should be thought destitute of power, as hav- 
ing been unable to prevent evil from having a place in creation, 

2 Isa. lv. 8. 

3 The Latin expression is “ similimembrius,” which some regard 
as the translation of d40:dcwAos, and others of omotomepys ; but in 
either case the meaning will be as given above. 

4 That is, His Nous, Enncea, etc., can have no independent exist- 
ence. The text fluctuates between “‘ emittitur” and “‘ emittetur.” 


’ 














God, and divide it into parts. And whither has 
it gone? Whence was it sent forth? For what- 
ever is sent forth from any place, passes of ne- 
cessity into some other. But what existence was 
there more ancient than the intelligence of God, 
into which they maintain it was sent forth? And 
what a vast region that must have been which was 
capable of receiving and containing the intelli- 
gence of God ! If, however, they affirm [that this 
emission took place] just as a ray proceeds from 
the sun, then, as the subjacent air which receives 
the ray must have had an existence prior to it, 
so [by such reasoning] they will indicate that 
there was something in existence, into which the 
intelligence of God was sent forth, capable 
of containing it, and more ancient than itself. 
Following upon this, we must hold that, as we 
see the sun, which is less than all things, sending 
forth rays from himself to a great distance, so 
likewise we say that the Propator sent forth a ray 
beyond, and to a great distance from, Himself. 
But what can be conceived of beyond, or at a 
distance from, God, into which He sent forth 
this ray? 

6. If, again, they affirm that that [intelligence ] 
was not sent forth beyond the Father, but within 
the Father Himself, then, in the first place, it 
becomes superfluous to say that it was sent forth 
at all. For how could it have been sent forth if 
it continued within the Father? For an emission 
is the manifestation of that which is emitted, be- 
yond him who emits it. In the next place, this 
[intelligence] being sent forth, both that Logos 
who springs from Him will still be within the 
Father, as will also be the future emissions pro- 
ceeding from Logos. These, then, cannot in such 
a case be ignorant of the Father, since they are 
within Him; nor, being all equally surrounded 
by the Father, can any one know Him less [than 
another] according to the descending order of 
their emission. And all of them must_also in an 
equal measure continue impassible, since they 
exist in the bosom of their Father, and none of 
them can ever sink into a state-of.degeneracy or 
degradation. For with the Father there is no 
degeneracy, unless perchance as in a great circle 
a smaller is contained, and within this one again 
a smaller; or un’ess they affirm of the Father, 
that, after the manner of a sphere or a square, 
He contains within Himself on all sides the like- 
ness of a sphere, or the production of the rest 
of the AXons in the form of a square, each one 
of these being surrounded by that one who is 
above him in greatness, and surrounding in turn 
that one who is after him in smallness ; and that 
on this account, the smallest and the. last of all, 
having its place in the centre, and thus being far 
separated from the Father, was really ignorant 
of the Propator. But if they maintain any such 
hypothesis, they must shut up their Bythus with. 


IRENEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


avs 





in a definite form and space, while He both sur- 
rounds others, and is surrounded by them; for 
they must of necessity acknowledge that there is 
something outside of Him which surrounds Him. 
And none the less will the talk concerning those 
that contain, and those that are contained, flow 
on into infinitude ; and all [the ons] will most 
clearly appear to be bodies enclosed [by one 
another]. 

7. Further, they must also confess either that 
He is mere vacuity, or that the entire universe is 
within Him ; and in that case all will in like de- 
gree partake of the Father. Just as, if one forms 
circles in water, or round or square figures, all 
these will equally partake of water ; just as those, 
again, which are framed in the air, must necessa- 
rily partake of air, and those which [are formed] 
in light, of light ; so must those also who are with- 
in Him all equally partake of the Father, igno- 
rance having no place among them. Where, 
then, is this partaking of the Father who fills [all 
things]? If, indeed, He has filled [all things], 
there will be no ignorance among them. On this 
ground, then, their work of [supposed] degen- 
eracy is brought to nothing, and the production 
of matter with the formation of the rest of the 
world ; which things they maintain to have de- 
-ived their substance from passion and ignorance. 
If, on the other hand, they acknowledge that He 
is vacuity, then they fall into the greatest blas- 
phemy; they deny His spiritual nature. For 
how can He be a spiritual being, who cannot fill 
even those things which are within Him? 

8. Now, these remarks which have been made 
concerning the emission of intelligence are in 
like manner applicable in opposition to those 
who belong to the school of Basilides, as well as 
in opposition to the rest of the Gnostics, from 
whom these also (the Valentinians) have adopted 
the ideas about, emissions, and were refuted in 
the first book. But I have now plainly shown 
that the first production of Nous, that is, of the 
intelligence they speak of, is an untenable and im- 
possible opinion. And let us see how the matter 
stands with respect to the rest [of the Atons]. 
For they maintain that Logos and Zoe were sent 
forth by him (i.e., Nous) as fashioners of this 
Pleroma; while they conceive of an emission 
of Logos, that is, the Word after the analogy 
of human feelings, and rashly form conjectures 
respecting God, as if they had discovered some- 
thing wonderful in their assertion that Logos was 
produced by Nous. All indeed have a clear 
perception that this may be logically affirmed 
with respect to men.! But in Him who is God 
over all, since He is all Nous, and all Logos, as 
I have said before, and has in Himself nothing 
more ancient or late than another, and nothing 





I That is, in human beings no doubt, thought (Nous) precedes 
speech (Logos), 


at variance with another, but continues altogether 
equal, and similar, and homogeneous, there is no 
longer ground for conceiving of such production 
in the order which has been mentioned. Just as 
he does not err who declares that God is all 
vision, and all hearing (for in what manner He 
sees, in that also He hears ; and in what manner 
He hears, in that also He sees), so also he who 
affirms that He is all intelligence, and all word, 
and that, in whatever respect He is intelligence, 
in that also He is word, and that this Nous is 
His Logos, will still indeed have only an inade- 
quate conception of the Father of all, but will 
entertain far more becoming [thoughts regard- 
ing Him] than do those who transfer the gen- 





eration of the word to which men gave utterance 
to the eternal Word of God, assigning a begin- 
ning and course of production [to Him], even 
as they do to their own word. And in what 
respect will the Word of God — yea, rather God 
Himself, since He is the Word — differ from the 
word of men, if He follows the same order and 
process of generation ? ‘ 

9. They have fallen into error, too, respecting 
Zoe, by maintaining that shé~was produced in 
the sixth place, when it behoved her to take 
precedence of all [the rest], since God is life, 
and incorruption, and truth. And these and 
such like attributes have not been produced 
according to a gradual scale of descent, but they 
are names of those perfections which always 
exist in God, so far as it is possible and proper 
for men to hear and to speak of God. For 
with the name of God the following words will 
harmonize : intelligence, word, life, incorruption, 
truth, wisdom, goodness, and such like. And 
neither can any one maintain that intelligence 
is more ancient than life, for intelligence itself is 
life ; nor that life is later than intelligence, so 
that He who is the intellect of all, that is God, 
should at one time have been destitute of life. 
But if they affirm that life was indeed [pre- 
viously] in the Father, but was produced in the 
sixth place in order that the Word might live, 
surely it ought long before, [according to such 
reasoning, | to have been sent forth, in the fourth 
place, that Nous might have life ; and still fur- 
ther, even before Him, [it should have been] 
with Bythus, that their Bythus might live. For 
to reckon Sige, indeed, along with their Propa- 
tor, and to assign her to Him as His consort, 
while they do not join Zoe to the number, — is 
not this to surpass all other madness ? 

10. Again, as to the second production which 
proceeds from these [Atons who have been 
mentioned], — that, namely, of Homo and Ec- 
clesia, — their very fathers, falsely styled Gnos- 
tics, strive among themselves, each one seeking 
to make good his own opinions, and_ thus 
| convicting themselves of being wicked thieves. 





376 


They maintain that it is more suitable to [the 
theory of] production —as being, in fact, truth- 
like — that the Word was produced by man, and 
not man by the Word; and that man existed 
prior to the Word, and that this is really He 
who is God over all. And thus it is, as I have 
previously remarked, that heaping together with 
a kind of plausibility all human feelings, and 
mental exercises, and formation of intentions, 
and utterances of words, they have lied with no 
plausibility at all against God. For while they 
ascribe the things which happen to men, and 
whatsoever they recognise themselves as expe- 
riencing, to the divine reason, they seem to 
those who are ignorant of God to make state- 
ments suitable enough. And by these human 
passions, drawing away their intelligence, while 
they describe the origin and production of the 
Word of God in the fifth place, they assert that 
thus they teach wonderful mysteries, unspeakable 
and sublime, known to no one but themselves. 
It was, [they affirm,] concerning these that the 
Lord said, “Seek, and ye shall find,” * that is, 
that they should inquire how Nous and Aletheia 
proceeded from Bythus and Sige ; whether Logos 
and Zoe again derive their origin from these ; 
and then, whether Anthropos and Ecclesia pro- 
ceed from Logos and Zoe. 





CHAP. XIV. — VALENTINUS AND HIS FOLLOWERS DE- 
RIVED THE PRINCIPLES OF THEIR SYSTEM FROM 
THE HEATHEN ; THE NAMES ONLY ARE CHANGED. 


1. Much more like the truth, and more pleas- 
ing, is the account which Antiphanes,? one of 
the ancient comic poets, gives in his 7heogony 
as to the origin of all things. For he speaks of 
Chaos as being produced from Night and 
Silence ; relate: that then Love’ sprang from 
Chaos and Night; from this again, Light; and 
that from this, in his opinion, were derived all 
the rest of the first generation of the gods. 
After these he next introduces a second genera- 
tion of gods, and the creation of the world ; 
then he narrates the formation of mankind by 
the second order of the gods. These men (the 
heretics), adopting this fable as their own, have 
ranged their opinions round it, as if by a sort of 
natural process, changing only the names of the 
things referred to, and setting forth the very 
same beginning of the generation of all things, 
and their production. In place of Night and 
Silence they substitute Bythus and Sige ; instead 
of Chaos, they put Nous; and for Love (by 
whom, says the comic poet, all other things were 


1 Matt. vii. 7: 

2 Nothing is known of this write. Several of the same name are 
mentioned by the ancients, but to none of them is a work named 
Vheogonia ascribed. He is supposed to be the same poet as is cited by 
Athenzus, but that writer quotes from a work styled ’Adpodirys yovac. 

3 The Latin is ‘‘ Cupidinem; ” and Harvey here refers to Aris- 


totle, who “‘ quotes the authority of Hesiod and Parmenides as saying | 


that Love is the eternal intellect, reducing Chaos into order.” 








IRENZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





set in order) they have brought forward the 
Word ; while for the primary and greatest gods 
they have formed the ons ; and in place of 
the secondary gods, they tell us of that creation 
by their mother which is outside of the Pleroma, 
calling it the second Ogdoad. They proclaim 
to us, like the writer referred to, that from this 
(Ogdoad) came the creation of the world and 
the formation of man, maintaining that they 
alone are acquainted with these ineffable and 
unknown mysteries. Those things which are 
everywhere acted in the theatres by comedians 
with the clearest voices they transfer to their 
own system, teaching them undoubtedly through 
means of the same arguments, and merely 
changing the names. 

2. And not only are they convicted of bringing 
forward, as if their own [original ideas], those 
things which are to be found among the comic 
poets, but they also bring together the things 
which have been said by all those who were 
ignorant of God, and who are termed philoso- 
phers ; and sewing together, as it were, a motley 
garment out of a heap of miserable rags, they 
have, by their subtle manner of expression, fur- 
nished themselves with a cloak which is really 
not their own. They do, it is true, introduce a 
new kind of doctrine, inasmuch as by a new sort 
of art it has been substituted [for the old]. 
Yet it is in reality both old and useless, since 
these very opinions have been sewed together 
out of ancient dogmas redolent of ignorance 
and irreligion. For instance, Thales ¢ of Miletus 
affirmed that water was the generative and ini- 
tial principle of all things. Now it is just the 
same thing whether we say waser or Bythus. 
The poet Homer,5 again, held the opinion that 
Oceanus, along with mother Tethys, was the 
origin of the gods: this idea these men have 
transferred to Bythus and Sige. Anaximander 
laid it down that infinitude is the first principle 
of all things, having seminally in itself the gener- 
ation of them all; and from this he declares the 
immense worlds [which exist] were formed: 
this, too, they have dressed up anew, and re- 
ferred to Bythus and their Xons. Anaxagoras, 
again, who has also been surnamed “ Atheist,” 
gave it as his opinion that animals were formed 
from seeds falling down from heaven upon earth. 
This thought, too, these men have transferred 
to “the_seed”’_of their Mother, which they 
maintain to be themselves ; thus acknowledging 
at once, in the judgment of such as are possessed 
of sense, that they themselves are the offspring 
of the irreligious Anaxagoras. 

3. Again, adopting the [ideas of] shade and 
vacuity from Democritus and Epicurus, they 





4 Compare, on the opinions of the philosophers referred to in this 
chapter, Happolywet Philosoph., book i, js ek cie 
5 {liad, xiv. 201; vii. 99. ; 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


377 


have fitted these to their own views, following|away to those things which are of the same 


upon those [teachers] who had already talked 
a great deal about a vacuum and atoms, the one 
of which they called shat which is, and the other 
that which is not. In like manner, these men 
call those things which are within the Pleroma 
real existences, just as those philosophers did 
the atoms ; while they maintain that those which 
are without the Pleroma have no true existence, 
even as those did respecting the vacuum. They 
have thus banished themselves in this world 
(since they are here outside of the Pleroma) 
into a place which has no existence. Again, 
when they maintain that these things [below] 
are images of those which have a true existence 
[above], they again most manifestly rehearse 
the_doctrine_of Democritus_and Plato. For 
Democritus was the first who maintained that 
numerous and diverse figures were stamped, as 
it were, with the forms [of things above], and 
descended from universal space into this world. 
But Plato, for his part, speaks of matter, and 
exemplar, and God. These men, following 
those distinctions, have styled what he calls 
ideas, and exemplar, the zmages of those things 
which are above ; while, through a mere change 
of name, they boast themselves as being discov- 
erers and contrivers of this kind of imaginary 
fiction. 

4. This opinion, too, that they hold the Creator 
formed the world out of previously existing mat- 
ter, both Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and Plato ex- 
pressed before them ; as, forsooth, we learn they 
also do under the inspiration of their Mother. 
Then again, as to the opinion that everything of 
necessity passes away to those things out of which 
they maintain it was also formed, and that God 
is the slave of this necessity, so that He cannot 
impart immortality to what is mortal, or bestow 
incorruption on what is corruptible, but every 
one passes into a substance similar in nature to 
itself, both those who are named Stoics from the 
portico (o7roa), and indeed all that are ignorant 
of God, poets and historians alike, make the 
same affirmation.2 Those [heretics] who hold 
the same [system of ] infidelity have ascribed, 
no doubt, their own proper region to spiritual 
beings, — that, namely, which is within the Ple- 
roma, but to animal beings the intermediate 
space, while to corporeal they assign that which 
is material. And they assert that God Himself 
can do no otherwise, but that every one of the 
[different kinds of substance] mentioned passes 





1 The Latin has here exemplum, corresponding doubtless to 
mapdseryya, and referring to those idéas of all things which Plato 
supposed to have existed for ever in the divine mind. 

2 [Our author's demonstration of the essential harmony of Gnos- 
ticism with the old mythologies, and the philosophies of the heathen, 
explains the hold it seems to have gained among nominal converts 
to Christianity, and also the necessity for a painstaking refutation 
of what seem to us mere absurdities. The great merit of Irenzus 
is thus illustrated: he gave the death-blow to heathenism in extir- 
pating heresy. ] 














nature [with itself]. 

5. Moreover, as to their saying that the Saviour 
was formed out of all the AZons, by every one of 
them depositing, so to speak, in Him his own 
special flower, they bring forward nothing new 
that may not be found in the Pandora_of Hesiod. 
For what he says respecting her, these men in- 
sinuate concerning the Saviour, bringing Him 
before us as Pandoros (All-gifted), as if each of 
the A‘ons had bestowed on Him what He pos- 
sessed in the greatest perfection. Again, their 
opinion as to the indifference of [eating of] meats 
and other actions, and as to their thinking that, 
from the nobility of their nature, they can in no 
degree at all contract pollution, whatever they eat 
or perform, they have derived it from the Cynics, 
since they do in fact belong ta the same society 
as do these [philosophers]. They also strive to 
transfer to [the treatment of matters of ] faith 
that hairsplitting and subtle mode of handling 
questions which is, in fact, a copying of Aristotle, 

6. Again, as to the desire they exhibit to refer 
this whole universe to numbers, they have learned 
it from the Pythagoreans. For these were the 
first who set forth numbers as the initial principle 
of all things, and [described] that initial prin- 
ciple of theirs as being both equal and unequal, 
out of which [two properties] they conceived 
that both things sensible 3 and immaterial derived 
their origin. And [they held] that one set of 
first principles+ gave rise to the matter [of 
things], and another to their form. They affirm 
that from these first principles all things have 
been made, just as a statue is of its metal and its 
special form. Now, the heretics have adapted this 
to the things which are outside of the Pleroma. 
The [Pythagoreans] maintained that the 5 prin- 
ciple of intellect is proportionate to the energy 
wherewith mind, as a recipient of the compre- 
hensible, pursues its inquiries, until, worn out, it 
is resolved at length in the Indivisible and One. 
They further affirm that Hen— that is, One — 
is the first principle of all things, and the sub- 


|stance of all that has been formed, From this 


again proceeded the Dyad, the Tetrad, the Pen- 
tad, and the manifold generation of the others. 
These things the heretics repeat, word for word, 
with a reference to their Pleroma and Bythus. 





3 The Latin text reads “ sensibilia et insensata; ” but these words, as 
Harvey observes, must be the translation of aic@n74 kai avaicOnta, — 
“the former referring to material objects of sense, the latter to the 
immaterial world of intellect.” 

4 This clause is very obscure, and we are not sure if the above 
rendering brings out the real meaning of the author. Harvey takes 
a different view of it, and supposes the original Greek to have been, 
Kal GAAas ev THs Vroctdcews apxas Elva GAdAas bé THs aigOjoews 
Kai Ths ovoias. He then remarks: ‘‘ The reader will observe that 
the word bmécracts here means zxtellectual substance, ovoia ma- 
terial; asin V.c. uit. The meaning therefore of the sentence will 
be, And they affirmed that the first principles of intellectual 
substance and of senstble and material existence were diverse, 
viz., unity was the exponent of the first, duality of the second.” 

5 All the editors confess the above sentence hopelessly obscure 
We have given Harvey’s conjectural translation. 


378 


From the same source, too, they strive to bring 
into vogue those conjunctions which proceed 
from unity. Marcus boasts of such views as if 
they were his own, and as if he were seen to have 
discovered something more novel than others, 
while he simply sets forth the Tetrad of Pythag- 
oras as the originating principle and mother of 
all things. 

7. But I will merely say, in opposition to these 
men — Did all those who have been mentioned, 
with whom you have been proved to coincide in 
expression, know, or not know, the truth? If 
they knew it, then the descent of the Saviour 
into this world was superfluous. For why [in 
that case] did He descend? Was it that He 
might bring that truth which was [already] 
known to the knowledge of those who knew it? 
If, on the other hand, these men did zo¢ know 
it, then how is it that, while you express your- 
selves in the same terms as do those who knew 
not the truth, ye boast_that_yourselves.alone 
possess that knowledge which is above all things, 
although they who are ignorant of God [like- 
wise] possess it? Thus, then, by a complete 
perversion’ of language, they style ignorance 
of the truth knowledge: and Paul well says [of 
them, that [they make use of] “novelties of 
words of false knowledge.” 2 For that knowl- 
edge of theirs is truly found to be false. If, 
however, taking an impudent course with respect 
to these points, they declare that men indeed 
did not know the truth, but that their Mother,3 
the seed of the Father, proclaimed the myste- 
ries of truth through such men, even as also 
through the prophets, while the Demiurge was 
ignorant [of the proceeding], then I answer, in 
the first place, that the things which were pre- 
dicted were not of such a nature as to be intelli- 
gible to no one; for the men themselves knew 
what they were saying, as did also their disciples, 
and those again succeeded these. And, in the 
next place, if either the Mother or her seed knew 
_ and proclaimed those things which were of the 
truth (and the Father‘ is truth), then on their 
theory the Saviour spake falsely when He said, 
“No one knoweth the Father but the Son,’ 5 
unless indeed they maintain that their seed or 
Mother is WVo-one. 

8. Thus far, then, by means of [ascribing to 
their AAons] human feelings, and by the fact that 
they largely coincide in their language with 
many of those who are ignorant of God, they 
have been seen plausibly drawing a certain num- 
ber away [from the truth]. They lead them on 








t Literally, ‘ antiphrasis,” 

2 Tim, vi. 20, The text is, ‘‘ Vocum novitates falsz agnitionis,” 
katvopwrias having apparently been read in the Greek instead of 
kevodwvias as in Text. Rec, 

3 Grabe and others insert ‘‘ vel” between these words. 

4 It seems necessary to regard these words as parenthetical, though 
the point is overlooked by all the editors. 

> Matt. xi. a7. 








IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





by the use of those [expressions] with which 
they have been familiar, to that sort of discourse 
which treats of all things, setting forth the pro- 
duction of the Word of God, and of Zoe, and 
of Nous, and bringing into the world, as it were, 
the [successive] emanations of the Deity. The 
views, again, which they propound, without either 
plausibility or parade, are simply lies from begin- 
ning to end. Just as those who, in order to lure 
and capture any kind of animals, place their ac- 
customed food before them, gradually drawing 
them on by means of the familiar aliment, until 
at length they seize it, but, when they have taken 
them captive, they subject them to the bitterest 
of bondage, and drag them along with violence 
whithersoever they please ; so also do these men 
gradually and gently persuading [others], by 
means of their plausible speeches, to accept of 
the emission which has been mentioned, then 
bring forward things which are not consistent, 
and forms of the remaining emissions which are 
not such as might have been expected. They 
declare, for instance, that [ten]°® ons were 
sent forth by Logos and Zoe, while from Anthro- 
pos and Ecclesia there proceeded twelve, al- 
though they have neither proof, nor testimony, 
nor probability, nor anything whatever of such a 
nature [to support these assertions]; and with 
equal folly and audacity do they wish it to be 
believed that from Logos and Zoe, being A#ons, 
were sent forth Bythus and Mixis, Ageratos and 
Henosis, Autophyes and Hedone, Acinetos and 
Syncrasis, Monogenes and Macaria. Moreover, 
[as they affirm, ] there were sent forth, in a simi- 
lar way, from Anthropos and Ecclesia, being 
Eons, Paracletus and Pistis, Patricos and Elpis, 
Metricos and Agape, Ainos and Synesis, Eccle- 
siasticus and Macariotes, Theletos and Sophia. 
g. The passions and e 1 ia, and 
how she ran the risk of perishing through her 
investigation [of the nature] of the Father, as 
they relate, and what took place outside of the - 
Pleroma, and from what sort of a defect they 
teach that the Maker of the world was produced, 
I have set forth in the preceding book, describ- 
ing in it, with all diligence, the opinions of these 
heretics. [Thave also detailed their views] re- 
specting Christ, whom they describe as having 
been produtéd subsequently to all these, and 
also regarding otet, who, [according to them, | 
derived his being” from those A‘ons who were 
formed within the Pleroma.?7 But I have of ne- 
cessity mentioned their names at present, that 
from these the absurdity of their falsehood may 
be made manifest, and also the confused nature 
of the nomenclature they have devised. For 


6 “Decem” is of doubtful authority. : 

7 The text has “ qui in labe facti sunt;” but, according to Har- 
vey, “ the sense requires wAynpwmare instead of éxtpwuate in the 
original, 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


a 


they themselves detract from [the dignity of] 
their ZZons by a multitude of names of this sort. 
They give out names plausible and credible to 
the heathen, [as being similar] to those who are 
called their twelve gods,: and even these they 
will have to be images of their twelve AXons. 
But the images [so called] can produce names 
[of their own] much more seemly, and more 
powerful through their etymology to indicate 
divinity [than are. those of their fancied proto- 
types ]. 


CHAP. XV. — NO ACCOUNT CAN BE GIVEN OF THESE 
PRODUCTIONS. 


1. But let us return to the fore-mentioned 
question as to the production [of the A®Zons]. 
And, in the first place, let them tell us the rea- 
son of the production of the Aons being of such 
a kind that they do not come in contact with 
any of those things which belong to creation. 
For they maintain that those things [above] 
were not made on account of creation, but crea- 
tion on account of them; and that the former 
are not images of the latter, but the latter of the 
former. As, therefore, they render a reason for 
the images, by saying that the month has thirty 
days on account of the thirty cons, and the day 
twelve hours, and the year twelve months, on 
account of the twelve AZons which are within 
the Pleroma, with other such nonsense of the 
same kind, let them now tell us also the reason 
for that production of the Acons, why it was of 
such a nature, for what reason the first and first- 
begotten Ogdoad was sent forth, and not a 
Pentad, or a Triad, or a Septenad, or any one of 
those which are defined by a different number? 
Moreover, how did it come to pass, that from 
Logos and Zoe were sent forth ten A‘ons, and 
neither more nor less ; while again from Anthro- 
pos and Ecclesia proceeded twelve, although 
these might have been either more or lecs nu-: 
merous ? 

2. And then, again, with reference to the 
entire Pleroma, what reason is there that it 
should.be divided into these three — an Ogdoad, 
‘Decad, and a Duodecad — and not into some 
mee ember different from these? Moreover, 
with respect to the division itself, why has it 
been made into “ree parts, and not into four, or 
five, or six, or into some other number among 
those which have no connection with such num- 
bers? as belong to creation? For they describe 
those [AZons above] as being more ancient than 
these [created things below], and it behoves them 
to possess their principle [of being] in them- 
selves, one which existed before creation, and 


sumed een a 


I Viz, the “ Dii majorum gentium” of the Gentiles. 

2 Referring to numbers like 4, 5, 6, which do not correspond to 
vluy suiportant fact in creation, as 7 €.g., does to the number of the: 
piauets. 








379 


not after the pattern of creation, all exactly 
agreeing as to the point.3 

3. The account which we give of creation is 
one harmonious with that regular order [of things 
prevailing in the world], for this scheme of ours 
is adapted to the* things which have [actually] 
been made ; but it is a matter of necessity that 
they, being unable to assign any reason belonging 
to the things themselves, with regard to those 
beings that existed before [creation], and were 
perfected by themselves, should fall into the 
greatest perplexity. For, as to the points on 
which they interrogate us as knowing nothing of 
creation, they themselves, when_questioned_in 
turn respecting the Pleroma, either make mention 
of mere human feelings, or have recourse to that 
sort of speech which bears only upon that har- 
mony observable in creation, improperly giving 
us replies concerning things which are secondary, 
and not concerning those which, as they main- 
tain, are primary. For we do not question them 
concerning that harmony which belongs to crea- 
tion, nor concerning human feelings ; but because 
they must acknowledge, as to their octiform, 
deciform, and duodeciform Plerorna (the image 
of which they declare creation to be), that their 
Father formed it of that figure vainly and thought- 
lessly, and must ascribe to Him deformity, if He 
made anything without a reason. Or, again, if 
they declare that the Pleroma was so produced 
in accordance with the foresight of the Father, 
for the sake of creation, as if He had thus 
symmetrically arranged its very essence, then it 
follows that the Pleroma can no longer be re- 
garded as having been formed on its own account, 
but for the sake of that [creation] which was to 
be its image as possessing its likeness (just as 
the clay model is not moulded for its own sake, 
but for the sake of the statue in brass, or gold, or 
silver about to be formed), then creation will 
have greater honour than the Pleroma, if, for its 
sake, those things [above] were produced. 


CHAP. XVI. — THE CREATOR OF THE WORLD EITHER 
PRODUCED OF HIMSELF THE IMAGES OF THINGS 
TO BE MADE, OR THE PLEROMA WAS FORMED 
AFTER THE IMAGE OF SOME PREVIOUS SYSTEM , 
AND SO ON AD INFINITUM. 


1. But if they will not yield assent to any one 
of these conclusions, since in that case they 
would be proved by us as incapable of rendering 
any reason for such a production of their Pleroma, 
they will of necessity be shut up to this — that 
they confess that, above the Pleroma, there was 
some other system more spiritual and more power- 
ful, after the image of which their Pleroma was 
a 


3 The Latin text is here scarcely intelligible, and is variously 
pointed by the editors. . He 

4 Harvey explains “his” as here denoting ‘in his,” but we are at 
a loss to know how he would translate the passage. It is in the highest 
degree obscure. 


380 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES 


ar el aE 


formed. For if the Demiurge did not of him- 
self construct that figure of creation which exists, 
but made it after the form of those things which 
are above, then from whom did their Bythus — 
who, to be sure, brought it about that the Pleroma 
should be possessed of a configuration of this 
kind — receive the figure of those things which 
existed before Himself? For it must needs be, 
either that the intention [of creating] dwelt in 
that god who made the world, so that of his own 
power, and from himself, he obtained the model 
of its formation; or, if any departure is made 
from this being, then there will arise a necessity 
for constantly asking whence there came to that 
one who is above him the configuration of those 
things which have been made; what, too, was 
the number of the productions ; and what the 
substance of the model itself? If, however, it 
was in the power of Bythus to impart of himself 
such a configuration to the Pleroma, then why 
may it not have been in the power of the Demi- 
urge to form of himself such a world as exists? 
And then, again, if creation be an image of those 
things [above], why should we not affirm that 
those are, in turn, images of others above them, 
and those above these again, of others, and thus 
go on supposing innumerable images of images? 

2.. This difficulty presented itself to‘ Basilides 
after he had utterly missed the truth, and-was 
conceiving that, by an infinite succession of those 
beings that were formed from one another, he 
might escape such perplexity. When he had 
proclaimed that three hundred and sixty-five 
heavens were formed through succession and 
similitude by one another, and that a manifest 
proof [of the existence] of these was found in 
the number of the days of the year, as I stated 
before ; and that above these there was a power 
which they also style Unnameable, and its dis- 
pensation — he did not even in this way escape 
such perplexity. For, when asked whence came 
the image of its configuration to that heaven 
which is above all, and from which he wishes the 
rest to be regarded as having been formed by 
means of succession, he will say, from that dis- 
He must then say, either that the Unspeakable 
formed it of himself, or he will find it necessary 
to acknowledge that there is some other power 
above this being, from whom his unnameable One 
derived such vast numbers of configurations as 
do, according to him, exist. 

3. How much safer and more accurate a course 
is it, then, to confess at once that which is true: 
that this God, the Creator, who formed the world, 
is the only God, and that there is no other God 
besides Him — He Himself receiving from Him- 
self the model and figure of those things which 
have been made — than that, after wearying our- 
selves with such an impious and circuitous de- 











scription, we should be compelled, at some point 
or another, to fix the mind on some One, and 
to confess that from Him proceeded the con- 
figuration of things created. 
4. As to the accusation brought against us by 
the followers of Valentinus, when they declare 
that we continue in that Hebdomad which is 
below, as if we could not lift our minds on high 
nor understand those things which are above 
because we do not accept their monstrous as- 
sertions: this very charge do the followers o 
Basilides bring in turn against them, inasmuc) 
as they (the Valentinians) keep circling abov 
those things which are below, [going] as far as 
the first and second Ogdoad, and because they 
unskilfully imagine that, immediately after the 
thirty: AZons, they have discovered Him who is 
above all things Father, not following out in 
thought their investigations to that Pleroma 
which is above the three hundred and sixty-five 
heavens, which' is above forty-five Ogdoads. 
And any one, again, might bring against them 
the same charge, by imagining four thousand 
three hundred and eighty heavens, or A‘ons 
since the days of the year contain that numbe: 
of hours. If, again, some one adds also the 
nights, thus doubling the hours which have been 
mentioned, imagining that [in this way] he has 
discovered a great multitude of Ogdoads, and + 
kind of innumerable company? of AfZons, and 
thus, in opposition to Him who is above all things 
Father, conceiving himself more perfect than al) 
[others], he will bring the same charge against 
all, inasmuch as they are not capable of rising 
to the conception of such a multitude of heavens 
or AZons as he has announced, but are either so 
deficient as to remain among those things which 
are below, or continue in the intermediate space.,’ 


CHAP. XVII. — INQUIRY INTO THE PRODUCTION OF 
THE HONS: WHATEVER ITS SUPPOSED NATURE, 
IT IS IN EVERY RESPECT INCONSISTENT ; AND ON 
THE HYPOTHESIS OF THE HERETICS, EVEN NOUS 
AND THE FATHER HIMSELF WOULD BE. SPAINED 
WITH IGNORANCE, 


1. That system, then, which has respect to 
their Pleroma, and especially that part of it which 
refers to the primary Ogdoad being thus burdened 
with so great contradictions and perplexities, let 
me now go on to examine the remainder of their 
scheme. [In doing so] on account of their mad- 
ness, I shall be making inquiry respecting things 
which have no real existence ; yet it is necessary 
to do this, since the treatment of this subject has 
been entrusted to me, and since I desire all men | 





1 The text is here doubtful; Harvey proposes to read “ qui’ in- 
stead of “‘ que,” but we prefer “‘quod” with Grabe. The meaning 
is, that three hundred and sixty-five is more than forty-five Ogdoads 
(45 x 8 = 360). 

; 2 “ Operositatem,” corresponding to mpayparecay, lit. manuia- 
re. 


IRENAAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


381 





to come to the knowledge of the truth, as well 
as because thou thyself hast asked to receive 
from me full and complete means for overturn- 
ing [the views of] these men. rs 

2.-1-ask; then;im-what manner were the rest 
of the Atons produced? Was it so as to be 
united with Him who produced them, even as 
the solar rays are with the sun; or was it actu- 
ally ' and separately, so that each of them pos- 
sessed an independent existence and his own 
special form, just as has a man from another 
man, and one herd of cattle from another? 
Or was it after the manner of germination, as 
branches from a tree? And were they of the 
same substance with those who produced them, 
or did they derive their substance from some 
other [kind of] substance? Also, were they 
produced at the same time, so as to be contem- 
poraries ; or after a certain order, so that some 
of them were older, and others younger? And, 
again, are they uncompounded and uniform, and 
altogether equal and similar among themselves, 
as spirit and light are produced ; or are they com- 
pounded and different, unlike [to each other] 
in their members ? 

3. If each of them was produced, after the 
manner of men, actually and according to its 
own generation, then either those thus gen- 
erated by the Father will be of the same sub- 
stance with Him, and similar to their Author ; or 
if? they appear dissimilar, then it must of neces- 


sity be acknowledged that they are [formed of 


some different substance. Now, if the beings gen- 
erated by the Father be similar to their Author, 
then those who have been produced must re- 
main for ever impassible, even as is He who 
produced them ; but if, on the other hand, they 
are of a different substance, which is capable of 
passion, then whence came this dissimilar sub- 
stance to find a place within the incorruptible 
Pleroma? Further, too, according to this prin- 
ciple, each one of them must be understood as 
being completely separated from every other, 
even as men are not mixed with nor united the 
one to the other, but each having a distinct 
shape of his own, and a definite sphere of ac- 
tion, while each one of them, too, 
a particular size, — qualities characteristic of a 
body, and not of a spirit. Let them therefore 
no longer speak of the Pleroma as being spirzt- 
ual, or of themselves as “spiritual,” if indeed 
their AZons sit feasting with the Father, just as 
if they were men, and He Himself is of such a 
configuration as those reveal Him to be who were 
produced by Him. ‘ies! 

4. If, again, the AZons were derived from 


I Eficabiliter in the Latin text is thought to correspond to 


ivepyas in the original Greek. 

BAe es pier by most of the editors; and although Harvey 

argues fot its omission, we agree with Massuet in deeming it in 
le. 


pate in passion. 





is formed of 





Logos, Logos from Nous, and Nous from By- 
thus, just as lights are kindled from a light —as, 
for example, torches are from a torch — then 
they may no doubt differ in generation and size 
from one another; but since they are of the 
same substance with the Author of their pro- 
duction, they must either all remain for ever 
impassible, or their Father Himself must partici-.... 
For the torch which has been 
kindled subsequently cannot be possessed of a 
different kind of light from that which preceded 
it. Wherefore also their lights, when blended 
in one, return to the original identity, since that 
one light is then formed which has existed even 
from the beginning. But we cannot speak, with 
respect to light itself, of some part being more 
recent in its origin, and another being more an- 
cient (for the whole is but one light) ; nor can 
we so speak even in regard to those torches 
which have received the light (for these are all 
contemporary as respects their material sub- 
stance, for the substance of torches is one and 
the same), but simply as to [the time of] its 
being kindled, since one was lighted a little while 
ago, and another has just now been kindled. 

5. The defect, therefore, of that passion which 
has regard to ignorance, will either attach alike 
to their whole Pleroma, since [all its members] 
are of the same substance; and the Propator 
will share in this defect of ignorance — that is, 
will be ignorant of Himself; or, on the other 
hand, all those lights which are within the 
Pleroma will alike remain for ever impassible. 


Oe ie comes the passion of the young- 
est ZEon, if the light of the Father is that from 


which all other lights have been formed, and 
which is by nature impassible? And how can 
one AZon be spoken of as either younger or 
older among themselves, since there is but one 
light in the entire Pleroma? And if any one 
calls them stars, they will all nevertheless appear 
to participate in the same nature. For if “one 
star differs from another star in glory,” 3 but not 
in qualities, nor substance, nor in the fact of 
being passible or impassible ; so all these, since 
they are alike derived from the light of the 
Father, must either be naturally impassible and . 
immutable, or they must all, in common with 
the light of the Father, be passible, and are capa- 
ble of the varying phases of corruption. 

6. The same conclusion will follow, although 
they affirm that the production of AZons sprang 
from Logos, as branches from a tree, since Logos 
has his generation from their Father. For all 
[the AZons] are formed of the same substance 
with the Father, differing from one another only 
in size, and not in nature, and filling up the 
greatness of the Father, even as the fingers com- 
oe a OS rer 


3 x Cor, xv. 41. 


382 


plete the hand. If therefore He exists in passion 
and ignorance, so must also those ASons who 
have been generated by Him. But if it is im- 
pious to ascribe ignorance and passion to the 
Father of all, how can they describe an A‘on 
produced by Him as being passible ; and while 
they ascribe the same impiety to the very wisdom 
(Sophia) of God, how can they still call them- 
selves religious men? 

7. If, again, they declare that their AZons were 
sent forth just as rays are from the sun, then, 
since all are of the same substance and sprung 
from the same source, all must either be capable 
of passion along with Him who produced them, 
or all will remain impassible for ever. For they 
can no longer maintain that, of beings so pro- 
duced, some are impassible and others passible. 
If, then, they declare all impassible, they do 
themselves destroy their own argument. For 
how could the youngest AXon have suffered _pas- 
sion if all were impassible? If, on the other 
hand, they declare that all partook of this passion, 
as indeed some of them venture to maintain, 
then, inasmuch as it originated with Logos," but 
flowed onwards to Sophia, they will thus be 
convicted of tracing back the passion to Logos, 
who is the? Nous of this Propator, and so ac- 
knowledging the Nous of the Propator and the 
Father Himself to have experienced passion. 
For the Father of all is not to be regarded as a 
kind of compound Being, who can be separated 
from his Nous (mind), as I have already shown ; 
but Nous is the Father, and the Father Nous. 
It necessarily follows, therefore, both that he who 
springs from Him as Logos, or rather that Nous 
himself, since he is Logos, must be perfect and 
impassible, and that those productions which 
proceed from him, seeing that they are of the 
same substance with himself, should be perfect 
and impassible, and should ever remain similar 
to him who produced them. 

8. It cannot therefore longer be held, as these 
men teach, that Logos, as occupying the third 
place in generation, was ignorant of the Father. 
Such a thing might indeed perhaps be deemed 
probable in the case of the generation of human 
beings, inasmuch as these frequently know noth- 
ing of their parents ; but it is altogether impos- 
sible in the case of the Logos of the Father. 
For if, existing in the Father, he knows Him in 
whom he exists —that is, is not ignorant of 
himself—then those productions which issue 
from him being his powers (faculties), and always 
present with him, will not be ignorant of him 
who emitted them, any more than rays [may be 
supposed to be] of the sun. It is impossible, 


Se es I ee eee ae 


1 Comp. i. a, 2. 
2 It seems needless to insert an “et” before this word, as Har- 


wey suggests, or, as an alternative, to strike out the first “ Nun Pro- 
patoris. 














IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





— 





therefore, that the Sophia (wisdom) of God, she 
who is within the Pleroma, inasmuch as she has 
been produced in such a manner, should have 


fallen under the influence of passion, and con- 


ceived such ignorance, But it zs possible that that 


‘Sophia (wisdom) who pertains to [the scheme] 


of Valéntinus, inasmuch as she is a production of 
the devil, should fall into every kind of passion, 
and exhibit the profoundest ignorance. For when 
they themselves bear testimony concerning their 
mother, to the effect that she was the offspring 
of an erring A‘on, we need no longer search for 
a reason why the sons of such a mother should 
be ever swimming in the depths of ignorance. 

9. I am not aware that, besides these produc- 
tions [which have been mentioned], they are 
able to speak of any other; indeed, they have 
not been known to me (although I have had 
very frequent discussions with them concerning 
forms of this kind) as ever setting forth any 
other peculiar kind of being as produced [in the 
manner under consideration]. This only they 
maintain, that each one of these was so produced 
as to know merely that one who produced him, 
while he was ignorant of the one who immedi- 
ately preceded. But they do not in this matter 
go‘ forward [in their account] with any kind of 
demonstration as to the manner in which these 
were produced, or how such a thing could take 
place among spiritual beings. For, in whatso- 
ever way they may choose to go forward, they 
will feel themselves bound (while, as regards the 
truth, they depart entirely from right reason) to 
proceed so far as to maintain that their Word, 
who springs from the Nous of the Propator, — 
to maintain, I say, that he was produced in a 
state of degeneracy. For [they hold] that per- 
fect Nous, previously begotten by the perfect 
Bythus, was not capable of rendering that 
production which issued from him perfect, but 
[could only bring it forth] utterly blind to the 
knowledge and greatness of the Father. They 
also maintain that the Saviour exhibited an em- 
blem of this mystery in the case of that man 
who was blind from his birth,4 since the Aton 
was in this manner produced by Monogenes 
blind, that is, in ignorance, thus falsely ascribing 
ignorance and blindness to the Word of God, 
who, according to their own theory, holds the 
second [place of] production from the Propator. 
Admirable sophists, and explorers of the sublim- 
ities of the unknown Father, and rehearsers of 
those super-celestial mysteries “ which the angels 
desire to look into !’?5 — that they may learn 
that from the Nous of that Father who is above 
all, the Word was produced blind, that. is, igno- 
rant of the Father who produced him ! 








3 Some read “ czecutientes” instead of “ circumeuntes,” as above 
4 John ix, 1, etc. 
5 Pet.:1, xa, 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





383 





10. But, ye Ee arable sophists, how could the 
Nous of the Father,-or-rather-the very Father 
Himself, since He is Nous and perfect in all 
things, have produced his own Logos as an im- 
perfect and blind Zon, when He was able also to 
produce along with him the knowledge of the 
Father? As ye affirm that Christ was generated ' 
after the rest, and yet declare that he was pro- 
duced perfect, much more then should Logos, 
who is anterior to him in age, be produced by 
the same Nous, unquestionably perfect, and not 
blind ; nor-could he, again, have produced AXons 
still blinder than himself, until at last your Sop 
always utterly blinded, gave birth to so vast a 
body of evils. 
all this mischief; for ye declare the magnitude 


and power of your Father to be the causes of 


ignorance, assimilating Him to Bythus, and as- 
signing this as a name to Him who is the 
unnameable Father. - But_if ignorance is an evil, 
and ye declare all evils to have derived their 
strength from it, while ye maintain that the great- 


ness and power of the Father is the cause of 


this ignorance, ye do thus set Him forth _ 
author of fall] evils.. For ye state as the cause 
of evil this fact, that [no one] could contemplate 
His greatness. But if it was really impossible for 
the Father to make Himself known from the be- 
ginning to those [beings] that were formed by 
Him, He must in that case be held free from 
blame, inasmuch as He could not remove the 
ignorance of those who came after Him. But if, 
at a subsequent period, when He so willed it, 
He. could take away that ignorance which had 
increased with the successive productions as they 
followed each other, and thus become deeply 
seated in the Atons, much more, had He so 
willed it might He formerly have prevented that 
ignorance, which as yet was not, from coming 
into existence. 

11. Since therefore, as soon as He so pleased, 
He did become known not only to the Atons, 
but also to these men who lived in these latter 
times ; but, as He did not so please to be known 
from the beginning, He remained unknown — 
the cause of ignorance is, according to you, the 
will of the Father. For if He foreknew that 
these things would in future happen in such a 
manner, why then did He not guard against the 
ignorance of these beings before it had obtained 
a place among them, rather than afterwards, as 
if under the influence of repentance, deal with it 
through the production of Christ? For the 
knowledge which through Christ He conveyed 
to all, He might long before haye imparted 
through Logos, who was also the first-begotten 
Sg ee 

I “ Postgenitum quidem reliquis,” the representative, according to 
Grabe, of amdyovov mev Aourois in the Greek. Harvey remarks that 


tav Aoura@y would have been better, and proposes to read ‘‘ progeni- 
tum” in the Latin; but we do not see any necessity for change. 


And your Father is the cause of 


of Monogenes. Or if, knowing them beforehand, 
He willed that these things should happen [as 
they have done], then the works of ignorance 
must endure for ever, and never pass away. For 
the things which have been made in accordance 
with the will of your Propator must continue 
along with the will of Him who willed them ; or 
if they pass away, the will of Him also who de- 
creed that they should have a being will pass 
away along with them. And why did the A®ons 
find rest and attain perfect knowledge through 
learning [at last] that the Father is altogether ” 
incomprehensible? They might surely have 
possessed this knowledge before they became 
involved in passion; for the greatness of the 
Father did not suffer diminution from the begin- 
ning, so that these might? know that He was 
altogether incomprehensible. For if, on account 
of His infinite greatness, He remained unknown, 
He ought also on account of His infinite love te 
have preserved those impassible who were pro- 
duced by Him, since nothing hindered, and 
expediency rather required, that they should 
have known from the beginning that the Father 
was altogether incomprehensible. 


















CHAP. XVIII.—SOPHIA WAS NEVER REALLY IN _ IG- 
NORANCE OR PASSION ; HER ENTHYMESIS COULD 
NOT HAVE BEEN SEPARATED FROM HERSELF, OR 
EXHIBITED SPECIAL TENDENCIES OF ITS OWN. 


1. How can it be regarded as otherwise than 
absurd, that they also affirm this Sophia (wisdom) 
to have been involved in ignorance, and degen- 
eracy, and passion? For these things are alien 
and contrary to wisdom, nor can they ever be 
qualities belonging to it. For wherever there 
is a want of foresight, and an ignorance of the 
course of utility, there wisdom does not exist. 
Let them therefore no longer call this suffering 
Eon, Sophia, but let them give up either her 
name or her sufferings. And let them, more- 
over, not call their entire Pleroma spiritual, if 
this Aon had a place within it when she was 
involved in such a tumult of passion. For even 
a vigorous soul, not to say a spiritual substance, 
would not pass through any such experience. 

2. And, again, how could her Enthymesis, 
going forth [from her] along with the passion, 
have become a separate existence? For Enthy- 
mesis (thought) is understood in connection 
with some person, and can never have an isolated 
existence by itself. For a bad Enthymesis is 
destroyed and absorbed by a good one, even as 
a state of disease is by health. What, then, 
'was the sort of Enthymesis which preceded that 
of passion? [It was this]: to investigate the 
[nature of] the Father, and to consider His 





2 “ Incapabilis et incomprehensibilis,” corresponding to axwpntos 
kat dxardAnmtos in the Greek. 


3 Literally, ‘‘ to these knowing,” “this scientibus,” 


384 





greatness. But what did she afterwards become 
persuaded of, and so was restored to health? 
[ This, viz.], that the Father is incomprehensible, 
and that He is past finding out. It was not, 
then, a proper feeling that she wished to know 
the Father, and on this account she became 
passible ; but when she became persuaded that 
He is unsearchable, she was restored to health. 
And even Nous himself, who was inquiring into 
the [nature of] the Father, ceased, according to 
them, to continue his researches, on learning 
that the Father is incomprehensible. 

3. How then could the Enthymesis separately 
conceive passions, which themselves also were 
her affections? For affection is necessarily con- 
nected with an individual: it cannot come into 
being or exist apart by itself. This opinion [of 
theirs], however, is not only untenable, but also 
opposed to that which was spoken by our Lord : 
“Seek, and ye shall find.”* For the Lord renders 
His disciples perfect by their seeking after and 
finding the Father ; but that Christ of theirs, who 
is above, has rendered them perfect, by the fact 
that He has commanded the AXons not to seek 
after the Father, persuading them that, though 
they should labour hard, they would not find 
Him. And they? declare that they themselves are 
perfect, by the fact that they maintain they have 
“found their Bythus ; while the AZons [have been 
made perfect] through means of this, that He is 
unsearchable who was inquired after by them. 

4. Since, therefore, the Enthymesis herself 
could not exist separately, apart from the Aon, 
[it is obvious that | they bring forward still greater 
falsehood concerning her passion, when they 
further proceed to divide and separate it from 
her, while they declare that it was the substance 
of matter. As if God were not light, and as if 
no Word existed who could convict them, and 
overthrow their wickedness. For it is certainly 
true, that whatsoever the A‘on thought, that she 
also suffered ; and what she suffered, that she 
also thought. And her Enthymesis was, accord- 
ing to them, nothing else than the passion of one 
thinking how she might comprehend the incom- 
prehensible. And thus Enthymesis (thought) 
was the passion ; for she was thinking of things 
impossible. How then could affection and_pas- 
sion be separated and set apart from the Enthy- 
mesis, so as to become the substance of so vast 
a material creation, when Enthymesis herself 
was the passion, and the passion Enthymesis? 
Neither, therefore, can Enthymesis apart from the 
/£on, nor the affections apart from Enthymesis, 
separately possess substance ; and thus once more 
their system breaks down and is destroyed. 

5. But how did it come to pass that the AXon 





Matt. vii. 7. $4 ‘ ; aa 
.? It seems necessary to read ‘‘ se quidem” instead of “ si quidem,” 
@s in the Mss. 








IRENEZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


a] 


was both dissolved [into her component parts], 
and became subject to passion? She was un- 
doubtedly of the same substance as the Pleroma ; 
but the entire Pleroma was of the Father. Now, 
any substance, when, brought in contact with 
what is of a similar nature, will not be dissolved 
into nothing, nor will be in danger of perishing, 
but will rather continue and increase, such as 
fire in fire, spirit in spirit, and water in water ; 
but those which are of a contrary nature te 
each other do, [when they meet, ] suffer and are 
changed and destroyed. And, in like manner, if 
there had been a production of light, it would not 
suffer passion, or incur any danger in light like 
itself, but would rather glow with the greater 
brightness, and increase, as the day does from 
[the increasing brilliance of] the sun; for they 
maintain that Bythus [himself] was the image 
of their father3 (Sophia). Whatever animals are 
alien [in habits] and strange to each other, or 
are mutually opposed in nature, fall into dan- 
ger [on meeting together], and are destroyed ; 
whereas, on the other hand, those who are ac- 
customed to each other, and of a harmonious 
disposition, suffer no peril from being together 
in the same place, but rather secure both safety 
and life by such a fact. If, therefore, this Aton 
was produced by the Pleroma of the same _sub- 
stance as the whole of it, she could never have 
undergone change, since she was consorting with 
beings similar to and familiar with herself, a 
spiritual essence among those that were spiritual. 
For fear, terror, passion, dissolution, and such 
like, may perhaps occur through the struggle of 
contraries among such beings as we are, who are 
possessed of bodies ; but among spiritual beings, 
and those that have the light diffused among 
them, no such calamities can possibly happen. 
But these men appear to me to have endowed 
their Aton with the [same sort of] passion as 
belo1 o that character in the comic poet 





‘Menander}* who was himself deeply in love, but 


an-objéct of hatred [to his beloved]. For those 
who have invented such opinions have rather 
had an idea and mental conception of some 
unhappy lover among men, than of a spiritual 
and divine substance. 

6. Moreover, to meditate how to search into 
[the nature of] the perfect Father, and to have 
a desire to exist within Him, and to have a com- 
prehension of His [greatness], could not entail 
the stain of ignorance or passion, and that upon 
a spiritual Aton ; but would rather [give rise to] 
perfection, and impassibility, and truth. For 
they do not say that even they, though they be 
but men, by meditating on Him who was before 





3 Adough Sophia was a feminine Zon, she was regarded as being 
be father of Enthymesis, who again was the mother of the Valen- 
nians. 
_ * Stieren refers for this allusion to Meineke’s edition of the Re: 
diguiw Menan. et Philem., p. 116. 


IRENZZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


385 





them, — and while now, as it were, comprehend- 
ing the perfect, and being placed within the 
knowledge of Him, —are thus involved in a 
aes of perplexity, but rather attain to the 
nowledge and apprehension of truth. For they 
affirm that the Saviour said, “Seek, and ye shall 
find,” to His disciples with this view, that they 
should seek after Him who, by means of imagi- 
nation, has been conceived of by them as being 
above the Maker of all — the ineffable Bythus ; 
and they desire themselves to be regarded as 
“the perfect,” because they have sought and 
ound the perfect One, while they are still on 
earth. Yet they declare that that AZon who was 
within the Pleroma, a wholly spiritual being, by 
seeking after the Propator, and endeavouring to 
find a place within His greatness, and desiring 
to have a comprehension of the truth of the 
Father, fell down into [the endurance of] pas- 
sion, and such a passion that, unless she had 
met with that Power who upholds all things, 
she would have been dissolved into the general 
substance [of the Afons], and thus come to an 
end of her [personal] existence. 

7. Absurd is such presumption, and truly an 
opinion of men totally destitute of the truth. 
For, that this Aon is superior to themselves, 
and of greater antiquity, they themselves ac- 
knowledge, according to their own system, when 
they affirm that they are the fruit of the Enthy- 
mesis of that AZon who suffered passion, so that 
this Zon is the father of their mother, that is, 
their own grandfather. And to them, the later 
grandchildren, the search after the Father brings, 
as they maintain, truth, and perfection, and es- 
tablishment, and deliverance from unstable mat- 
ter, and reconciliation to the Father; but on 
their grandfather this same search entailed igno- 
rance, and passion, and terror, and perplexity, 
from which [disturbances] they also declare that 
the substance of matter was formed. To say, 
therefore, that the search after and_ investigation 
of the perfect “ather, and the desire for com- 
munion and union with Him, were things quite 
beneficial’ to them, but to an AZon, from whom 
also they derive their origin, these things were 
the cause of dissolution and destruction, how 
can such assertions be otherwise viewed than 
as totally inconsistent, foolish, and _ irrational P 
Those, too, who listen to these teachers, truly 
blind themselves, while they possess blind guides, 
justly [are left to] fall along with them into the 
gulf of ignorance which lies below them. 


CHAP. XIX. — ABSURDITIES OF THE HERETICS AS TO 
THEIR OWN ORIGIN : THEIR OPINIONS RESPECTING 
THE DEMIURGE SHOWN TO BE EQUALLY UNTENA- 
BLE AND RIDICULOUS. 


1. But what sort of talk also is this concerning 
their seed — that it was conceived by the mother 











according to the configuration of those angels 
who wait upon the Saviour, — shapeless, without 
form, and imperfect ; and that it was deposited 
in the Demiurge without his knowledge, in order 
that through his instrumentality it might attain to 
perfection and form in that soul which he had, 
[so to speak,] filled with seed? This is to af- 
firm, in the first place, that those angels who 
wait upon their Saviour are imperfect, and with- 
out figure or form; if indeed that which was 
conceived according to their appearance was 
generated any such kind of being [as has been 
described ]. 

2. Then, in the next place, as to their saying 
that the Creator was ignorant of that deposit of 
seed which took place into him, and again, of that 
impartation of seed which was made by him to 
man, their words are futile and vain, and are in 
no way susceptible of proof. For how could 
he have been ignorant of it, if that seed had pos- 
sessed any substance and peculiar properties? 
If, on the other hand, it was without substance 
and without quality, and so was really nothing, 
then, as a matter of course, he was ignorant of 
it. For those things which have a certain mo- 
tion of their own, and quality, either of heat, or 
swiftness, or sweetness, or which differ from 
others in brilliance, do not escape the notice 
even of men, since they mingle in the sphere of 
human action: far less can they [be hidden 
from] God, the Maker of this universe. With 
reason, however, [is it said, that] their seed was 
not known to Him, since it is without any quality 
of general utility, and without the substance requi- 
site for any action, and is, in fact, a pure nonentity. 
It really seems to me, that, with a view to such 
opinions, the Lord expressed Himself thus: 
“For every idle word that men speak, they shall 
give account on the day of judgment.”* For 
all teachers of a like character to these, who fill 
men’s ears with idle talk, shall, when they stand 
at the throne of judgment, render an account 
for those things which they have vainly imagined 
and falsely uttered against the Lord, proceeding, 
as they have done, to such a height of audacity 
as to declare of themselves that, on account of 
the substance of their seed, they are acquainted 
with the spiritual Pleroma, because that man who 
dwells within reveals to them the true Father ; 
for the animal nature required? to be disci- 
plined by means of the senses. But [they 
hold that] the Demiurge, while receiving into 
himself the whole of this seed, through its being 
deposited in him by the Mother, still remained 
utterly ignorant of all things, and had no un- 
derstanding of anything connected with the 
Pleroma. 


Pie ee eS eee 
I Matt. xii. 36. [The serious spirit of this remark lends force to 
it as oan) ; 
2 Comp. i, 6, , 


386 


[RENZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


a a 


3. And that they are the truly “spiritual,” in- 
asmuch as a certain particle of the Father of the 
universe has been deposited in their souls, since, 
according to their assertions, they have souls 
formed of the same substance as the Demiurge 
himself, yet that he, although he received from 
the Mother, once for all, the whole [of the 


¢ divine] seed, and possessed it in himself, still 
~yemained-of an animal nature, and had not the 


slightest understanding of those things which are 
above, which things they boast that they them- 
selves understand, while they are still on earth ; 
—does not this crown all possible absurdity? 
For to imagine that the very same seed con- 
veyed knowledge and perfection to the souls of 
these men, while it only gave rise to ignorance 
in the God who made them, is an opinion that 
can be held only by those utterly frantic, and 
totally destitute of common sense. 

4. Further, it is also a most absurd and ground- 
less thing for them to say that the seed was, by 
being thus deposited, reduced to form and in- 
creased, and so was prepared for all the recep- 
tion of perfect rationality. For there will be in 
it an admixture of matter — that substance which 
they hold to have been derived from ignorance 
and defect; [and this will prove itself] more 
apt and useful than was the light of their Father, 
if indeed, when born, according to the contem- 
plation of that [light], it was without form or 
figure, but derived from this [matter], form, and 
appearance, and increase, and perfection. For 
if that light which proceeds from the Pleroma 
was the cause to a spiritual being that it possessed 
neither form, nor appearance, nor its own special 
magnitude, while its‘descent to this world added 
all these things-toit, and brought it to perfec- 
tion, then 4 sojourn here (which they also term 
darkness) wouldSeem much more efficacious and 
useful than was the light of their Father. But 
how can it be regarded as other than ridiculous, 
to affirm that their mother ran the risk of being 
almost extinguished in matter, and was almost 
on the point of being destroyed by it, had she 
not then with difficulty stretched herself out- 
wards, and leaped, [as it were,] out of herself, 
receiving assistance from the Father ; but that her 
seed increased in this same-matter, and received a 
form, and was made fit for the reception of per- 
fect rationality ; and this, too, while ‘“ bubbling 
up” among substances dissimilar and unfamiliar 
to itself, according to their own declaration that 
the earthly is opposed to the spiritual, and the 
spiritual to the earthly? How, then, could “a 
little particle,” * as they say, increase, and receive 
shape, and reach perfection, in the midst of sub- 
stances contrary to and unfamiliar to itself? 

5. But further, and in addition to what has 





t “ Parvum emissum” —a@ sma(l emission. 








been said, the question occurs, Did their mother, 
when she beheld the angels, bring forth the seed 
all at once, or only one by one [in succession] ? 
If she brought forth the whole simultaneously 
and at once, that which was thus produced can- 
not now be of an infantile character: its descent, 
therefore, into those men who now exist must be 
superfluous.2 But if one by one, then she did not 
form her conception according to the figure of 
those angels whom she beheld ; for, contemplat- 
ing them all together, and once for all, so as to 
conceive by them, she ought to have brought 
forth once for all the offspring of those from 
whose forms she had once for all conceived. 

6. Why was it, too, that, beholding the angels 
along with the Saviour, she did indeed conceive 
their images, but not that of the Saviour, who is 
far more beautiful than they? Did He not please 
her ; and did she not, on that account, conceive 
after-His likeness?3 How was it, too, that the 


‘Demiurge; whom they can call an animal _being, 


having, as they maintain, his own special magni- 
tude and figure, was produced perfect as respects 
his substance ; while that which is spiritual, which 
also ought to be more effective than that which 
is animal, was sent forth imperfect, and he re- 
quired to descend into a soul, that in it he might 
obtain form, and thus becoming perfect, might 
be rendered fit for the reception of perfect rea- 
son? If, then, he obtains form in mere earthly 
and animal men, he can no longer be said to be 
after the likeness of angels whom they call lights, 
but [after the likeness] of those men who are 
here below. For he will not possess in that case 
the likeness and appearance of angels, but of 
those souls in whom also he receives shape ; just 
as water when poured into a vessel takes the form 
of that vessel, and if on any occasion it happens 
to congeal in it, it will acquire the form of the 
vessel in which it has thus been frozen, since souls 
themselves possess the figure + of the body [in 
which they dwell]; for they themselves have 
been adapted to the vessel [in which they exist], 
as I have said before. If, then, that seed [re- 
ferred to] is here solidified and formed into a 
definite shape, it will possess the figure of a man, 
and not the form of the angels. How is it pos- 
sible, therefore, that that seed should be after 
images of the angels, seeing it has obtained a 
form after the likeness of men? Why, again, 
since it was of a spiritual nature, had it any need 
of descending into flesh? For what is carnal 
stands in need of that which is spiritual, if indeed 





_ ® That is, there could be no need for its descending into them that 
it might increase, receive form, and thus be prepared for the recep- 
tion of perfect reason. 

3 Or, “ on beholding Him.” 

4 As Massuet here remarks, we may infer from this passage that 
Trenzeus believed souls to be corporeal, as being possessed of a defi- 
nite form,—an opinion entertained by not a few of the ancients, 
[And, before we censure them, let us reflect whether their perceptions 
of “‘ the carnal mind ” as differing from the spirit of a man, may not 
account for it. x Thess. v. 23.] ae : pa 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





it is to be saved, that in it it may be sanctified 
and cleared from all impurity, and that what is 
mortal may be swallowed up by immortality ;* 
but that which is spiritual has no need whatever 
of those things which are here below. For it is 
not we who benefit it, but it that improves us. 

7. Still more manifestly is that talk of theirs 
concerning their seed proved to be false, and 
that in a way which must be evident to eve 
one, by the fact that they declare thuse soul 
which have received seed from the Mother to b 
superior to all others ; wherefore also they hav 
been honoured by the Demiurge, and constitute 
princes, and kings, and(priests. For if this wer 
true, the high priest Caiaphas, and Annas, and the 
rest of the chief priests, and doctors of the law, 
and rulers of the people, would have been the first 
to believe in the Lord, agreeing as they did with 
respect? to that relationship ; and even before 
them should have been Herod the king. But 
since neither he, nor the chief priests, nor the 
rulers, nor the eminent of the people, turned to 
Him [in faith], but, on the contrary, those who sat 
begging by the highway, the deaf, and the blind, 
while He was rejected and despised by others, 
according to what Paul declares, “For ye see 
your calling, brethen, that there are not many 
wise men among you, not many noble, not many 
mighty ; but those things of the world which 

“were despised hath God chosen.” 3 Such souls, 
therefore, were not superior to others on account 
of the seed deposited in them, nor on this ac- 
count were they honoured by the Demiurge. 

8. As to the point, then, that their system is 
weak and untenable as well as utterly chimerical, 
enough has been said. For it is not needful, to 
use a common proverb, that one should drink up 
the ocean who wishes to learn that its water is 
salt.. But, just as in the case of a statue which is 
made of clay, but coloured on the outside that 
it may be thought to be of gold, while it really 
is of clay, any one who takes out of it a small 
particle, and thus laying it open reveals the clay, 
will set free those who seek the truth from a false 
opinion ; in the same way have I (by exposing 
not a small part only, but the several heads of 
their system which are of the greatest impor- 
tance) shown to as many as do not wish wit- 
tingly to be led astray, what is wicked, deceitful, 
seductive, and pernicious, connected with the 
school of the Valentinians, and all those other 


| 








1 Comp. 1 Cor. xv. 44; 2 Cor. v. 4 [ As a Catholic I cannot 
i f Dr, 


accept everything contained in the Biblical Psychology © i 
Delitzsch, but may I entreat the reader who has not studied it to do 
so before dismissing the ideas of Trenzus on such topics. A transla- 
tion has been provided for English readers, by the Messrs. T. & T. 
Clark of Edinburgh, 1867. x ig f 

2 The ianine Bocarentty, is, that by the high position which all 
these in common occupied, they proved themselves, on the principles 
of the heretics, to belong to the favoured “‘seed,” and should there- 
tore have eagerly have welcomed the Lord. Or the meaning may be, 
“ hurrying together to that relationship,” that is, to the relationship 
secured by faith in Christ. 

3 x Cor. i, 26, 28, somewhat loosely quoted, 


387 





heretics who promulgate 4 wicked opinions re- 
specting the Demiurge, that is, the Fashioner 
and Former of this universe, and who is in fact 
the only true God— exhibiting, [as I have done, | 
how easily their views are overthrown. 

g. For who that has any intelligence, and pos- 
sesses only a small proportion of truth, can tolerate 
hem, when they affirm that there is another god __ 
above the Creator; and that there is another 
Monogenes as well as another Word of God, 
whom also they describe as having been produced 
in [a state of| degeneracy ; and another Christ, 
whom they assert to have been formed, along 
with the Holy Spirit, later than the rest of the 
Eons ; and another Saviour, who, they say, did 
not proceed from™thé Father of all, but was a 
kind of joint production of those At‘ons who were 
formed in [a state of] degeneracy, and that He 
was produced of necessity on account of this 
very degeneracy? It is thus their opinion that, 
unless the AZons had been in a state of ignorance 
and degeneracy, neither Christ, nor the Holy 
Spirit, nor Horos, nor the Saviour, nor the angels, 
nor their Mother, nor her seed, nor the rest of the 
fabric of the world, would have been produced at 
all; but the universe would have been a desert, 
and destitute of the many good things which 
exist in it. They are therefore not only charge- 
able with impiety against the Creator, declaring 
Him the fruit of a defect, but also against Christ 
and the Holy Spirit, affirming that they were pro- 
duced on account of that defect; and, in like 
manner, that the Saviour [was produced] subse- 
quently to [the existence of] that defect. And_ 
who will tolerate the remainder of their vain talk, D 
which they cunningly endeavour to acc ormnnGcate 
to the. parables, and have in this way plunged 
both themselves, and those who give credit to 
them, in the profoundest depths of impiety ? 


CHAP. XX. — FUTILITY OF THE ARGUMENTS AD- 
DUCED TO DEMONSTRATE THE SUFFERINGS OF 
THE TWELFTH AON, FROM THE PARABLES, THE 
TREACHERY OF JUDAS, AND THE PASSION OF OUR 
SAVIOUR. 


1. That they improperly and illogically apply 
both the parables and the actions of the Lord to 
their falsely-devised system, I prove as follows : 
They endeavour, for instance, to demonstrate that 
passion which, they say, happened in the case ot 
the twelfth AZon, from this fact, that the passion 
of the Saviour was brought about by the twelfth 
apostle, and happened in the twelfth month. For 
they hold that He preached [only] for one year 
after His baptism. They maintain also that the 
same thing was clearly set forth in the case of 
her who suffered from the issue of blood. For 
the woman suffered during twelve years, and 








4 “ Male tractant; ” literally, Aandle badly, 


388 





through touching the hem of the Saviour’s gar- 
ment she was made whole by that power which 
went forth from the Saviour, and which, they af- 
firm, had a previous existence. For that Power 
who suffered was stretching herself outwards and 
flowing into immensity, so that she was in danger 
of being dissolved into the general substance 
[of the AZons] ; but then, touching the primary 
Tetrad, which is typified by the hem of the gar- 
ment, she was arrested, and ceased from her 
passion. 

2. Then, again, as to their assertion that the 
passion of the twelfth Aon was proved through 
the conduct of Judas, how is it possible that Ju- 
das can be compared [with this Zon] as being 
an emblem of her — he who was expelled from 
the number of the twelve,‘ and never restored 
to his place? For that ASon, whose type they 
declare Judas to be, after being separated from 
her Enthymesis, was restored or recalled [to her 
former position] ; but Judas was deprived [of his 
office], and cast out, while Matthias was ordained 
in his place, according to what is written, “And 
his bishopric let another take.”? They ought 
therefore to maintain that the twelfth AZon was 
cast out of the Pleroma, and that another was 
produced, or sent forth to fill her place ; if, that 
is to say, she is pointed at in Judas. Moreover, 
they tell us that it was the Zon herself who suf- 
fered, but Judas was the betrayer, [and not the 
sufferer.] Even they themselves acknowledge 
that it was the suffering Christ, and not Judas, 
who came to [the endurance of ] passion. How, 
then, could Judas, the betrayer of Him who had 
to suffer for our salvation, be the type and image 
of that Aton who suffered? 

3. But, in truth, the passion of Christ was 
neither similar to the passion of the Aton, nor 
did it take place in similar circumstances. For 
the Aon underwent a passion of dissolution and 
destruction, so that she who suffered was in dan- 
ger also of being destroyed. But the Lord, our 
Christ, underwent a valid, and not a merely; 
accidental passion; not only was He Himself 
not in danger of being destroyed, but He also 
established fallen man‘ by His own strength, 
and recalled him to incorruption. The on, 
again, underwent passion while she was seeking 
after the Father, and was not able to find Him; 
but the Lord suffered that He might bring those 
who have wandered from the Father, back ‘to 
knowledge and to His fellowship. The search 
into the greatness of the Father became to her 
a passion leading to destruction ; but the Lord, 








IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





having suffered, and bestowing the knowledge of 
the Father, conferred on us salvation. Her pas- 
sion, as they declare, gave origin to a female off- 
spring, weak, infirm, unformed, and ineffective ; 
but His passion gave rise to strength and power. 
For the Lord, through means of suffering, “ as- 
cending into the lofty place, led captivity cap- 
tive, gave gifts to men,” 5 and conferred on those 
that believe in Him the power “to tread upon 
serpents and scorpions, and on all the power of 
the enemy,” ® that is, of the leader of apostasy. 
Our Lord also by His passion destroyed death, 
and dispersed error, and put an end to corrup- 
tion, and destroyed ignorance, while He mani- 
fested life and revealed truth, and-bestowed the 
gift of incorruption. But ‘their Aion, when she 
had suffered, established 7 ignorance, and brought 
forth a substance without shape, out of which all 
material works have been produced — death, cor- 
ruption, error, and such like. 

4. Judas, then, the twelfth in order of the dis- 
ciples, was not_a.type of the sufferingA‘on, nor, 
again, was the passion of the Lord; for these 
two things have been shown to be in every 
respect mutually dissimilar and inharmonious. 
This is the case not only as respects the points 
which I have already mentioned, but with regard 
to the very number. For that Judas the traitor 
is the twelfth in order, is-agreed upon by all, 
there being twelve apostles mentioned by name 
in the Gospel. But this A‘on is not the ‘wed/th, 
but the ¢iirtieth; for, according to the views un- 
der consideration, there were not twelve AZons 
only produced by the will of the Father, nor was 
she sent forth the twelfth in order: they reckon 
her, [on the contrary, | as having been produced 
in the thirtieth place. How, then, can Judas, 
the twelfth in order, be the type and image of 
that Aton who occupies the thirtieth place ? 

5. But if they say that Judas in perishing was 
the image of her Enthymesis, neither in this way 
will the image bear any analogy to that truth 
which [by hypothesis] corresponds to it. For 
the Enthymesis having been separated fromt he 
£on, and itself afterwards receiving a shape from 
Christ,® then being made a partaker of intelli- 
gence by the Saviour, and having formed all 
things which are outside of the Pleroma, after 
the image of those which are within the Pleroma, 
is said at last to have been received by them 
into the Pleroma, and, according to [the princi- 
ple of ] conjunction, to have been united to that 


Saviour who was formed out of all, But Judas 
having been once for all cast away, inever returns 








Or, “from the twelfth number” — the twelfth position among 
the apostles. 

2 Acts i. 20, from Ps, cix. 8. 

3 The text is here uncertain. Most editions read “et que non 
cederet,” but Harvey prefers “‘ quee non accederet ” (for ‘‘accideret”), 
and remarks that the corresponding Greek would be kai ov tvx6v, 
which we have translated as above. 

4 ‘‘ Corruptum hominem,” 





5 Ps. Ixviii. 18; Eph. iv. 8. 
© Luke x. 19; [Mark xvi. 17, 18.] 

_7 Though the reading “substituit” is found in all the mss. and 
editions, it has been deemed corrupt, and “‘ sustinuit” has been pro: 
posed instead of it. Harvey supposes it the equivalent of vréatyce; 
and then somewhat strangely adds ‘for améornoe.” There seems ta 
us no difficulty in the word, and consequently no necessity for change 

® Compare, in illustration of this sentence, book i. 4, 1, and i. 4, § 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES, 





into the number of the disciples; otherwise a 
different person would not have been chosen to 
fill his place. Besides, the Lord also declared 
regarding him, “Woe to the man by whom the 
Son of man shall be betrayed ;””' and, “It were 
better for him if he had never been born ;” 2 and 
he was called the “son of perdition” 3 by Him. 
If, however, they say that Judas was a type 
of the Enthymesis, not as separated from the 
fon, but of the passion entwined with her, 
neither in this way can the number twelve be re- 
garded as a [fitting] type of the number three. 
For in the one case Judas was cast away, and 
Matthias was ordained instead of him; but in 
the other case, the AZon is said to have been in 
danger of dissolution and destruction, and [there 
are also] her Enthymesis and passion: for they 
markedly distinguish Enthymesis from the pas- 
sion ; and they represent the AZon as being re- 
stored, and Enthymesis as acquiring form, but 
the passion, when separated from these, as be- 
coming matter. Since, therefore, there are thus 
these three, the AZon, her Enthymesis, and her 
passion, Judas and Matthias, being only two, can- 
not be the types of them. 


CHAP, XXI.—THE TWELVE APOSTLES WERE NOT 
A TYPE OF THE ONS, 


* 1. If, again, they maintain that the twelve 
apostles were a type only of that group of twelve 
_ fons which Anthropos in conjunction with Ec- 
clesia produced, then let them produce ten other 
apostles as a type of those ten remaining Zons, 
who, as they declare, were produced by Logos 
and Zoe. For it is unreasonable to suppose that 
the junior, and for that reason inferior “ons, were 
set forth by the Saviour through the election of 
the apostles, while their seniors, and on this ac- 
count their superiors, were not thus foreshown ; 
since the Saviour (if, that is to say, He chase the 
apostles with this view, that by means of them 
He might show forth the Atons who are in the 
Pleroma) might have chosen other ten apostles 
also, and likewise other eight before these, that 
thus He might set forth the original and primary 
Ogdoad. He could not,‘ in regard to the second 
[Duo] Decad, show forth [any emblem of it] 
through the number of the apostles being [al- 
ready | constituted a type. For [He made choice 
of no such other number of disciples ; but] after 
the twelve apostles, our Lord is found to have 
sent seventy others before Him. Now seventy 
cannot possibly be the type either of an Ogdoad, 


I Matt. xxvi. 24. 

2 Mark xiv. er. 

8 John xvii. 12. ‘ ; : 

4 This passage is hopelessly corrupt. The editors have twisted it 
in every direction, but with no satisfactory result. Our version is 
quite as far from being certainly trustworthy as any other that has 
been proposed, but it seems something like the meaning of the words 
as they stand. Both the tex: and punctuation of the Latin are in utter 
eonfusion. 


5 Luke x. 1. 


389 


a Decad, or a Triacontad. What is the reason, 
then, that the inferior Zons are, as I have said, 
represented by means of the apostles; but the 
superior, from whom, too, the former derived 
their being, are not prefigured at all? But if 
the twelve apostles were chosen with this object, 
that the number of the twelve AZons might be 
indicated by means of them, then the seventy 
also ought to have been chosen to be the type 
of seventy ons ; and in that case, they must 
affirm that the A‘ons are no longer thirty, but 
eighty-two in number. For He who made choice 
of the apostles, that they might be a type of 
those Atons existing in the Pleroma, would never 
have constituted them types of some and not of 
others ; but by means of the apostles He would 
have tried to preserve an image and to exhibit a 
type of those AZons that exist in the Pleroma. 

2. Moreover, we must not keep silence re- - 
specting Paul, but demand from them after the 
type of what Aton that apostle has been handed 
down to us, unless perchance [they affirm that 
he is a representative] of the Saviour com- 
pounded of them [all], who derived his being: 
from the collected gifts of the whole, and whom 
they term A Things, as having been formed 
out of them all. Respecting this being the poet 
Hesiod has strikingly expressed himself, styling 
him Pandora — that is, “The gift of all”? — for 
this reason, that the best gift in the possession 
of all was centred in him. In describing these 
gifts the following account is given: Hermes 
(so7 he is called in the Greek language), 
Aiprdtous® te Adyous Kal éxikAorov 700s adbrovs 
KédrOero (or to express this in the English? lan- 
guage), “implanted words of fraud and deceit 
in their minds, and thievish habits,” for the pur- 
pose of leading foolish men astray, that such 
should believe their falsehoods. For their 
Mother — that is, Leto '°—secretly stirred them 
up (whence also she is called Leto,’ according 
to the meaning of the Greek word, because she 
secretly stirred up men), without the knowledge 
of the Demiurge, to give forth profound and 
unspeakable mysteries to itching ears. And 
not only did their Mother bring it about that 
this mystery should be declared by Hesiod ; but 
vyety~skilfully also by means of the lyric poet 
Pindar, when he describes to the Demiurge'3 the 





6 “Si” is wanting in the mss. and early editions, and Harvey 
pleads for its exclusion, but the sense becomes clearer through insert- 
ing it. ; 
3; This clause is, of course, an interpolation by the Latin trans- 
lator. 

8 The words are loosely quoted memoriter, as is the custom with 
Irenzus. See Hesiod, Works and Days, \. 77, etc. 

9 Latin, of course, in the text. 5 

Io There is here a play upon the words Anrw and An@ety, the former 
being supposed to be derived from the latter, so as to denote secrecy. 

11 This clause is probably an interpolation by the translator. 

12 2 Tim. iv. 3. : 

13 “ Coelet Demiurgo,” such is the reading in all the mss. and edi 
tions. Harvey, however, proposes to read “‘celet Dennurgum;” but 
the change which he suggests, besides being without authority, doer 
not away the obscurity which hangs upon the sentence. 


39° 








case of Pelops, whose flesh was cut in pieces by 
the Father, and then collected and brought to- 
gether, and compacted anew by all the gods," 
did she in this way indicate Pandora ; and these 
men having their consciences seared? by her, 
declaring, as they maintain, the very same things, 
are [proved] of the same family and spirit as 
the others. 


CHAP, XXII. — THE THIRTY EONS ARE NOT TYPIFIED 
BY THE FACT THAT CHRIST WAS BAPTIZED IN HIS 
THIRTIETH YEAR: HE DID NOT SUFFER IN THE 
TWELFTH MONTH AFTER HIS BAPTISM, BUT WAS 
MORE THAN FIFTY YEARS OLD WHEN HE DIED. 


1. I have shown that the number “z77zy fails 
them in every respect; too few A®ons, as they 
represent them, being at one time found within 
the Pleroma, and then again too many [to corre- 
spond with that number]. There are not, there- 
fore, thirty A‘ons, nor did the Saviour come to 
be baptized when He was thiity years old, for 
this reason, that He might show forth the thirty 
silent} AZons of their system, otherwise they 
must first of all separate and eject [the Saviour ] 
Himself from the Pleroma of all. Moreover, 
they affirm that He suffered in the twelfth 
month, so that He continued to preach for one 
year after His baptism; and they endeavour to 
establish this point out of the prophet (for it is 
written, “To proclaim the acceptable year of 
the Lord, and the day of retribution ’’ 4), being 
truly blind, inasmuch as they affirm they have 
found out the mysteries of Bythus, yet not un- 
derstanding that which is called by Isaiah the 
acceptable year of the Lord, nor the day of ret- 
ribution. For the prophet neither speaks con- 
cerning a day which includes the space of twelve 
hours, nor of a year the length of which is 
twelve months.. For even they themselves ac- 
knowledge that the prophets have very often 
expressed themselves in parables and allegories, 
and [are] not [to be understood] according to 
the mere sound of the words. 

2. That, then, was called the day of retribu- 
tion on which the Lord will render to every one 
according to his works—that is, the judgment. 
The acceptable year of the Lord, again, is this 
present time, in which those who believe Him 
are called by Him, and become acceptable to 
God—that is, the whole time from His advent 
onwards to the consummation [of all things], 
during which He acquires to Himself as fruits 
[of the scheme of mercy] those who are saved. 





1 Comp. Pindar, Olymf., i. 38, etc. 

_ 7 “Compuncti,” supposed to correspond to kexavrnptacwévot : see 
Tim. iv 2. The whole passage is difficult and obscure. 

5 Harvey wishes, without any authority, to substitute “‘tacitus ” 
for ** tacitos,” but there is no necessity for alteration. Irenzus is 
here playing upon the word, according to a practice in which he 
delights, and quietly scoffs at the Sige (Silence) of the heretics by 
sying ee Eons silent who were derived from her. 

sa. Ixi, a. 


= 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


For, according to the phraseology of the prophet, 
the day of retribution follows the [acceptable] 
year; and the prophet will be proved guilty of 
falsehood if the Lord preached only for a year, 
and if he speaks of it. For where is the day of 
retribution? For the year has passed, and the 
day of retribution has not yet come; but He 
still “makes His sun to rise upon the good and 
upon the evil, and sends rain upon the just and 
unjust.”5 And the righteous suffer persecution, 
are afflicted, and are slain, while sinners are pos- 
sessed of abundance, and “drink with the sound 
of the harp and psaltery, but do not regard the 
works of the Lord.”’® But, according to the lan- 
guage [used by the prophet], they ought to be 
combined, and the day of retribution to follow 
the [acceptable] year. For the words are, “to 
proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and 
the day of retribution.” This present time, 
therefore, in which men are called and saved by 
the Lord, is properly understood to be denoted 
by “the acceptable year of the Lord;” and 
there follows on this “the day of retribution,” 
that is, the judgment. And the time thus re- 
ferred to is not called “a year” only, but is also 
named “a day” both by the prophet and by 
Paul, of whom the apostle, calling to mind the 
Scripture, says in the Epistle addressed to the 
Romans, “As it is written, for thy sake we are 
killed all the day long, we are counted as sheep 
for the slaughter.”7 But here the expression 
“all the day long”’ is put for all this time during 
which we suffer persecution, and are killed as 
sheep. As then this day does not signify one 
which consists of twelve hours, but the whole 
time during which believers in Christ suffer and 
are put to death for His sake, so also the year 
there mentioned does not denote one which con. 
sists of twelve months, but the whole time of 
faith during which men hear and believe the 
preaching of the Gospel, and those become 
acceptable to God who unite themselves to Him. 

3. But it is greatly to be wondered at, how it 
has come to pass that, while affirming that they 
have found out the mysteries of God, they have 
not examined the Gospels to ascertain how citer 
after His baptism the Lord went up, at the time 
of the passover, to Jerusalem, in accordance with 
what was the practice of the Jews from every 
land, and every year, that they should assemble 
at this period in Jerusalem, and there celebrate 
the feast of the passover. First of all, after He 
had made the water wine at Cana of Galilee, He 
went up to the festival day of the passover, on 
which occasion it is written, “‘ For many believed 
in Him, when they saw the signs which He did,” * 





5 Matt, v. 45. 
Isa. v. 12. 
7 Rom. viii. 36. 


8 John ii. 25, 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


—— 





as John the disciple of the Lord records: Then, 
again, withdrawing Himself [from Judza], He is 
found in Samaria; on which occasion, too, He 
conversed with the Samaritan woman, and while 
at a distance, cured the son of the centurion by 
aword, saying, “Go thy way, thy son liveth.’’: 
Afterwards He went up, the second time, to ob- 
serve the festival day of the passover? in Jerusa- 
Jem ; on which occasion He cured the paralytic 
man, who had lain beside the pool thirty-eight 
years, bidding him rise, take up his couch, and 
depart. Again, withdrawing from thence to the 
other side of the sea of Tiberias,3 He there, 
seeing a great crowd had followed Him, fed all 
that multitude with five loaves of bread, and 
- twelve baskets of fragments remained over and 
above. ‘Then, when He had raised Lazarus from 
the dead, and plots were formed against Him 
by the Pharisees, He withdrew to a city called 
Ephraim ; and from that place, as it is written, 
“ He came to Bethany six days before the pass- 
over,” + and going up from Bethany to Jerusa- 
lem, He there ate the passover, and suffered on 
the day following. Now, that these three occa- 
sions of the passover are not included within one 
year, every person whatever must acknowledge. 
And that the special month in which the pass- 
over was celebrated, and in which also the 
Lord suffered, was not the twelfth, but the first, 
those men who boast that they know all things, 
if they know not this, may learn it from Moses. 
Their explanation, therefore, both of the year 
and of the twelfth month has been proved false, 


and they ought to reject either their explana-| 


tion or the Gospel ; otherwise [this unanswera- 
ble question forces itself upon them], How is it 
possible that the Lord preached for one year 
only? 

4. Being thirty years old when He came to 
be baptized, and then possessing the full age of 
a Master,s He came to Jerusalem, so that He 
might be properly acknowledged® by all as a 
Master. For He did not seem one thing while 
He was another, as those affirm who describe 
Him as being man only in appearance ; but what 
He was, that He also appeared to be. Being a 
Master, therefore, He also possessed the age of 
a Master, not despising or evading any condition 





T John iv. 50. $ 

2 John y. 1, etc. It is well known that, to fix what is meant by 
the éopr, referred to in this passage of St. John, is one of the most 
difficult points in New Testament criticism. Some modern scholars 
think that the feast of Purim is intended by the Evangelist; but, upon 
the whole, the current of opinion that has always prevailed in the 
Church has been in favour of the statement here made by Irenzus. 
Christ would therefore be present at four passovers after His bap- 
tism: (x) John ii, 13; (2) John v. 1; (3) John vi. 4; (4) John xii. 2 

3 John vi. 1, etc. 

4 John xi. 54, xii. 1. 

5 Or, ‘‘ teacher,” magistrt. sez : 

6 Harvey strangely remarks here, that “the reading audiret, 
followed by Massuet, makes no sense.” He gives aucévetur in his 
text, but proposes to read ordiretur, The passage may, however, 











39! 








of humanity, nor setting aside in Himself that 
law which He had? appointed for the human 


race, but sanctifying every age, by that period 
corresponding to it which belonged to Himself. yer 


For He can came to_save_all_through_means_of — 
Himself —all, I say, who through Him are born 
again to God*—infants,° and children, and boys, 

youths, “a 7” He therefore passed 
through every agé; becoming an infant for in- 
fants, thus sanctifying infants; a child for chil- 
dren, thus sanctifying those who are of this age, 
being at the same time made to them an example 
of piety, righteousness, and submission ; a youth 
for youths, becoming an example to youths, and 
thus sanctifying them for the Lord. So likewise 
He was an old man for old men, that He might 
be a perfect Master for all, not merely as respects 
the setting forth of the truth, but also as regards 
age, sanctifying at the same time the aged also, 
and becoming an example to them likewise. 
Then, at last, He came on to death itself, that 
He might be “ the first-born from the dead, that 
in all things He might have the pre-eminence,” *° 
the Prince of life,"* existing before all, and going 
before all." 

5. They, however, that they may establish their 
false opinion regarding that which is written, “to 
proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,” main- 
tain that He preached for @ne year only} and 
then suffered in the twelfth month:—{TIn speaking 
thus], they are forgetful to their own disadvan- 
tage, destroying His whole work, and robbing 
Him of that age which is both more necessary 
and more honourable than any other ; that more 
advanced age, I mean, during which also as a 
teacher He excelled all others. For how could 
He have had disciples, if He did not teach? 
And how could He have taught, unless He had 
reached the age of a Master? For when He 
came to be baptized, He had not yet completed 
His thirtieth year, but was beginning to be about 
thirty years of age (for thus Luke, who has men- 
tioned His years, has expressed it: “ Now Jesus 
was, as it were, beginning to be thirty years old,’ 3 
when He came to receive baptism) ; and, [ac- 
cording to these men,] He preached only one 
year reckoning from His baptism. On complet- 
ing His thirtieth year He suffered, being in fact 
still a young man, and who had by no means 
attained to advanced age. Now, that the first 





7 «Neque solvens suam legem in se humani generis.” Massuet 
would expunge “suam;” but, as Harvey well observes, ‘it has a 
peculiar significance, x07 abrogating his own law.” : 

8 “Renascuntur in Deum.” The reference in these words is . 
doubtless to baptism, as clearly appears from comparing book iil. 17, 1. 

9 It has been remarked by Wall and others, that we have here the 
statement of a valuable fact as to the baptism of infants in the primi- 
tive Church. ; : 

to Col. i. 18. 

It Acts iii. 15. \ 

12 [That our Lord was prematurely old may be inferred from the 
text which Irenzeus regards as proof that he literally lived to be old. 


be translated as above, without departing from the Benedictine read-| St. John viii. 56, 57; comp. Is. liii. 2.] ‘ 


ing audtret. 


13 Luke ul. 23. 


392 


stage of early life embraces thirty years,” and 
that this extends onwards to the fortieth year, 
every one will admit ; but from the fortieth and 
fiftieth year a man begins to decline towards old 
age, which our Lord possessed while He still 
fulfilled the offi e of a Teacher, eyen_as the Gos- 
pel and all the elders testify; thosé who were 
conversant in Asia with John, the “disciple of the 
Lord, [affirming] that John conveyed to them 
that infor.aation.2?, And he remained among them 
up to the times of Trajan.3 Some of them, more- 
over, saw not only John, but the other apostles 
also, and heard the very same account from 
them, and bear testimony as to the [validity of] 
the statement. Whom then should we rather 
believe? Whether such men as these, or Ptole- 
meus, who never saw the apostles, and who 
never even in his dreams attained to the slightest 
trace of an apostle? 

6. But, besides this, those very Jews who then 
disputed with the Lord Jesus Christ have most 
clearly indicated the same thing. For. when the 
Lord said to them, “Your father Abraham re- 
joiced to see My day; and he saw it, and was 
glad,” they answered Him, “Thou art not yet 
fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham?” 4 
Now, such language is fittingly applied to one 
who has already passed the age of forty, without 
having as yet reached his fiftieth year, yet is not 
far from this latter period. But to one who is 
only thirty years old it would unquestionably be 
said, “Thou art not yet forty years old.” For 
those who wished to convict Him of falsehood 
would certainly not extend the number of His 
years far beyond the age which they saw He had 
attained ; but they mentioned a period near His 
real age, whether they had truly ascertained this 
out of the entry in the public register, or simply 
made a conjecture from what they observed that 
He was above forty years old, and that He 
certainly was not one of only thirty years of age. 
For it is altogether unreasonable to suppose that 
they were mistaken by twenty years, when they 
wished to prove Him younger than the times of 
Abraham. For what they saw, that they also 
expressed ; and He whom they beheld was not 





1 The Latin text of this clause is, ‘‘ Quia autem triginta annorum 
wtas prima indolis est juvenis” —words which it seems almost 
impossible to translate. Grabe regarded “‘indolis” as being in the 
nominative, while Massuet contends it is in the genitive case; and so 
regarding it, we might translate, “‘ Now that the age of thirty is the 
first age of the mind of youth,” etc. But Harvey re-translates the 
clause into Greek as follows: "Ort 5é » TOY TpLaKovTa éTaY HALKia 
n TpwTy THS Svadéeds eat. véas — words which we have endeavoured 
to render as above. The meaning clearly is, that the age of thirty 
marked the transition point from youth to maturity. 

2 With respect to this extraordinary assertion of Irenzeus, Harvey 
remarks: ‘‘ ‘The reader may here perceive the unsatisfactory chaiac- 
ter of tradition, where a mere fact is concerned. From reasonings 
founded upon the evangelical history, as well as from a preponderance 
of external testimony, it is most certain that our Lord’s ministry ex- 
tended but little over three years; yet here Irenzeus states that it in- 
cluded more than ten years, and appeals to a tradition derived, as he 
says, from those who had conversed with an apostle. 

_ 3 Trajan’s reign commenced A.D. 98, and St. John is said to have 
lived to the age “i a hundred years. 

4 John viii. 56, 57. 


IRENZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


a mere phantasm, but an actual being 5 of flesh 
and blood. He did not then want much of 
being fifty years old;° and, in accordance with 
that fact, they said to Him, “Thou-art not yet 
fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham? 4 
He did not therefore preach only for one year, 
nor did He suffer in the twelfth month of the 
year. For the period included between the 
thirtieth and the fiftieth year can never be re- 
garded as ome year, unless indeed, among their 
Eons, there be so long years assigned to those 
who sit in their ranks with Bythus in the Ple- 
roma; of which beings Homer the poet, too, 
has spoken, doubtless being inspired by the 
Mother of their [system of] error : — 

OL d& deol rap Znvi Kabjuevor Hyopowvro 

| Xpvaéw év darédy:7 

which we may thus render into English ; &— 


‘© The gods sat round, while Jove presided o’er, 
And converse held upon the golden floor.” 


CHAP, XXIII. —THE WOMAN WHO SUFFERED FROM 
AN ISSUE OF BLOOD WAS NO TYPE OF THE 
SUFFERING ON. 


1. Moreover, their ignorance comes out in a 
clear light with respect to the case of that woman 
who, suffering from an issue of blood, touched 
the hem of the Lord’s garment, and so was made 
whole ; for they maintain that through her was 
shown forth that twelfth power who suffered pas- 
sion, and flowed out towards immensity, that is, 
the twelfth 4Eon. [This ignorance of theirs ap- 
pears] first, because, as I have shown, according 
to their own system, that was not the twelfth 
Eon. But even granting them this point [in 
the meantime], there being twelve AXons, eleven 
of these are said to have continued impassible, 
while the twelfth suffered passion; but the 
woman, on the other hand, being healed in the 
twelfth year, it is manifest that she had contin- © 
ued to suffer during eleven years, and was healed 
in the twelfth. If indeed they were to say that 
eleven AZons were involved in passion, but the 
twelfth one was healed, it would then be a plaus- 
ible thing to say that the woman was a type of 
these. But since she suffered during eleven 
years, and [all that time] obtained no cure, but 
was healed in the twelfth year, in what way can 
she be a type of the twelfth of the A®ons, eleven 
of whom, [according to hypothesis,] did not 
suffer at all, but the twelfth alone participated 
in suffering? For a type and emblem is, no 
doubt, sometimes diverse from the truth [signi- 
fied] as to matter and substance ; but it ought, 


as to the general form and features, to maintain 


+ Sed veritas ” — literally, “‘ the truth.” 

6 [This statement is simply astounding, and might seem a provi- 
dential illustration of the worthlessness of 7zere tradition unsustained 
by the written Word. No mere tradition could be more creditably 
authorized than this.] 

7 Iliad, iv. x. : 

8 Latin, of course, in the text. 


IRENASUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


393 





a likeness [to what is typified], and in this way 
to shadow forth by means of things present those 
which are yet to come. 

2. And not only in the case of this woman 
have the years of her infirmity (which they affirm 
to fit in with their figment) been mentioned, but, 
lo! another woman was also healed, after suffer- 
ing in like manner for eighteen years ; concern- 
ing whom the Lord said, ‘‘ And ought not this 
daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound 
during eighteen years, to be set free on the 
Sabbath-day ?’’! If, then, the former was a 
type of the twelfth Avon that suffered, the latter 
should also be a type of the eighteenth AXon in 
suffering. But they cannot maintain this; other- 
wise their primary and original Ogdoad will be 
included in the number of Zons who suffered 
together. Moreover, there was also a certain 
other person? healed by the Lord, after he had 
suffered for eight-and-thirty years: they ought 
therefore to affirm that the AXon who occupies 
the thirty-eighth place suffered. For if they 
assert that the things which were done by 
the Lord were types of what took place in the 
Pleroma, the type ought to be preserved through- 
out. But they can neither adapt to their ficti- 
tious system the case of her who was cured after 
eighteen years, nor of him who was cured after 
thirty-eight years. Now, it is in every way ab- 
surd and inconsistent to declare that the Saviour 
preserved the type in certain_cases, while He did 
not do so in others. The type of the woman, 
therefore, [with the issue of blood] is shown 
to have no analogy to their system of Atons.3 


CHAP. XXIV.— FOLLY OF THE ARGUMENTS DE- 
RIVED BY THE HERETICS FROM NUMBERS, LET- 
TERS, AND SYLLABLES. 

1. This very thing, too, stii! further demon- 
strates their opinion false, and their fictitious 
3ystem untenable, that they endeavour to bring 
forward proofs of it, sometimes through means 
of numbers and the syllables of names, some- 
times also through the letter of syllables, and yet 
again through those numbers which are, accord- 
ing to the practice followed by the Greeks, 
contained in [different] letters ; — [this, I say, ] 
demonstrates in the clearest manner their over- 
throw or confusion,‘ as well as the untenable 
and perverse character of their [professed ] 
knowledge. For, transferring the name /esws, 
which belongs to another language, to the nu- 
meration of the Greeks, they sometimes call it 
“ Episemon,” 5 as having six letters, and at other 





I rae xiii. 16. 

2 John v. 5. 

3 Ar text of this sentence is very uncertain. We follow Mas- 
suet’s reading, “ negotio Aonum,” in preference to that suggested by 
Harvey. é 2 ‘ 

4 “Sive confusionem” is very probably a marginal gloss which 
has found its way into the text. The whole clause is difficult and 
obscure, 


5 Comp. i. 14, 4- 








times ‘‘ the Plenitude of the Ogdoads,’’ as con- 
taining the number eight hundred and eighty- 
eight. But His [corresponding] Greek name, 
which is ‘‘ Soter,’’ that is, Saviour, because it 
does not fit in with their system, either with <e- 
spect to numerical value or as regards its letters, 
they pass over in silence. Yet surely, if they 
regard the names of the Lord, as, in accordance 
with the preconceived purpose of the Father, by 
means of their numerical value and letters, in- 
dicating number in the Pleroma, Sofer, as being 
a Greek name, ought by means of its letters and 
the numbers [expressed by these], in virtue 
of its being Greek, to show forth the mystery of 
the Pleroma. But the case is not so, because it 
is a word of five letters, and its numerical value 
is one thousand four hundred and eight.6 But 
these things do not in any way correspond with 
their Pleroma: the account, therefore, which they 
give of transactions in the Pleroma cannot be 
true. 

2. Moreover, Jesus, which is a word beiong- 
ing to the proper tongue of the Hebrews, con- 
tains, as the learned among them declare, two 
letters and a half,’ and signifies that Lord who 
contains heaven and earth ;® for /esws in the 
ancient Hebrew language means “heaven,” 
while again “earth” is expressed by the words 
sura usser.9 The word, therefore, which con- 
tains heaven and earth is just /esws. ‘Their 
explanation, then, of the fzsemon is false, and 
their numerical calculation is also manifestly 
overthrown. For in their own language, So/er 
is a Greek word or ave letters; but, on the 
other hand, in the Hebrew tongue, /esws con- 
tains only two letters and a half. The total 
which they reckon up, viz., eight hundred and 
eighty-eight, therefore falls to the ground. And 
throughout, the Hebrew letters do not corre- 
spond in number with the Greek, although these 
especially, as being the more ancient and un- 
changing, ought to uphold the reckoning con- 
nected with the names. For these ancient, 
original, and generally called sacred letters '° of 
the Hebrews are ten in number (but they are 
written by means of fifteen"'), the last letter 





6 Thus: Zwrip (c = 200, w = 800, T = 300, = 8, p= 100) = 1408. 
7 Being written thus, 1¥/*, and the small » being apparently re- 
garded as only half a letter. Harvey proposes a different solution 
which seems less probable. f 
8 This is one of the most obscure passages in the whole work of 
Irenzeus, and the editors have succeeded in throwing very little light 
upon it, We may merely state that 1" seems to be regarded as 
containing in itself the initials of the three words mm, Sehovah; 
D’DW, keaven; and Yo and earth. 
SEA rt 
9 Nothing can be made of these words; they have probably been 
corrupted by ignorant transcribers, and are now wholly unintelligible. 
Io “ Titers sacerdotales,” — another enigma which no man can 
solve. Massuet supposes the reference to be to the archaic Hebrew 
characters, still used by: the Avzests after the square Chaldaic letters 
had been generally adopted. Harvey thinks that sacerdotales repre- 
sents the Greek Aettouvpy.xd, ‘meaning letters as popularly used in 
common computation.” Q 
Il The editors have again long notes on this most obscure passage. 
Massuet expunges “‘ quaque,” and gives a lengthened explanation of 
the clause, to which we can only refer the curious reader. 


*394 


being joined to the first. And thus they write 
some of these letters according to their natural 
sequence, just as we do, but others in a reverse 
direction, from the right hand towards the left, 
thus tracing the letters backwards. The name 
Christ, too, ought to be capable of being reck- 
oned up in harmony with the AZons of their 
Pleroma, inasmuch as, according to their state- 
ments, He was produced for the establishment 
and rectification of their Pleroma. ‘The Father, 
too, in the same way, ought, both by means of 
letters and numerical value, to contain the num- 
ber of those AZons who were produced by Him ; 
Bythus, in like manner, and not less Monogenes ; 
but pre-eminently the name which is above all 
others, by which God is called, and which in the 
Hebrew tongue is expressed by Baruch,’ [a 
word | which also contains two and a half letters. 
From this fact, therefore, that the more impor- 
tant names, both in the Hebrew and Greek lan- 
guages, do not conform to their system, either 
as respects the number of letters or the reckon- 
ing brought out of them, the forced character of 
their calculations respecting the rest becomes 
clearly manifest. 

3. For, choosing out of the law whatever 
things agree with the number adopted in their 
system, they thus violently strive to obtain proofs 
of its validity. But if it was really the purpose 
of their Mother, or the Saviour, to set forth, by 
means of the Demiurge, types of those things 
which are in the Pleroma, they should have 
taken care that the types were found in things 
more exactly correspondent and more holy ; 
and, above all, in the case of the Ark of the 
Covenant, on account of which the whole taber- 
nacle of witness was formed. Now it was con- 
structed thus: its length ? was two cubits and a 
half, its breadth one cubit and a half, its height 
one cubit and a half; but such a number of 
cubits in no respect corresponds with their sys- 
tem, yet by it the type ought to have been, be- 
yond everything else, clearly set forth. The 
mercy-seat 3 also does in like manner not at all 
harmonize with their expositions. Moreover, the 
table of shew-bread+ was two cubits in length, 
while its height was.a cubit and a half. These 
stood before the holy of holies, and yet in them 
not a single number is of such an amount as 
contains an indication of the Tetrad, or the 
Ogdoad, or of the rest of their Pleroma. What 
of the candlestick,s too, which had seven® 
branches and seven lamps? while, if these had 





1 74, Baruch, d/essed, one of the commonest titles of the 


Almighty. The final J seems to be reckoried only a half-letter, as 
being different in form from what it is when accompanied by a vowel 
at the beginning or in the middle of a word, 
Ex, xxv. ro, 

3 Ex, xxv. 17. 

4 Ex, xxv. 23. 

5 Ex. xxv. 31, etc. 

6 Only ssx branches are mentioned in Ex, xxv, 32. 











IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


been made according to the type, it ought to 
have had eight branches and a like number of 
lamps, after the type of the primary Ogdoad, 
which shines pre-eminently among the A®ons, 
and illuminates the whole Pleroma. They have 
carefully enumerated the curtains? as being ten, 
declaring these a type of the ten Atons; but 
they have forgotten to count the coverings of 
skin, which were eleven® in number. Nor, 
again, have they measured the size of these very 
curtains, each curtain? being eight-and-twenty 
cubits in length. And they set forth the length 
of the pillars as being ten cubits, with a refer- 
ence to the Decad of Afons. “ But the breadth 
of each pillar was a cubit and a half; ’’*° and this 
they do not explain, any more than they do the 
entire number of the pillars or of their bars, 
because that does not suit the argument. But 
what of the anointing oil,’ which sanctified the 
whole tabernacle? Perhaps it escaped the no- 
tice of the Saviour, or, while their Mother was 
sleeping, the Demiurge of himself gave instruc- 
tions as to its weight ; and on this account it is 
out of harmony with their Pleroma, consisting,” 
as it did, of five hundred shekels of myrrh, five 
hundred of cassia, two hundred and fifty of cin- 
namon, two hundred and fifty of calamus, and 
oil in addition, so that it was composed of five 
ingredients. The incense *3 also, in like manner, 
[was compounded ] of stacte, onycha, galbanum, 
mint, and frankincense, all which do in no re- 
spect, either as to their mixture or weight, har- 
monize with their argument. It is therefore 
unreasonable and altogether absurd [to main- 
tain] that the types were not preserved in the 
sublime and more imposing enactments of the 
law; but in other points, when any number 
coincides with their assertions, to affirm that it 
was a type of the things in the Pleroma; while 
[the truth is, that] every number occurs with 
the utmost variety in the Scriptures, so that, 
should any one desire it, he might form not only 
an Ogdoad, and a Decad, and a Duodecad, but 
any sort of number from the Scriptures, and then 
maintain that this was a type of the system of 
error devised by himself. 

4. But that this point is true, that that number 
which is called five, which agrees in no respect 
with their argument, and does not harmonize 
with their system, nor is suitable for a typical 
manifestation of the things in the Pleroma, [yet 
has a wide prevalence,'*] will be proved as fol- 
lows from the Scriptures. Soter is a name of 





7 Ex. 
8 Ex. 
9 Ex, 
10 Ex, 
1 Ex, 


XXVi. I. 
XXVi. 7. 
XXVi. 2. 
xxvi. 16, 
XXvi. 26. 
12 Ex, xxx. 23, etc. 
13 Ex. xxx. 34. 
. 14 Some such supplement as this seems requisite, but the syntax 
in the Latin text is very confused. 


IRENAZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


393 





five letters; Pater, too, contains five letters ; 
Agape (love), too, consists of five letters; and 
our Lord, after‘ blessing the five loaves, fed with 
them five thousand men. Five virgins? were 
called wise by the Lord; and, in like manner, 
five were styled foolish. Again, five men are 
said to have been with the Lord when He ob- 
tained testimony; from the Father, — namely, 
Peter, and James, and John, and Moses, and 
Elias. The Lord also, as the fifth person, en- 
tered into the apartment of the dead maiden, 
and raised her up again; for, says [the Scrip- 
ture], “‘ He suffered no man to go in, save Peter 
and James,‘ and the father and mother of the 
maiden.’’5 ‘The rich man in hell® declared that 
he had five brothers, to whom he desired that 
one rising from the dead should go. The pool 
from which the Lord commanded the paralytic 
man to go into his house, had five porches. The 
very form of the cross, too, has five extremities,’ 
two. in length, two in breadth, and one in the 
middle, on which [last] the person rests who is 
fixed by the nails. Each of our hands has five 
fingers ; we have also five senses ; our internal 
organs may also be reckoned as five, viz., the 
heart, the liver, the lungs, the spleen, and the kid- 
neys. Moreover, even the whole person may 
be divided into this number [of parts], — the 
head, the breast, the belly, the thighs, and the 
feet. The human race passes through five ages : 
first infancy, then boyhood, then youth, then 
maturity,’ and then old age. Moses delivered 
the law to the people in five books. Each table 
which he received from God contained five? 
commandments. The veil covering *° the holy 
of holies had five pillars. The altar of burnt- 
offering also was five cubits in breadth."* Five 
priests were chosen in the wilderness, — namely, 
Aaron,!? Nadab, Abiud, Eleazar, Ithamar. The 
ephod and the breastplate, and other sacerdotal 
vestments, were formed out of five ‘3 materials ; 
for they combined in themselves gold, and blue, 
and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen. And 
there were five * kings of the Amorites, whom 
Joshua the son of Nun shut up in a cave, and 
directed the people to trample upon their heads. 
Any one, in fact, might collect many thousand 
ates Sek th eS SE OM Reis EE 


I Matt. xiv. 19, 21; Mark vi. 41, 44; Luke ix. 13, 14; John vi. 9, 
10, II. 

2 Matt. xxv. 2, etc. 

3 Matt. xvii. x. ie 

4 St. John is here strangely overloakes. 

$ Luke viii. 51. 

€ Luke xvi. 28. y P 

7 © Fines et summitates;” comp. Justin Mart., Dial. c. Tryph., 

I. 

8 te Juvenis,” one in the prime of life. 
9 It has been usual in the Christian Church to reckon four com- 
mandments in the first table, and six in the second; but the above 
was the ancient Jewish division. See Joseph., Anzzg., ili. 6. 

to Ex, xxvi. 37. 

IX Ex. xxvii. 1; 
* latitudo.” 

12 Ex, xxviii, 1. 

13 Ex, xxviii. 5. 

14 Josh. x. 17. 


“altitudo” in the text must be exchanged for 





other things of the same kind, both with respect 
to this number and any other he chose to fix 
upon, either from the Scriptures, or from the 
works of nature lying under his observation.'! 
But although such is the case, we do not there- 
fore affirm that there are five Atons above the 
Demiurge ; nor do we consecrate the Pentad, ar 
if it were some divine thing ; nor do we strive to 
establish things that are untenable, nor ravings 
[such as they indulge in], by means of that vain 
kind of labour; nor do we perversely force a. 
creation well adapted by God [for the ends in- 
tended to be served], to change itself into typey 
of things which have no real existence ; nor de 
we seek to bring forward impious and abomi- 
nable doctrines, the detection and. overthrow of 
which. are-easy..to-all possessed. of. intelligence. 
5. For who can concede to them that the 
year has three hundred and sixty-five days only, 
in order that there may be twelve months of 
thirty days each, after the type of the twelve 
Eons, when the type is in fact altogether out of 
harmony [with the antitype]? For, in the one 
case, each of the A£ons is a thirtieth part of the 
entire Pleroma, while in the other they declare 
that a month is the twelfth part of a year. If, 
indeed, the year were divided into thirty parts, 
and the month into twelve, then a fitting type 
might be regarded as having been found for 
their fictitious system. But, on the contrary, as 
the case really stands, their Pleroma is divided 
into thirty parts, and a portion of it into twelve ; 
while again the whole year is divided into twelve 
parts, and a certain portion of it into thirty. 
The Saviour therefore acted unwisely in consti- 
tuting the month a type of the entire Pleroma, 
but the year a type only of that Duodecad which 
exists in the Pleroma; for it was more fitting to 
divide the year into thirty parts, even as the 
whole Pleroma is divided, but the month into 
twelve, just as the Avons are in their Pleroma. 
Moreover, they divide the entire Pleroma into 
three portions, —namely, into an Ogdoad, 2 
Decad, and a Duodecad. But our year is di- 
vided into four parts, — namely, spring, summer, 
autumn, and winter. And again, not even do 
the months, which they maintain to be a type 
of the Triacontad, consist precisely of thirty days, 
but some have more and some less, inasmuch as 
five days remain to them as an overplus.%© The 
day, too, does not always consist precisely of 
twelve hours, but rises from nine ‘7 to fifteen, and 
then falls again from fifteen to nine. It cannot 
therefore be held that months of thirty days 
each were so formed for the sake of [typifying ] 





15 [Note the manly contempt with which our author dismisses a 
class of similitudes, which seem, even in our day, to have great at- 
tractions for some minds not otherwise narrow.] 

16 365 (the days of the year) =12 X 307+ 5. : 

17 These hours of daylight, at the winter and summer solstice re- 
spectively, correspond to the latitude of Lyons, 45° 45’ N., where 
Irenzus resided. 





390 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


ee a aE oe 1 en eT oe eS ee 


the Afons; for, in that case, they would have 
consisted precisely of thirty days: nor, again, 
the days of these months, that by means of 
twelve hours they might symbolize the twelve 
ZEons ; for, in that case, they would always have 
consisted precisely of twelve hours. 

6. But further, as to their calling material sub- 
stances “on the left hand,” and maintaining that 
those things which are thus on the left hand of 
necessity fall into corruption, while they also 
affirm that the Saviour came to the lost sheep, in 
order to transfer it to the right hand, that is, to 
the ninety and nine sheep which were in safety, 
and perished not, but continued within the fold, 
yet were of the left hand,’ it follows that they 
must acknowledge that the enjoyment? of rest 
did not imply salvation. And that which has 
not in like manner the same number, they will 
be compelled to acknowledge as belonging to 
the left hand, that is, to corruption. This Greek 
word Agape (love), then, according to the let- 
ters of the Greeks, by means of which reckoning 
is carried on among them, having a numerical 
value of ninety-three,3 is in like manner assigned 
to the place of rest on the left hand. Aletheia 
(truth), too, having in like manner, according 
to the principle indicated above, a numerical 
value of sixty-four, exists among material sub- 
stances. And thus, in fine, they will be com- 
pelled to acknowledge that all those sacred 
names which do not reach a numerical value of 
one hundred, but only contain the numbers 
summed by the left hand, are corruptible and 
material. 


CHAP. XXV.— GOD IS NOT TO BE SOUGHT AFTER 
BY MEANS OF LETTERS, SYLLABLES, AND NUM- 
BERS ; NECESSITY OF HUMILITY IN SUCH INVES- 
TIGATIONS. 


1. If any one, however, say in reply to these 
things, What then? Is it a meaningless and 
accidental thing, that the positions, of names, 
and the election of the apostles, and the work- 
ing of the Lord, and the arrangement of created 
things, are what they are? — we answer them: 
Certainly not; but with great wisdom and dili- 
gence, all things have clearly been made by 
God, fitted and prepared [for their special pur- 
poses] ; and His word formed both things ancient 
and those belonging to the latest times; and 
men ought not to connect those things with the 


1 “ Alluding,” says Harvey, ‘‘to a custom among the ancients, 
of summing the numbers below roo by various positions of the left hand 
and its fingers; 100 and upwards being reckoned by corresponding 
gestures of the right hand. The ninety and nine sheep, therefore, 
that remained quietly in the fold were summed upon the left hand 
and Gnostics professed that they were typical of the true spiritual 
seed; but Uae always places the workers of iniquity on the left 
hand, and in the Gnostic theory the evil principle of matter was sinis- 
tral, therefore,” etc., as above. 

z ¢ Levamen,” corresponding probably to the Greek avdmavow. 

3 "Aydan (a=1, y=3, a=1, 7 = 80, 1=8) =93. . 

4 °AdjOea (a =1, A=30, = 8, O=9, e= 5, 1 =10, a=1) = 64. 











number ¢irty,s but to harmonize them with 
what actually exists, or with right reason. Nor 
should they seek to prosecute inquiries respect- 
ing God by means of numbers, syllables, and 
letters. For this is an uncertain mode of pro- 
ceeding, on account of their varied and diverse 
systems, and because every sort of hypothesis 
may at the present day be, in like manner, 
devised © by any one; so that? they can derive 
arguments against the truth from these very 
theories, inasmuch as they may be turned in 
many different directions. But, on the contrary, 
they ought to adapt the numbers themselves, 
and those things which have been formed, to 
the true theory lying before them. For system ® 
does not spring out of numbers, but numbers 
from a system ; nor does God derive His being 
from things made, but things made from God. 
For all things originate from one and the same 
God. 

2. But since created things are various and 
numerous, they are indeed well fitted and adapted 
to the whole creation ; yet, when viewed individ- 
ually, are mutually opposite and inharmonious, 
just as the sound of the lyre, which consists of 
many and opposite notes, gives rise to one un- 
broken melody, through means of the interval 
which separates each one from the others. The 
lover of truth therefore ought not to be deceived 
by the interval between each note, nor should he 
imagine that one was due to one artist and au- 
thor, and another to another, nor that one per- 
son fitted the treble, another the bass, and yet 
another the tenor strings; but he should hold 
that one and the same person [formed the whole], 
so as to prove the judgment, goodness, and skill 
exhibited in the whole work and [specimen of] 
wisdom. ‘Those, too, who listen to the melody, 
ought to praise and extol the artist, to admire the 
tension of some notes, to attend to the softness 
of others, to catch the sound of others between 
both these extremes, and to consider the special 
character of others, so as to inquire at what each 
one aims, and what is the cause of their variety, 
never failing to apply our rule, neither giving up 
the [one 9] artist, nor casting off faith in the one 
God who formed all things, nor blaspheming our 
Creator. 

3. If, however, any one do not discover the 
cause of all those things which become objects 
of investigation, let him reflect that man is in- 
finitely inferior to God; that he has received 
grace only in part, and is not yet equal or similar 
to his Maker; and, moreover, that he cannot 
have experience or form a conception of all things 





5 Some read xx., but xxx. is probably correct. 

6 Harvey proposes “‘commentitum” instead of “ commentatum,” 
but the alteration seems unnecessary, 

7 ‘fhe syntax is in confusion, and the meaning obscure. 

8 “ Regula.” 

9 “ Exrantes ab artifice,” The whole sentence is most obscure, 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


397 





like God ; but in the same proportion as he who 
was formed but to-day, and received the begin- 
ning of his creation, is inferior to Him who is 
uncreated, and who is always the same, in that 
proportion is he, as respects knowledge and the 
faculity of investigating the causes of all things, 
inferior to Him who made him. For thou, O 
man, art not an uncreated being, nor didst thou 
always co-exist ' with God, as did His own Word ; 
but now, through His pre-eminent goodness, re- 
ceiving the beginning of thy creation, thou dost 
gradually learn from the Word the dispensations 
of God who made thee. 

4. Preserve therefore the proper order of thy 
knowledge, and do not, as being ignorant of 
things really good, seek to rise above God Him- 
self, for He cannot be surpassed ; nor do thou 
seek after any one above the Creator, for thou 
wilt not discover such. For thy Former cannot 
be contained within limits; nor, although thou 
shouldst measure all this [universe], and pass 
through all His creation, and consider it in all 
its depth, and height, and length, wouldst thou 
be able to conceive of any other above the Father 
Himself. For thou wilt not be able to think Him 
fully out, but, indulging in trains of reflection 
opposed to thy nature, thou wilt prove thyself 
foolish ; and if thou persevere in such a course, 
thou wilt fall into utter madness, whilst thou 
deemest thyself loftier and greater than thy Crea- 
tor, and imaginest that thou canst penetrate be- 
yond His dominions. 


CHAP. XXVI. — ‘‘ KNOWLEDGE PUFFETH UP, BUT 
LOVE EDIFIETH.” 


1. It is therefore better and more profitable 
to belong to the simple and unlettered class, and 
by means of love to attain to nearness to God, 
than, by imagining ourselves learned and skilful, 
to be found [among those who are] blasphemous 
against their own God, inasmuch as they con- 
jure up another God as the Father. And for 
this reason Paul exclaimed, “ Knowledge puffeth 
up, but love edifieth:”? not that he meant to 
inveigh against a true knowledge of God, for in 
that case he would have accused himself; but, 
because he knew that some, puffed up by the 
pretence of knowledge, fall away from the love 
of God, and imagine that they. themselves are 
perfect, for this reason that they set forth an 
imperfect Creator, with the view of putting an 
end to the pride which they feel on account of 
knowledge of this kind, he says, “ Knowledge 
puffeth up, but love edifieth.” Now there can 
be no greater conceit than this, that any one 
should imagine he is better and more perfect 
than He who made and fashioned him, and im- 


Di norte he el eS aera 
1 Alluding to the imaginary Zon Anthropos, who existed from 
etemity. & 
2 x Cor. viii. 1. 


parted to him the breath of life, and commanded 
this very thing into existence. It is therefore 
better, as I have said, that one should have no 
knowledge whatever of any one reason why a 
single thing in creation has been made, but 
should believe in God, and continue in His love, 
than 3 that, puffed up through knowledge of this 
kind, he should fall away from that love which is 
the life of man; and that he should search after 
no other knowledge except [the knowledge of ] 
Jesus Christ the Son of God, who was crucified 
for us, than that by subtle questions and hair- 
splitting expressions he should fall into impiety.‘ 

2. For how would it be, if any one, gradually 
elated by attempts of the kind referred to, should, 
because the Lord said that “even the hairs of 
your head are all numbered,” 5 set about inquir- 
ing into the number of hairs on each one’s 
head, and endeavour to search out the reason on 
account of which one man has so many, and 
another so many, since all have not an equal 
number, but many thousands upon thousands are 
to be found with still varying numbers, on this 
account that some have larger and others smaller 
heads, some have bushy heads of hair, others 
thin, and others scarcely any hair at all, —and 
then those who imagine that they have discovered 
the number of the hairs, should endeavour to 
apply that for the commendation of their own 
sect which they have conceived? Or again, if 
any one should, because of this expression which 
occurs in the Gospel, “Are not two sparrows 
sold for a farthing? and not one of them falls to 
the ground without the will of your Father,” ® 
take occasion to reckon up the number of spar- 
rows caught daily, whether over all the world or 
in some particular district, and to make inquiry 
as to the reason of so many having been captured 
yesterday, so many the day before, and so many 
again on this day, and should then join on the 
number of sparrows to his [particular] hypothe- 
sis, would he not in that case mislead himself 
altogether, and drive into absolute insanity those 
that agreed with him, since men are always eager 
in such matters to be thought to have discovered 
something more extraordinary than their mas- 
ters P7 

3. But if any one should ask us whether every 
number of all the things which have been made, 
and which are made, is known to God, and 
whether every one of these [numbers] has, ac- 
cording to His providence, received that special 
amount which it contains ; and on our agreeing 





3 “ Aut;” # having been thus mistakenly rendered instead of 
“ quam.” } aa 

4 [This seems anticipato of the dialectics of scholasticism, and 
of its immense influence in Western Christendom, after St. Bernard’s 
feeble adhesion to the Biblical system of the ancients. ] 

5 Matt. x. 30. 

6 Matt. x. 29. f 

7 [Illustrated by the history of modern thought in Germany. See 
the meritorious work of Professor Kahnis, on German Protestant 
ism,” (translated), Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1856.] 


$98 


that such is the case, and acknowledging that 
not one of the things which have been, or are, 
or shall be made, escapes the knowledge of God, 
but that through His providence every one of 
them has obtained its nature, and rank, and 
number, and special quantity, and that nothing 
whatever either has been or is produced in vain 
or accidentally, but with exceeding suitability [to 
the purpose intended], and in the exercise of 
transcendent knowledge, and that it was an ad- 
mirable and truly divine intellect: which could 
both distinguish and bring forth the proper causes 
of such a system : if, [I say, ] any one, on obtain- 
ing our adherence and consent to this, should 
proceed to reckon up the sand and pebbles of the 
earth, yea also the waves of the sea and the stars 
of heaven, and should endeavour to think out 
the causes of the number which he imagines 
himself to have discovered, would not his labour 
be in vain, and would not such a man be justly 
declared mad, and destitute of reason, by all 
possessed of common sense? And the more he 
occupied himself beyond others in questions of 
this kind, and the more he imagines himself to 
find out beyond others, styling them unskilful, 
ignorant, and animal beings, because they do not 
enter into his so useless labour, the more is he 
[in reality] insane, foolish, struck as it were with 
a thunderbolt, since indeed he does in no one 
point own himself inferior to God ; but, by the 
knowledge which he imagines himself to have 
discovered, he changes God Himself, and exalts 
his own opinion above the greatness of the 
Creator. 


CHAP, XXVII.— PROPER MODE OF INTERPRETING 
PARABLES AND OBSCURE PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE. 


1. A sound mind, and one which does not ex- 
pose its possessor to danger, and is devoted to 
piety and the love of truth, will eagerly meditate 
upon those things which God has placed within 
the power of mankind, and has subjected to our 
knowledge, and will make advancement in [ac- 
quaintance with] them, rendering the knowledge 
of them easy to him by means of daily study. 
These things are such as fall [plainly] under 
our observation, and are clearly and unambigu- 
ously in express terms set forth in the Sacred 
Scriptures. And therefore the parables ought 
not to be adapted to ambiguous expressions. 
For, if this be not done, both he who explains 
them will do so without danger, and the parables 
will receive a like interpretation from all, and 
the body? of truth remains entire, with a har- 
monious adaptation of its members, and without 
any collision [of its several parts]. But to apply 
expressions which are not clear or evident to 


ee ee 
1 “ Rationem.” 


2 We read “‘ vexitatis corpus” for “‘a veritate corpus” in the 
text. 








IRENEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


interpretations of the parables, such as every 
one discovers for himself as inclination leads 
him, [is absurd.3] For in this way no one will 
possess the rule of truth; but in accordance 
with the number of persons who explain the 
parables will be found the various systems of 
truth, in mutual opposition to each other, and 
setting forth antagonistic doctrines, like the 
questions current among the Gentile philoso- 
phers. 

2. According to this course of procedure, 
therefore, man would always be inquiring but 
never finding, because he has rejected the very 
method of discovery. And when the Bride- 
groom ¢ comes, he who has his lamp untrimmed, 
and not burning with the brightness of a steady 
light, is classed among those who obscure the 
interpretations of the parables, forsaking Him 
who by His plain announcements freely imparts 
gifts to all who come to Him, and is excluded 
from His marriage-chamber. Since, therefore, 
the entire Scriptures, the prophets, and the 
Gospels, can be clearly, unambiguously, and 
harmoniously understood by all, although all do 
not believe them ; and 5 since they proclaim that 
one only God, to the exclusion of all others, 
formed all things by His word, whether visible 
or invisible, heavenly or earthly, in the water or 
under the earth, as I have shown ® from the very 
words of Scripture ; and since the very system 
of creation to which we belong testifies, by what 
falls under our notice, that one Being made and 
governs it, — those persons will seem truly foolish 
who blind their eyes to such a clear demonstra- 
tion, and will not behold the light of the an- 
nouncement [made to them];~ but they put 
fetters upon themselves, and every one of them 
imagines, by means of their obscure interpreta- 
tions of the parables, that he has found out a 
God of his own. For that there is nothing 
whatever openly, expressly, and without contro- 
versy said in any part of Scripture respecting 
the Father conceived of by those who hold a 
contrary opinion, they themselves testify, when 
they maintain that the Saviour privately taught 
these same things not to all, but to certain only 
of His disciples who could comprehend them, 
and who understood what was intended by Him 
through means of arguments, enigmas, and para- 
bles. They come, [in fine,] to this, that they 
maintain there is one Being who is proclaimed 
as God, and another as Father, He who is set 
forth as such through means of parables and 
enigmas. 





3 Some such expression of disapproval must evidently be supplied, 
though wanting in the Latin text. : 

4 Matt. xxv. 5, etc; 

5 The text is here elliptical, and we have supplied what seems 
necessary to complete the sense. 

© It is doubtful whether ‘‘ demonstravimus ” or “ demonstrabimus ” 
be the proper reading: if the former, the reference will be to book ik 
22, or il, 2; if the latter, to book iii. 8. 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


399 





3. But since parables admit of many interpre- 
tations, what lover of truth will not acknowledge, 
that for them to assert God is to be searched 
out from these, while they desert what is certain, 
indubitable, and true, is the part of men who 
eagerly throw themselves into danger, and act as 
if destitute of reason? And is not such a course 
of conduct not to build one’s house upon a rock * 
which is firm, strong, and placed in an open posi- 
tion, but upon the shifting sand? Hence the 
overthrow of such a building is a matter of ease. 


CHAP. XXVIII. — PERFECT KNOWLEDGE CANNOT BEAT- 
TAINED IN THE PRESENT LIFE : MANY QUESTIONS 
MUST BE SUBMISSIVELY LEFT IN THE HANDS OF GOD. 


1. Having therefore the truth itself'as our rule, 





and the testimony concerning God set clearly 
before us, we ought not, by running after numer- 
ous and diverse answers to questions, to cast 
away the firm and true knowledge of God. But 
it is much more suitable that we, directing our 
inquiries after this fashion, should exercise our- 
selves in the investigation of the mystery and 
administration of the living God, and should in- 
crease in the love of Him who has done, and 
still does, so great things for us ; but never should 
fall from the belief by which it is most clearly 
proclaimed that this Being alone is truly God 
and Father, who both formed this world, fash- 
ioned man, and bestowed the faculty of increase 
on His own creation, and called him upwards 
from lesser things to those greater ones which 
are in His own presence, just as He brings an 
infant which has been conceived in the womb 
into the light of the sun, and lays up wheat in 
the barn after He has given it full strength on 
the stalk. But it is one and the same Creator 
who both fashioned the womb and created the 
sun; and one and the same Lord who both 
reared the stalk of corn, increased and multi- 





plied the wheat, and prepared the barn. 

2. If, however, we cannot discover explana- 
tions of all those things in Scripture which are 
made the subject of investigation, yet let us not 
on that account seek after any other God be- 





sides Him who really exists. For this is the 
very greatest impiety. We should leave things 
of that nature to God who created us, being 
most properly assured that the Scriptures are in- 
deed perfect, since they were spoken by the 
Word of God and His Spirit ; but we, inasmuch 
as we are inferior to, and later in existence than, 
the Word of God and His Spirit, are on that 
very account * destitute of the knowledge of His 
mysteries. And there is no cause for wonder if 
this is the case with us as respects things spiritual 
and heavenly, and such as require to be made 
known to us by revelation, since many even of 





a as aaa ] 
I Matt. vil. 25. 
8 Or, “to that degree.” 


those things which lie at our very feet (1 mean 
such as belong to this world, which we handle, 
and see, and are in close contact with) transcend 
our knowledge, so that even these we must leave 
to God. For it is fitting that He should excel 
all [in knowledge]. For how stands the case, 
for instance, if we endeavour to explain the cause 
of the rising of the Nile? We may say a great 
deal, plausible or otherwise, on the subject ; but 
what is true, sure, and incontrovertible regarding 
it, belongs only to God. Then, again, the dwell- 
ing-place of birds—of those, I mean, which 
come to us in spring, but fly away again on the 
approach of autumn—though it is a matter con- 
nected with this world, escapes our knowledge. 
What explanation, again, can we give of the flow 
and ebb of the ocean, although every one admits 
there must be a certain cause [for these phe- 
nomena]? Or what can we say as to the nature 
of those things which lie beyond it?3 What, 
moreover, can we say as to the formation of rain, 
lightning, thunder, gatherings of clouds, vapours, 
the bursting forth of winds, and such like things ; 
or tell as to the storehouses of snow, hail, and 
other like things? [What do we know respect- 
ing] the conditions requisite for the preparation 
of clouds, or what is the real nature of the vapours 
in the sky? What as to the reason why the moon 
waxes and wanes, or what as to the cause of the 
difference of nature among various waters, metals, 
stones, and such like things? On all these points 
we may indeed say a great deal while we search 
into their causes, but God alone who made them 
can declare the truth regarding them. 

3. If, therefore, even with respect to creation, 
there are some things [the knowledge of] which 
belongs only to God, and others which come with- 
in the range of our own knowledge, what ground 
is there for complaint, if, in regard to those things 
which we investigate in the Scriptures (which 
are throughout spiritual), we are able by the 
grace of God to explain some of them, while we 
must leave others in the hands of God, and that 
not only in the present world, but also in that 
which is to come, so that God should for ever 
teach, and man should for ever learn the things 
taught him by God? As the apostle has said 
on this point, that, when other things have been 
done away, then these three, “faith, hope, and 
charity, shall endure.”+ For faith, which has 
respect to our Master, endures > unchangeably, 





3 Comp. Clem, Rom., Ff, to Cor., c. xx.; and August., De. Crv¢t 


Dez, xvi. 9. |. 
4 1 Cor. xiii. 13. ‘ : 
s “Permanet firma,” — no doubt corresponding to the néver of 


the apostle, 1 Cor. xiii. 13. Harvey here remarks, that *‘ the author 
seems to misapprehend the apostle’s meaning, . . - There will be no 
longer room for hope, when the substauce of things hoped for shall have 
become a matter of fruition; neither will there be any room for faith, 
when the soul shall be admitted to see God as He is.” But the best 
modern interpreters take the same view of the passage as lrenzus. 
They regard the vuvi d¢ of St. Paulas not being temporal, but logical, 
and conclude therefore the meaning to be, that fuzt# and hope, as we 

as Jove, will, in a sense, endure for ever. Comp. e.g., Alford, z# loc. 


400 
assuring us that there is but one true God, and 
that we should truly love Him for ever, seeing that 
He alone is our Father; while we hope ever 
to be receiving more and more from God, and 
to learn from Him, because He is good, and 
possesses boundless riches, a kingdom without 
end, and instruction that can never be exhausted. 
If, therefore, according to the rule which I have 
stated, we leave some questions in the hands of 
God, we shall both preserve our faith uninjured, 
and shall continue without danger ; and all Scrip- 
ture, which has been given to us by God, shall 
be found by us perfectly consistent; and the 
parables shall harmonize with those passages 
which are perfectly plain; and those statements 
the meaning of which is clear, shall serve to ex- 
plain the parables ; and through the many diver- 
sified utterances [of Scripture] there shall be 
heard * one harmonious melody in us, praising 
in hymns that God who created all things. If, 
for instance, any one asks, “What was God doing 
before He made the world?” we reply that the 
answer to such a question lies with God Himself. 
For that this world was formed perfect ? by God, 
receiving a beginning in time, the Scriptures 
‘teach us; but no Scripture reveals to us what 
God was employed about before this event. 
The answer therefore to that question remains 
with God, and it is not proper3 for us to aim 
at bringing forward foolish, rash, and blasphe- 
mous suppositions [in reply to it] ; so, as by one’s 
imagining that he has discovered the origin 
of matter, he should in reality set aside God 
Himself who made all things. 

4. For consider, all ye who invent such opin- 
ions, since the Father Himself is alone called 
God, who has a real existence, but whom ye 
style the Demiurge ; since, moreover, the Scrip- 
tures acknowledge Him alone as God; and yet 
again, since the Lord confesses Him alone as 
His own Father, and knows no other, as I shall 
show from His very words, — when ye style this 
very Being the fruit of defect, and the offspring 
of ignorance, and describe Him as being ignorant 
of those things which are above Him, with the 
various other allegations which you make regard- 
ing Him, — consider the terrible blasphemy [ye 
are thus guilty of ] against Him who truly is God. 
Ye seem to affirm gravely and honestly enough 
that ye believe in God; but then, as ye are 
utterly unable to reveal any other God, ye de- 
clare this very Being in whom ye profess to 
believe, the fruit of defect and the offspring of 
ignorance. Now this blindness and foolish talk- 





c 1 The Latin text is here untranslateable. Grabe proposes to read, 
una consonans melodia tn nobis sentietur ;” while Stieren and 
others prefer to exchange aicOjcerat for daOjoerat. 

2 “ Apotelesticos.” This word, says Harvey, ‘ may also refer to 
the vital energy of nature, whereby its effects are for ever reproduced 
in unceasing succession.” Comp, Hippol., PAzZos., vii. 

3 We here follow Grabe, who understands dece?. 


24. 
: t Harvey less 
simply explains the very obscuxe Latin text. 











IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


=a 


ing flow to you from the fact that ye reserve 
nothing for God, but ye wish to proclaim the 
nativity and production both of God Himself, 
of His Enncea, of His Logos, and Life, and 
Christ ; and ye form the idea of these from no 
other than a mere human experience ; not under- 
standing, as I said before, that it is possible, in 
the case of man, who is a compound being, to 
speak in this way of the mind of man and the 
thought of man ; and to say that thought (enncea) 
springs from mind (sensus), intention (enthy- 
mesis) again from thought, and word (logos) from 
intention (but which logos?‘ for there is among 
the Greeks one logos which is the principle 
that thinks, and another which is the instru- 
ment by means of which thought is expressed) ; 
and [to say] that a man sometimes is at rest 
and silent, while at other times he speaks and 
is active. But since God is5 all mind, all 
reason, all active spirit, all light, and always 
exists one and the same, as it is both bene- 
ficial for us to think of God, and as we learn 
regarding Him from the Scriptures, such feelings 
and divisions [of operation] cannot fittingly be 
ascribed to Him. For our tongue, as being car- 
nal, is not sufficient to minister to the rapidity 
of the human mind, inasmuch as that is of a 
spiritual nature, for which reason our word is re- 
strained © within us, and is not at once expressed 
as it has been conceived by the mind, but is 
uttered by successive efforts, just as the tongue 
is able to serve it. 

5. But God being all Mind, and all Logos, 
both speaks exactly what He thinks, and thinks 
exactly what He speaks. For His thought is 
Logos, and Logos is Mind, and Mind compre- 
hending all things is the Father Himself. He, 
therefore, who speaks of the mind of God, and 
ascribes to it a special origin of its own, de- 
clares Him a compound Being, as if God were 
one thing, and the original Mind another. So, 
again, with respect to Logos, when one attributes 
to him the third 7 place of production from the 
Father ; on which supposition he is ignorant of 
His greatness; and thus Logos has been far 
separated from God. As for the prophet, he 
declares respecting Him, ‘Who shall describe 
His generation?’ *® But ye pretend to set forth 
His generation from the Father, and ye transfer 
the production of the word of men which takes 
place by means of a tongue to the Word of God, 
and thus are righteously exposed by your own 





4 The Greek term Adyos, as is well known, denotes both rato 
(reason) and sexo (speech). Some deem the above parenthesis an 
interpolation. 

5 Comp. i. 12, 2. : 

6 “ Suffugatur: ” some read “ suffocatur:” and Harvey proposes 
“suffragatur,” as the representative of the Greek Wndigetat. The 
meaning in any case is, that while ideas are instantaneously formed 
in the human mind, they can be expressed through means of words 
only fractionally, and by successive utterances. 

7 Thus: Aythus, Nous, Logos. 
8 Isa. lili, 8. 


IRENAZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


_—--- 


401 





selves as knowing neither things human nor di- 
vine. 

6. But, beyond reason inflated [with your own 
wisdom ], ye presumptuously maintain that ye are 
acquainted with the unspeakable mysteries of 
God ; while even the Lord, the very Son of God, 
allowed that the Father alone knows the very day 
and hour of judgment, when He plainly declares, 
But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, 
neither the Son, but the Father only.”' If, then, 
the Son was not ashamed to ascribe the knowl- 
edge of that day to the Father only, but declared 
what was true regarding the matter, neither let 
us be ashamed to reserve for God those greater 
questions which may occur to us. For no man 
is superior to his master.?_ If any one, therefore, 
says to us, ‘“ How then was the Son produced 
by the Father?” we reply to him, that no man 
understands that production, or generation, or 
calling, or revelation, or by whatever name one 


may describe His generation, which is in fact | 


altogether indescribable. Neither Valentinus, 
nor Marcion, nor Saturninus, nor Basilides, nor 
angels, nor archangels, nor principalities, nor 
powers [possess this knowledge], but the Father 
only who begat, and the Son who was begotten. 
Since therefore His generation is unspeakable, 
those who strive to set forth generations and 
productions cannot be in their right mind, inas- 
much as they undertake to describe things which 
are indescribable. For that a word is uttered 
at the bidding of thought and mind, all men 
indeed well understand. Those, therefore, wh 
have excogitated [the theory of] emissions..have 
not discovered anything great, or revealed any 
abstruse mystery, when they have simply trans- 
ferred what all understand to the only-begotten 
Word of God; and while they style Him un- 
speakable and unnameable, they nevertheless 
set forth the production and formation of His 
first generation, as if they themselves had assisted. 
at His birth, thus assimilating Him to the word 
of mankind formed by emissions. 

4. But we shall not be wrong if we affirm the 
same thing also concerning the substance of mat- 
ter, that God produced it. For we have learned 
from the Scriptures that God holds the suprem- 
acy over all things. But whence or in what 
way He produced it, neither has Scripture 
anywhere declared ; nor does it become us to 
conjecture, so as, in accordance with our own 
opinions, to form endless conjectures concerning 
God, but we should leave such knowledge in the 
hands of God Himself. In like manner, also, 

“we must leave the cause why, while all things 
were made by God, certain of His creatures 
eee eee ee te es 


The words, ‘neither the angels which are in 


I Mark xiii. 32. : 
Z as usual, the writer 


heaven,” are here omitted, probably because, 
quotes from memory. 


2 Comp Matt. x..24; Luke xi. 40. 











sinned and revolted from a state of submission 
to God, and others, indeed the great majority, 
persevered, and do still persevere, in [villing] 
subjection to Him who formed them, and also o 

what nature those are who sinned, and of what 
nature those who persevere, — [we must, I say, 
leave the cause of these things] to God and His 
Word, to whom alone He said, “Sit at my right 
hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.” 3 
But as for us, we still dwell upon the earth, and 
have not yet sat down upon His throne. For 
although the Spirit of the Saviour that is in Him 
“‘searcheth all things, even the deep things of 
God,” 4 yet as to us “ there are diversities of gifts, 
differences of administrations, and diversities of 
operations ; ’’ 5 and we, while upon the earth, as 
Paul also declares, “‘ know in part, and prophesy 
in part.” © Since, therefore, we know but in part, 
we ought to leave all sorts of [difficult questions 
in the hands of Him who in some measure, [and 
that only,] bestows grace on us. That eternal 
fire, [for instance, ] is prepared for sinners, both 
the Lord has plainly declared, and the rest of 
the Scriptures demonstrate. And that God fore- 
knew that this would happen, the Scriptures do 
in like manner demonstrate, since He prepared 
eternal fire from the beginning for those who 
were [afterwards] to transgress [His command- 
ments]; but the cause itself of the nature of 
such transgressors neither has any Scripture in- 
formed us, nor has an apostle told us, nor has the 
Lord taught us. It becomes us, therefore, to 
leave the knowledge of this matter to God, even 
as the Lord does of the day and hour [of judg- 
ment], and not to rush to such an extreme of 
danger, that we will leave nothing in the hands 
of God, even though we have received only a 
measure of grace [from Him in this world]. 
But when we investigate points which are above 
us, and with respect to which we cannot reach 
satisfaction, [it is absurd7] that we should dis- 
play such an extreme of presumption as to lay 
open God, and things which are not yet discov- 
ered,® as if already we had found out, by the 
vain talk about emissions, God Himself, the 
Creator of all things, and to assert that He de- 
rived His substance from apostasy and ignorance, 
so as to frame an impious hypothesis in opposi- 
tion to God. 

8. Moreover, they possess no proof of their 
system, which has but recently been invented by 
them, sometimes resting upon certain numbers, 
sometimes on syllables, and sometimes, again, 
on names; and. there are occasions, too, when, 





3 Ps, cx. 1. 

4 x Cor. ii. ro. 

5 x Cor. xii. 4, 5, 6. 

6 x Cor. xili. 9. 

7 Massuet proposes to insert these words, and some such supple- 
ment seems clearly necessary to complete the sense. But the sentence 
still remains confused and doubtful. : 

8 (Gen. xl. 8; Deut. xxix. 29; Ps. exxxi, | 


402 





by means of those letters which are contained 
in letters, by parables not properly interpreted, or 
by certain [baseless] conjectures, they strive to 
establish that fabulous account which they have 
devised. For if any one should inquire the rea- 
son why the Father, who has fellowship with the 
Son in all things, has been declared by the Lord 
alone to know the hour and the day [of judg- 
ment], he will find at present no more suitable, 
or becoming, or safe reason than this (since, 
indeed, the Lord is the only true Master), that 
we may learn through Him that the Father is 
above all things. For “the Father,” says He, 
“is greater than I.”* The Father, therefore, 
has been declared by our Lord to excel with 
respect to knowledge ; for this reason, that we, 
too, as long as we are connected with the scheme 
of things in this world, should leave perfect knowl- 
edge, and such questions [as have been men- 
tioned], to.God, and should not by any chance, 

“while we seek to investigate the sublime nature 
of the Father, fall into the danger of starting the 
question whether there is another God above 
God.? 

g. But if any lover of strife contradict what I 
have said, and also what the apostle affirms, that 
“we know in part, and prophesy in part,’’3 and 
imagine that he has acquired not a partial, but 
a universal, knowledge of all that exists, — being 
such an one as Valentinus, or Ptolemzus, or 
Basilides, or any other of those who maintain.that 


they have searched out the deep * things of God,) 


—let him not (arraying himself--in-vainglory) 
boast that he has acquired greater knowledge 
than others with respect to those things which 
are invisible, or cannot be placed under our ob- 
servation ; but let him, by making diligent inquiry, 
and obtaining information from the Father, tell 
us the reasons (which we know not) of those 
things which are in this world, —as, for instance, 
the number of hairs on his own head, and the 
sparrows which are captured day by day, and 
such other points with which we are not pre- 
viously acquainted, —so that we may credit him 
also with respect to more important points. But 
if those who are ferfect do not yet understand 
the very things in their hands, and at their feet, 
and before their eyes, and on the earth, and 
especially the rule followed with respect to the 
hairs of their head, how can we believe them 
regarding things spiritual, and super-celestial,5 
and those which, with a vain confidence, they 
assert to be above God? So much, then, I have 
said concerning numbers, and names, and syl- 





1 John xiv. 28. 

2 [On the great matter of the meptydpyors, the subordination of 
the Son, etc., Bull has explored Patristic doctrine, and may well be 
ne here. Defens. Fid. Nicene, sect. iv.; seealso vol. v. 
363. 

31 Cor. xili. 9. 

4“ Altitudines,” literally, heights. 

5 [Wisdom, ii. 13, 17. A passage of marvellous beauty.) 











IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


% 





lables, and questions respecting such things as 
are above our comprehension, and concerning 
their improper expositions of the parables: [I 
add no more on these points, ] since thou thyse:f 
mayest enlarge upon them. 


CHAP. XXIX.— REFUTATION OF THE VIEWS OF THE 
HERETICS AS TO THE FUTURE DESTINY OF THE 
SOUL AND BODY. 


1. Let us return, however, to the remaining 
points of their system. For when they declare 
that, at the consummation of all things, their 
mother shall re-enter the Pleroma, and receive 
the Saviour as her consort ; that they themselves, 
as being spiritual, when they have got rid of their 
animal souls, and become intellectual spirits, will 
be the consorts of the spiritual angels ; but that 
the Demiurge, since they call him animal, will 
pass into the place of the Mother ; that the souls 
of the righteous shall psychically repose in the 
intermediate place ;—-when they declare that 
like will be gathered to like, spiritual things to 
spiritual, while material things continue among 
those that are material, they do in fact contradict 
themselves, inasmuch as they no longer maintain 
that souls pass, on account of their nature, into 
the intermediate place to those substances which 
are similar to themselves, but [that they do so] 
on account of the deeds done [in the body], 
since they affirm that those of the righteous do 
pass [into that abode], but those of the impious 
continue in the fire. For if it is on account of 
their nature that all souls attain to the place of 
enjoyment,’ and all belong to the intermediate 
place simply because they are souls, as being 
thus of the same nature with it, then it follows 
that faith is altogether superfluous, as was also 
the descent ® of the Saviour [to this world]. If, 
on the other hand, it is on account of their right- 
eousness [that they attain to such a place of 
rest], then it is no longer because they are souds 
but because they are righteous. But if souls 
would have 9 perished unless they had been right- 
eous, then righteousness must have power to save 
the bodies also [which these souls inhabited] ; 
for why should it not save them, since they, too, 
participated in righteousness?” For if nature and 
substance are the means of salvation, then ali 
souls shall be saved; but if righteousness and 
faith, why should these not save those bodies 
which, equally with the souls, will enter into 





© Comp. i. 7, r. 

7 “ Refrigerium,” place of refreshment. 

8 Billius, with great apparent reason, proposes to read “‘ descensio ’ 
for the unintelligible “‘ discessio ”” of the Latin text. 

_ 9 Grabe and Massuet read, “‘Si autem anime perire inciperent 
nisi juste: fuissent,” for ‘‘ Si autem animze que periture essent incipe 
rent nisi justz fuissent,” — words which defy all translation. 

to The text is here uncertain and confused; but, as Harvey re- 
marks, “‘ the argument is this, That if souls are saved gua intellectual 
substance, then all are saved alike; but if by reason of any moral 


ualities, then the bodies that have executed the moral. purposes of 


! a soul, must also be considered to be heirs of salvation. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


403 





immortality? For righteousness will appear, in 
matters of this kind, either impotent or unjust, 
if indeed it saves some substances through par- 
ticipating in it, but not others. 

2. For it is manifest that those acts which 
are deemed righteous are performed in bodies. 
Either, therefore, all souls will of necessity pass 
into the intermediate place, and there will never 
be a judgment; or bodies, too, which have 
participated in righteousness, will attain to the 
place of enjoyment, along with the souls which 
have in like manner participated, if indeed right- 
eousness is powerful enough to bring thither 
those substances which have participated in it. 
And then the. doctrine.concerning..the_resurrec- 

_tion of bodies which we believe, will emerge true 
and certain [from their system] ; since, [as we 
hold,| God, when He resuscitates our mortal 
bodies which preserved righteousness, will render 
them incorruptible and immortal. For God is 
superior to nature, and has in Himself the dis- 
position [to show kindness], because He is good ; 
and the ability to do so, because He is mighty ; 
and the faculty of fully carrying out His purpose, 
because He is rich and perfect. 

3. But these men are in all points inconsistent 
with themselves, when they decide that all souls 
do not enter into the intermediate place, but 
those of the righteous only. For they maintain 
that, according to nature and substance, three 
sorts [of being] were produced by the Mother: 
the first, which proceeded from perplexity, and 
weariness, and fear — that is material substance ; 
the second from impetuosity '— that is animal 
substance; but that which she brought forth 
after the vision of those angels who wait upon 
Christ, is spiritual substance. If, then, that sub- 
stance? which she brought forth will by all 
means enter into the Pleroma because it is 
spiritual, while that which is material will remain 
below because it is material, and shall be totally 
consumed by the fire which burns within it, why 
should not the whole animal substance go into 
the intermediate place, into which also they send 
the Demiurge? But what is it which shall enter 
within their Pleroma? For they maintain that 
souls shall continue in the intermediate place, 
while bodies, because they possess material sub- 
stance, when they have been resolved into mat- 
ter, shall be consumed by that fire which exists 
in it; but their body being thus destroyed, and 
their soul remaining in the intermediate place, 
no part of man will any longer be left to enter 
in within the Pleroma. For the intellect of man 
—his mind, thought, mental intention, and such 
like—is nothing else than his soul; but the 





that these words cor- 


“1 De impetu :” it is enerally supposed i 
4 ~ i but Harvey thinks ¢{ 


respond to éx THs émuarpopis (comp. i. 5, 1), 
épuis preferable (i. 4, 1). we ! 

2 The syntax of this sentence is in utter confusion, but the mean- 
jag is doubtless that given above. 











emotions and operations of the soul itself have 
no substance apart from the soul. What part of 
them, then, will still remain to enter into the 
Pleroma? For they themselves, in as far as 
they are souls, remain in the intermediate place ; 
while, in as far as they are body, they will be 
consumed with the rest of matter. 


CHAP. XXX.— ABSURDITY OF THEIR STYLING THEM- 
SELVES SPIRITUAL, WHILE THE DEMIURGE IS 
DECLARED TO BE ANIMAL. 


1. Such being the state of the case, these in 
fatuated men declare that they rise above the 
Creator (Demiurge) ; and, inasmuch as they 
proclaim themselves superior to that God who 
made and adorned the heavens, and the earth, 
and all things that are in them, and maintain that 
they themselves are spiritual, while they are in fact 
shamefully carnal on account of their so great 
impiety, — affirming that He, who has made His 
angels 3 spirits, and is clothed with light as with 
a garment, and holds the circle + of the earth, as 
it were, in His hand, in whose sight its inhabit: 
ants are counted as grasshoppers, and who is the 
Creator and Lord of all spiritual substance, is of 
an animal nature, — they do beyond doubt and 
verily betray their own madness ; and, as if truly 
struck with thunder, even more than those giants 
who are spoken of in [heathen] fables, theylft 
up their opinions.against.God, inflated by a vain 
presumption and unstable glory, — men for whos 
purgation all the hellebore 5 on earth would not 
suffice, so that they should get rid of their intense 
folly. 

2. The superior person is to be proved by his 
deeds. In what way, then, can they show them- 
selves superior to the Creator (that I too, through 
the necessity of the argument in hand, may come 
down to the level of their impiety, instituting a 
comparison between God and foolish men, and 
by descending to their argument, may often refute 
them by their own doctrines ; but in thus acting 
may God be merciful to me, for I venture on 
these statements, not with the view of compar- 
ing Him to them, but of convicting and over- 
throwing their insane opinions)—they, for whom 
many foolish persons entertain so great an ad- 
miration, as if, forsooth, they could learn from 
them something more precious than the truth it- 
self! That expression of Scripture, ‘‘ Seek, and 
ye shall find,’’ ® they interpret as spoken with this 
view, that they should discover themselves to be 
above the Creator, styling themselves greater and 
better than God, and calling themselvesspiritual, 
but the Creator animal ; and [affirming] that“for 
this reason they rise’ tipwards above God, for that 


EEE 





§ Ps. an 2, 4. 
4 Isa, xl. 12, 22. ; 
5 Irenzeus was evidently familiar with Horace ; comp. Ars Poet. 


300. ee 
6 Matt. vii. 7. 


404 





they enter in within the Pleroma, while He re- 
mains in the intermediate place. Let them, then, 
prove themselves by their deeds superior to the 
Creator; for the superior person ought to be 
proved not by what is said, but by what has a 
real existence. 

3. What work, then, will they point to as hav- 
ing been accomplished through themselves by 
the Saviour, or by their Mother, either greater, 
or more glorious, or more adorned with wisdom, 
than those which have been produced by Him 
who was the disposer of all around us? What 
heavens have they established? what earth have 
they founded? what stars have they called into 
existence? or what lights of heaven have they 
caused to shine? within what circles, moreover, 
have they confined them? or, what rains, or 
frosts, or snows, each suited to the season, and 
to every special climate, have they brought upon 
the earth? And again, in opposition to these, 
what heat or dryness have they set over against 
them? or, what rivers have they made to flow? 
what fountains have they brought forth? with 
what flowers and trees have they adorned this 
sublunary world? or, what multitude of animals 
have they formed, some rational, and others ir- 
rational, but all adorned with beauty? And who 
can enumerate one by one all the remaining 
objects which have been constituted by the power 
of God, and are governed by His wisdom? or 
who can search out the greatness of that God 
who made them? And what can be told of those 
existences which are above heaven, and which 
do not pass away, such as Angels, Archangels, 
Thrones, Dominions, and Powers innumerable? 
Against what one of these works, then, do they 
set themselves in opposition? What have they 
similar to show, as having been made through 
themselves, or by themselves, since even they 
too are the workmanship and creatures of this 
[Creator]? For whether the Saviour or their 
Mother (to use their own expressions, proving 
them false by means of the very terms they them- 
selves employ) used this Being, as they maintain, 
to make an image of those things which are with- 
in the Pleroma, and of all those beings which 
she saw waiting upon the Saviour, she used him 
(the Demiurge) as being [in a sense] superior 
to herself, and better fitted to accomplish her 
purpose through his instrumentality; for she 
would by no means form the images of such 
important beings through means of an inferior, 
but by a superior, agent. 

4. For, [be it observed,] they themselves, 
according to their own declarations, were then 
existing, as a spiritual conception, in consequence 
of the contemplation of those beings who were 
arranged as satellites around Pandora. And 
they indeed continued useless, the Mother ac- 
complishing nothing through their instrumental- 








IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


ity,'—an idle conception, owing their being to 
the Saviour, and fit for nothing, for not a thing 
appears to have been done by them. But the 
God who, according to them, was produced, 
while, as they argue, inferior to themselves (for 
they maintain that he is of an animal nature), 
was nevertheless the active agent in all things, 
efficient, and fit for the work to be done, so that 
by him the images of all things were made ; and 
not only were these things which are seen formed 
by him, but also all things invisible, Angels, 
Archangels, Dominations, Powers, and Virtues, 
— [by him, I say,] as being the superior, and 
capable of ministering to her desire. But it 
seems that the Mother made nothing whatever 
through their instrumentality, as indeed they 
themselves acknowledge ; so that one may justly 
reckon them as having been an abortion pro- 
duced by the painful travail of their Mother. 
For no accoucheurs performed their office upon 
her, and therefore they were cast forth as an 
abortion, useful for nothing, and formed to ac- 
complish no work of the Mother. And yet they 
describe themselves as being superior to Him by 
whom so vast and admirable works have been 
accomplished and arranged, although by their 
own reasoning they are found to be so wretchedly 
inferior ! 

5. It is as if there were two iron tools, or in- 
struments, the one of which was continually 
in the workman’s hands and in constant use, and 
by the use of which he made whatever he pleased, 
and displayed his art and skill, but the other of 
which remained idle and useless, never being 
called into operation, the workman never appear- 
ing to make anything by it, and making no use 
of it in any of his labours; and then one should 
maintain that this useless, and idle, and unem- 
ployed tool was superior in nature and value to 
that which the artisan employed in his work, and 
by means of which he acquired his reputation. 
Such a man, if any such were found, would justly 
be regarded as imbecile, and not in his right 
mind. And so should those be judged of who 
speak of themselves as being spiritual and supe- 
rior, and of the Creator as possessed of an animal 
nature, and maintain that for this reason they 
will ascend on high, and penetrate within the 
Pleroma to their own husbands (for, according 
to their own statements, they are themselves 





feminine), but that God [the Creator] is of an 


inferior nature, and therefore remains in the in- 
termediate place, while all the time they bring 
forward no proofs of these assertions: for the 
better man is shown by his works, and all works 
have been accomplished by the Creator ; but 
they, having nothing worthy of reason to point 
to as having been produced by themselves, are 


t The punctuation is here doubtful. With Massuet and Stiecren 
we expunge “ vel” from the text. 


IRENAEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





labouring under the greatest and most incurable 
madness. 

6. If, however, they labour to maintain that, 
while all material things, such as the heaven, and 
the whole world which exists below it, were in- 
deed formed by the Demiurge, yet all things of 
a more spiritual nature than these, — those, 
namely, which are above the heavens, such as 
Principalities, Powers, Angels, Archangels, Domi- 
nations, Virtues, — were produced by a spiritual 
process of birth (which they declare themselves 
to be), then, in the first place, we prove from 
the authoritative Scriptures’ that all the things 
which have been mentioned, visible and invisible, 
have been made by one God. For these men 
are not more to be depended on than the Scrip- 
tures ; nor ought we to give up the declarations 
of the Lord, Moses, and the rest of the prophets, 
who have proclaimed the truth, and give credit 
to them, who do indeed utter nothing of a sensi- 
ble nature, but rave about untenable opinions. 
And, in the next place, if those things which are 
above the heavens were really made through 
their instrumentality, then let them inform us 
what is the nature of things invisible, recount the 
number of the Angels, and the ranks of the Arch- 
angels, reveal the mysteries of the Thrones, and 
teach us the differences between the Domina- 
tions, Principalities, Powers, and Virtues. But 
they can say nothing respecting them ; therefore 
these beings were not made by them. If, on 
the other hand, these were made by the Creator, 
as was really the case, and are of a spiritual and 
holy character, then it follows that He who 
produced spiritual beings is not Himself of an 
animal nature, and thus their fearful _system_of 
blasphemy is overthrown. 

7. For that there are spiritual creatures in the 
heavens, all the Scriptures loudly proclaim ; and 
Paul expressly testifies that there are spiritual 
things when he declares that he was caught up 
into the third heaven,? and again, that he was 
carried away to paradise, and heard unspeakable 
words which it is not lawful for a man to utter. 
But what did that profit him, either his entrance 
into paradise or his assumption into the third 
heaven, since all these things are still but under 
the power of the Demiurge, if, as some venture 
to maintain, he had already begun 3 to be a spec- 
tator and a hearer of those mysteries which are 
affirmed to be above the Demiurge? For if it is 
true that he was becoming acquainted with that 
order of things which is above the Demiurge, he 
would by no means have remained in the regions 
of the Demiurge, and that so as not ‘even thor- 
oughly to explore even these (for, according to 





I Or, “the Scriptures of the Lord;”” but the words “ dominicis 
scripturis” probably here represent the Greek xvpiwy ypapav, and 
are to Pere’ as above. 

2 2 Cor. xii. 2, 3, 4. 

3 “Inciperet fieri;,” perhaps for “‘ futurus esset,” was to de. 





405 


their manner of speaking, there still lay before 
him four heavens,* if he were to approach the 
Demiurge, and thus behold the whole seven lying 
beneath him) ; but he might have been admit- 
ted, perhaps, into the intermediate place, that is, 
into the presence of the Mother, that he might 
receive instruction from her as to the things 
within the Pleroma. For that inner man which 
was in him, and spoke in him, as they say, though 
invisible, could have attained not only to the third 
heaven, but even as far as the presence of their 
Mother. For if they maintain that they them- 
selves, that is, their [inner] man, at once ascends 
above the Demiurge, and departs to the Mother, 
much more must this have occurred to the 
[inner] man of the apostle; for the Demiurge 
would not have hindered him, being, as they 
assert, himself already subject to the Saviour. 
But if he had tried to hinder him, the effort 
would have gone for nothing. For it is not 
possible that he should prove stronger than 
the providence of the Father, and that when the 
inner man is said to be invisible even to the 
Demiurge.. But since he (Paul) has described 
that assumption of himself up to the third heaven. 
as something great and pre-eminent, it cannot be 
that these men ascend above the seventh heaven, 
for they are certainly not superior to the apostle. 
If they do maintain that they are more excellent 
than he, let them prove themselves so by their 
works, for they have never pretended to any- 
thing like [what he describes as occurring to him- 
self]. And for this reason he added, “Whether 
in the body, or whether out of the body, God 
knoweth,” 5 that the body might neither be 
thought to be a partaker in that vision,° as if it 
could have participated in those things which it 
had seen and heard; nor, again, that any one 
should say that he was not carried higher on 
account of the weight of the body; but it is 
therefore thus far permitted even without the 
body to behold spiritual mysteries which are the 
operations of God, who made the heavens and 
the earth, and formed man, and placed him in 
paradise, so that those should be spectators of 
them who, like the apostle, have reached a high 
degree of perfection in the love of God. 

8. This Being, therefore, also made spiritual 
things, of which, as far as to the third heaven, 
the apostle was made a spectator, and heard un- 


4 “ Quartum ccelum;” there still being, according to their theory 
of seven heavens, a fourth beyond that to which St. Paul had pene- 
trated, 

5 2 Cor. xii. 3, defectively quoted. ? 

6 This is an exceedingly obscure and difficult sentence. Grabe 
and some of the later editors read, “‘uti neque #on corpus,” thus 
making Irenzus affirm that the body dd participate in the vision. 
But Massuet contends strenuously that this is contrary to the author's 
purpose, as wishing to maintain, against a possible exception of the 
Valentinians, that Paul then witnessed sfzrztua/ realities, and by 
omitting this ‘‘non” before ‘‘ corpus,” makes Irenzus deny that the 

ody was a partaker in the vision, The point can only be doubtfully 
decided, but Massuet’s ingenious note inclines us to his side of the 
question. 


406 


speakable words which it is not possible for a 
man to utter, inasmuch as they are spiritual ; and 
He Himself bestows: [gifts] on the worthy as 
inclination prompts Him, for paradise is His ; 
and He is truly the Spirit of God, and not an 
animal Demiurge, otherwise He should never 
have created spiritual things. But if He really 
is of an animal nature, then let them inform us 
by whom spiritual things were made. They have 
no proof which they can give that this was done 
by means of the travail of their Mother, which 
they declare themselves to be. For, not to 
speak of spiritual things, these men cannot cre- 
ate even a fly, or a gnat, or any other small and 
insignificant animal, without observing that law 
by which from the beginning animals have been 
and are naturally produced by God — through 
the deposition of seed in those that are of the 
same species. Nor was anything formed by the 
Mother alone ; [for] they say that this Demiurge 
was produced by her, and that 4e was the Lord 
(the author) of all creation. And they maintain 
that he who is the Creator and Lord of all that 
has been made is of an animal nature, while they 
‘assert that they themselves are spiritual, — they 
who are neither the authors nor lords of any one 
work, not only of those things which are extra- 
neous to them, but not even of their own bodies ! 
Moreover, these men, who call themselves spirit- 
ual, and superior to the Creator, do often suffer 
much bodily pain, sorely against their will. 

9. Justly, therefore, do we convict them of 
having departed far and wide from the truth. 
For if the Saviour formed the things which have 
been made, by means of him (the Demiurge), 
he is proved in that case not to be inferior but 
superior to them, since he is found to have been 
the former even of themselves; for they, too, 
have a place among created things. How, then, 
can it be argued that these men indeed are spirit- 
ual, but that he by whom they were created is of 
an animal nature? Or, again, if (which is in- 
deed the only true supposition, as I have shown 
by numerous arguments of the very clearest na- 
ture) He (the Creator) made all things freely, 
and by His own power, and arranged and finished 
them, and His will is the substance ? of all things, 
then He is discovered to be the one only God 
who created all things, who alone is Omnipotent, 
and who is the only Father founding and form- 
ing all things, visible and invisible, such as may 
be perceived by our senses and such as cannot, 
heavenly and earthly, “by the word of His 
power ;”’3 and He has fitted and arranged all 
things by His wisdom, while He contains all things, 


but He Himself _can_be contained _by.no_one : 





1 “ Prestat dignis: ” here a very ambiguous expression. 

2 That is, as Massuet notes, all things derive not only their exst- 
ence, but their gualities, from His will. Harvey proposes to read 
cones eres of substantia, but the change seems needless, 

eb. i. 3. 











IRENEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


He is the Former, He the Builder, He the Dis- 
coverer, He the Creator, He the Lord of all; 
and there is no one besides Him, or above Him, 
neither has He any mother, as they falsely as- 
cribe to Him ; nor is there a second. God,.as-Mar- 
cion has imagined ; nor is there a Pleroma of 
thirty ASons, which has been shown a vain sup- 
position ; nor is there any such being as Bythus 
or Proarche ; nor are there a series of heavens ; 
nor is there a virginal light,* nor an unnameable 
£on, nor, in fact, any one of those things which 
are madly dreamt of by these, and by all the 
heretics. But there is one only God, the Crea- 
tor — He who is above every Principality, and 
Power, and Dominion, and Virtue : He is Father, 
He is God, He the Founder, He the Maker, He 
the Creator, who made those things by Himself, 
that is, through His Word and His Wisdom — 
heaven and earth, and the seas, and all things that 
are in them: He is just; He is good; He it is 
who formed man, who planted paradise, who 
made the world, who gave rise to the flood, 
who saved Noah; He is the God of Abraham, 
and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the 
God of the living: He it is whom the law pro- 
claims, whom the prophets preach, whom Christ 
reveals, whom the apostles make known to us, 
and in whom the Church believes. He is the 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: through His 
Word, who is His Son, through Him He is re- 
vealed and manifested to all to whom He ¢s 
revealed ; for those [only] know Him to whom 
the Son has revealed Him. But the Son, eter- 
nally co-existing with the Father, from of old, 
yea, from the beginning, always reveals the 
Father to Angels, Archangels, Powers, Virtues, 
and all to whom He wills that God should be 
revealed. 


CHAP. XXXI.—RECAPITULATION AND APPLICATION 
OF THE FOREGOING ARGUMENTS. 


1. Those, then, who are of the school of Val- 
entinus being overthrown, the whole multitude 
of heretics are, in fact, also subverted. For all 
the arguments I have advanced against their Ple- 
roma, and with respect to those things which are 
beyond it, showing how the Father of all is shut 
up and circumscribed by that which is beyond 
Him (if, indeed, there be anything beyond Him), 
and how there is an absolute necessity [on their 
theory] to conceive of many Fathers, and many 
Pleromas, and many creations of worlds, begin- 
ning with one set and ending with another, as 
existing on every side ; and that all [the beings 


[referred to] continue in their own domains, and 


do not curiously intermeddle with others, since, 
indeed, no common interest nor any fellowship 
exists between them ; and that there is no other 


eee 
4 That is, Bardelos: comp. i, 29, 1. 
§ “ Tradunt;” literally, Aand dows. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


407 











God of all, but that that name belongs only to 
the Almighty ;— [all these arguments, I say, | 
will in like manner apply against those who are 
of the school of Marcion, and Simon, and Me- 
nander, or whatever others there may be who, 
like them, cut off that creation with which we 
are connected from the Father. The arguments, 
again, which I have employed against those who 
maintain that the Father of all no doubt contains 
all things, but that the creation to which we be- 
long was not formed by Him, but by a certain 
other power, or by angels having no knowledge 
of the Propator, who is surrounded as a centre 
by the immense extent of the universe, just as 
a stain is by the [surrounding] cloak ; when I 
showed that it is not a probable supposition that 
any other being than the Father of all formed 
that creation to which we belong, — these same 
arguments will apply against the followers of 
Saturninus, Basilides, Carpocrates, and the rest 
of the Gnostics, who express similar opinions. 
Those statements, again, which have been made 
_ with respect to the emanations, and the Zons, 
and the [supposed state of ] degeneracy, and 


_— 


———a 


greater harm than good on those who believe 
them, with respect to the point on which they 
lead them astray. For they can neither confer 
sight on the blind, nor hearing on the deaf, nor 
chase away all sorts of demons — [none, in- 
deed,] except those that are sent into others by 
themselves, if they can even do so much as this. 
Nor can they cure the weak, or the lame, or the 
paralytic, or those who are distressed in any 
other part of the body, as has often been done 
in regard to bodily infirmity. Nor can they 
furnish effective remedies for those external 
accidents which may occur. And so far are they 
from being able to raise the dead, as the Lord 
raised them, and the apostles did by means of 
prayer, and as has been frequently done in the 
brotherhood on account of some necessity — the 
entire Church in that particular locality entreat- 
ing [the boon] with much fasting and prayer, 
the spirit of the dead man has returned, and he 
has been bestowed in answer to the prayers of 
the saints — that they do not even believe this 
can be possibly be done, [and hold] that the 
resurrection from the dead3 is simply an ac- 


the inconstant character of their Mother, equally eure with that truth which they proclaim. _ 


overthrow Basilides, and all who are falsely 
styled Gnostics, who do, in fact, just repeat the 
same views under different names, but do, to a 
greater extent than the former,’ transfer those 
things which lie outside? of the truth to the sys- 
tem of their own doctrine. And the remarks I 
have made respecting numbers will also apply 
against all those who misappropriate things be- 
longing to the truth for the support of a system 
of this kind. And all that has been said respect- 
ing the Creator (Demiurge) to show that he 
alone is God and Father of all, and whatever 
remarks may yet be made in the following books, 
I apply against the heretics at large. The more 
moderate and reasonable among them thou wilt 
convert and convince, so as to lead them no 
longer to blaspheme their Creator, and Maker, 
and Sustainer, and Lord, nor to ascribe His 
origin to defect and ignorance ; but the fierce, 
and terrible, and irrational [among them] thou 
wilt drive far from thee, that you may no longer 
have to endure their idle loquaciousness. 

2. Moreover, those also will be thus confuted 
who belong to Simon and Carpocrates, and if 
there be any others’ who are said“ to perform 
miracles— who do not perform what they do 
either through the power of God, or in connec- 
tion with the truth, nor for the well-being of 
men, but for the sake of destroying and mis- 


leading mankind, by means of magical _decep-. 


tions, and with universal deceit, thus entailing 





1 Qu, though here found in all the Mss., seems to have been 
rightly expunged by the editors. 

2 The reference probably is 
heathen, 





to opinions and theories of the 


“=3-Since, therefore, there exist among them 
error and misleading influences, and magical 
illusions are impiously wrought in the sight of 
men; but in the Church, sympathy, and com- 
passion, and stedfastness, and truth, for the aid 
and encouragement of mankind, are not only 
displayed + without fee or reward, but we our- 
selves lay out for the benefit of others our own 
means ; and inasmuch as those who are cured 
very frequently do not possess the things which 
they require, they receive them from us ;— 
[since such is the case,] these men are in this 
way undoubtedly proved to be utter aliens from 
the divine nature, the beneficence of God, and 
all spiritual excellence. But they are altogether 
full of deceit of every kind, apostate inspiration, 
demoniacal working, and the phantasms of idol- 
atry, and are in reality the predecessors of that 
dragon 5 who, by means of a deception of the 
same kind, will with his tail cause a third part of 
the stars to fall from their place, and will cast 
them down to the earth. It behoves us to flee 
from them as we would from him; and the 
greater the display with which they are said to 
perform [their marvels], the more carefully 
should we watch them, as having been endowed 
with a greater spirit of wickedness. If any one 
will consider the prophecy referred to, and the 
daily practices of these men, he will find that 


3 Comp. 2 Tim, ii..17, 18. [On the sub-apostolic age and this 
subject of miracles, Newman, in spite of his sophistical argumentation, 
may well be consulted for his references, etc. Translation of the 
Abbé Fleury, p. xi. Oxford, 1842.] » ; 5 

4 “ Perficiatur: ” it is difficult here to give a fitting translation of 
this word. Some prefer to read “‘ impertiatur.” 

5 Rev. xii. 14, 


408 


their manner of acting is one and the same with 
the demons. 


CHAP. XXXII. — FURTHER EXPOSURE OF THE WICKED 
AND BLASPHEMOUS DOCTRINES OF THE HERETICS. 


1. Moreover, this impious opinion of theirs 
with respect to actions — namely, that it is in- 
cumbent on them to have experience of all 
kinds of deeds, even the most abominable — is 
refuted by the teaching of the Lord, with whom 
not only is the adulterer rejected, but also the 
man who desires to commit adultery ;' and not 
only is the actual murderer held guilty of having 
killed another to his own damnation, but the 
man also who is angry with his brother without 
a cause: who commanded [His disciples] not 
only not to hate men, but also to love their 
enemies; and enjoined them not only not to 
swear falsely, but not even to swear at all; and 
not only not to speak evil of their neighbours, 
but not even to style any one “Raca” and 
“fool; ” [declaring] that otherwise they were 
in danger of hell-fire ; and not only not to strike, 
but even, when themselves struck, to present the 
other cheek [to those that maltreated them] ; 
and not only not to refuse to give up the prop- 
erty of others, but even if their own were taken 
away, not to demand it back again from those 
that took it; and not only not to injure their 
neighbours, nor to do them any evil, but also, 
when themselves wickedly dealt with, to be 
long-suffering, and to show kindness towards 
those [that injured them], and to pray for them, 
that by means of repentance they might be saved 
—so that we should in no respect imitate the 
arrogance, lust, and pride of others. Since, 
therefore, He whom these men boast of as their 
Master, and of whom they affirm that He had a 
soul greatly better and more highly toned than 
others, did indeed, with much earnestness, com- 
mand certain things to be done as being good 
and excellent, and certain things to be abstained 
from not only in their actual perpetration, but 
even in the thoughts which lead to their per- 
formance, as being wicked, pernicious, and 
abominable, — how then can they escape being 
put to confusion, when they affirm that such a 
Master was more highly toned [in spirit] and 
better than others, and yet manifestly give in- 
struction of a kind utterly opposed to His teach- 
ing? And, again, if there were really no such 
thing as good and evil, but certain things were 
deemed righteous, and certain others unright- 
eous, in human opinion only, He never would 
have expressed Himself thus in His teaching: 
“The righteous shall shine forth as the sun in 
the kingdom of their Father ;”? but He shall 
send the unrighteous, and those who do not 


1 Matt, v. 21, etc, 
? Matt xiii, 43. 








IRENZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


the works of righteousness, “into everlasting fire, 
where their worm shall not die, and the fire shall 
not be quenched.” 3 

2. When they further maintain that it is in- 
cumbent on them to have experience of every 
kind4 of work and conduct, so that, if it be 
possible, accomplishing all during one manifes- 
tation in this life, they may [at once] pass over 
to the state of perfection, they are, by no chance, 
found striving to do those things which wait 
upon virtue, and are laborious, glorious, and 
skilful; which also are approved universally as 
being good. For if it be necessary to go 
through every work and every kind of operation, 
they ought, in the first place, to learn all the 
arts: all of them, [I say,] whether referring to 
theory or practice, whether they be acquired by 
self-denial, or are mastered through means of 
labour, exercise, and perseverance ; as, for ex- 
ample, every kind of music, arithmetic, geom- 
etry, astronomy, and all such as are occupied 
with intellectual pursuits: then, again, the whole 
study of medicine, and the knowledge of plants, 
so as to become acquainted with those which are 
prepared for the health of man; the art of 
painting and sculpture, brass and marble work, 
and the kindred arts: moreover, [they have to 
study] every kind of country labour, the veteri- 
nary art, pastoral occupations, the various kinds 
of skilled labour, which are said to pervade the 
whole circle of [human] exertion ; those, again, 
connected with a maritime life, gymnastic exer- 
cises, hunting, military and kingly pursuits, and 
as many others as may exist, of which, with the 
utmost labour, they could not learn the tenth, 
or even the thousandth part, in the whole course 
of their lives. The fact indeed is, that they 
endeavour to learn none of these, although they 
maintain that it is incumbent on them to have 
experience of every kind of work; but, turning 
aside to voluptuousness, and lust, and abomina- 
ble actions, they stand self-condemned when 
they are tried by their own doctrine. For, since 
they are destitute of all those [virtues] which 
have been mentioned, they will [of necessity] 
pass into the destruction of fire. These men, 
while they boast of Jesus as being their Master, 
do in fact emulate the philosophy of Epicurus 
and the indifference of the Cynics, [calling Jesus 
their Master, ] who not only turned His disciples 
away from evil deeds, but even from [wicked] 
words and thoughts, as I have already shown. 

3. Again, while they assert that they possess 
souls from the same sphere as Jesus, and that 
they are like to Him, sometimes even maintain- 
ing that they are superior; while [they affirm 
that they were] produced, like Him, for the 


3 Matt. xxv. 41; Mark ix. 44. 
4 Comp, i. 25, 4. : 
5“ Artificiaha,” 


IRENASUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


409 





performance of works tending to the benefit and 
establishment of mankind, they are found doing 
nothing of the same or a like kind [with His 
actions], nor what can in any respect be brought 
into comparison with them. And if they have 
in truth accomplished anything [remarkable] by 
means of(magic, they strive [in this way] deceit- 
fully to lead-foolish people astray, since they 
confer no real benefit or blessing on those over 
whom they declare that they exert] supernat- 
ural] power ; but, bringing forward mere boys' 
[as the subjects on whom they practise], and 
deceiving their sight, while they exhibit phan- 
tasms that instantly cease, and do not endure 
even a moment of time,” they are proved to be 
like, not Jesus our Lord, but Simon the! magi- 
cian. It is certain,3 too, from the fact that the 
Lord rose from the dead on the third day, and 
manifested Himself to His disciples, and was in 
their sight received up into heaven, that, inas- 
much as these men die, and do not rise again, 
nor manifest themselves to any, they are proved 
as possessing souls in no respect similar to that 
of Jesus. 

4. If, however, they maintain that the Lord, 
too, performed such works simply in appearance, 
we shall refer them to the prophetical writings, 
and prove from these both that all things were 
thus‘ predicted regarding Him, and did take 
place undoubtedly, and that He is the only Son 
of God. herefore, also, those who are in truth 
His disciples, receiving grace from Him, do in 
His name perform [miracles], so as to promote 
the welfare of other men, according to the gift 
which each one has received from Him. For 
some do certainly and truly drive out devils, so 
that those who have thus been cleansed from 
evil spirits frequently both believe [in Christ ], 
and join themselves to the Church. Others 
have foreknowledge of things to come: they see 
visions, and utter prophetic expressions. Others 
still, heal the sick by laying their hands upon 
them, and they are made whole. Yea, more- 
over, as I have said, the dead even have been 
raised up, and remained 5 among us for many 
years. And what shall I more say? It is not 
possible to name the number of the gifts which 
the Church, [scattered] throughout the whole 
world, has received from God, in the name of 


ee ee ee eee 


1 “ Pureos investes,” boys that have not yet reached the age of 


uiberty. ’ , 
F 2 The text has ‘‘stillicidio temporis,” literally “a drop of time 

orayuf xpovov) ; but the original text was perhaps oTlyHi} XPOvev, 
( a Lalit Oo! time.” With either reading the meaning is the 
same. : ; 

3 Some have deemed the words “‘ firmum esse ” ‘an interpolation. 
4 That is, as being done 7% reality, and not in appearance. : 
$s Harvey here notes: “ The reader will not fail to remark this 

highly interesting testimony, that. the divine Xapicuaro. bestowed 

upon the infant Church were not wholly extinct in the days of Irenzeus. 

Possibly the venerable Father is speaking from his own personal recol- 

lection of some who had been raised from the dead, and had continued 

for a time living witnesses of the efficacy of Christian faith.” [See 
cap. xxxi., supra.) 











Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius 
Pilate, and which she exerts day by day for the 
benefit of the Gentiles, neither practising decep- 
tion upon any, nor taking any reward® from 
them [on account of such miraculous interposi- 
tions]. For as she has received freely? from 
God, freely also does she minister [to others]. 

5. Nor does she perform anything by means 
of angelic invocations,® or by incantations, or by 
any other wicked curious art; but, directing 
her prayers to the Lord, who made all things, 
in a pure, sincere, and straightforward spirit, 
and calling upon the name of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, she has been accustomed to work? mira- 
cles for the advantage of mankind, and not to 
lead them into error. If, therefore, the name of 
our Lord Jesus Christ even now confers benefits 
[upon men], and cures thoroughly and effect- 
ively all who anywhere believe on Him, but not 
that of Simon, or Menander, or Carpocrates, or 
of any other man whatever, it is manifest that, 
when He was made man, He held fellowship 
with His own creation, and ?° did all things truly 
through the power of God, according to the will 
of the Father of all, as the prophets had foretold. 
But what these things were, shall be described 
in dealing with the proofs to be found in the 
prophetical writings. 


CHAP. XXXIII.— ABSURDITY OF THE DOCTRINE OF 
THE TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS. 


1. We may subvert their doctrine as to trans- 
migration from body to body by this fact, that 
souls remember nothing whatever of the events 
which took place in their previous states of 
existence. For if they were sent forth with 
this object, that they should have experience of 
every kind of action, they must of necessity re- 
tain a remembrance of those things which have 
been previously accomplished, that they might 
fill up those in which they were still deficient, 
and not by always hovering, without intermis- 
sion, round the same pursuits, spend their labour 
wretchedly in vain (for the mere union of a 
body [with a soul] could not altogether extin- 
guish the memory and contemplation of those 
things which had formerly been experienced ''), 
and especially as they came [into the world | for 
this very purpose. For as, when the body is 
asleep and at rest, whatever things the soul sees 
by herself, and does in a vision, recollecting 


a ee 

6 Comp. Acts viii, 9, 18. 

7 Matt. x. 8. ~ ; : 

8 Grabe contends that these words imply that no invocations of 
angels, good or bad, were practised in the primitive Church. Mas- 
suet, on the other hand, maintains that the words of Irenzus are 
plainly to be restricted to evil spirits, and have no bearing on the 
general question of angelic invocation. : 

9 We follow the common reading, “‘ perfecit; ” but one Ms. has 
“ perficit,” works, which suits the context better, ; 

10 We insert ‘‘et,” in accordance with Grabe’s suggestion, 

11 Harvey thinks that this parenthesis has fallen out of its proper 
place, and would insert it immediately after the opening period of the 
chapter. 


410 





many of these, she also communicates them to 
the body; and as it happens that, when one 
awakes, perhaps after a long time, he relates 
what he saw in a dream, so also would he un- 
doubtedly remember those things which he did 
before he came into this particular body. For 
if that which is seen only for a very brief space 
of time, or has been conceived of simply in a 
phantasm, and by the soul alone, through means 
of a dream, is remembered after she has mingled 
again with the body, and been dispersed through 
all the members, much more would she remem- 
ber those things in connection with which she 
stayed during so long a time, even throughout 
the whole period of a bypast life. 

2. With reference to these objections, Plato, 
that ancient Athenian, who also was the first‘ to 
introduce this opinion, when he could not set 
them aside, invented the [notion of] a cup of 
oblivion, imagining that in this way he would 
escape this sort of difficulty. He attempted no 
kind of proof [of his supposition], but simply 
replied dogmatically [to the objection in ques- 
tion], that when souls enter into this life, they 
are caused to drink of oblivion by that demon 
who watches their entrance [into the world], 
before they effect an entrance into the bodies 
[assigned them]. It escaped him, that [by 
speaking thus] he fell into another greater per- 
plexity. For if the cup of oblivion, after it has 
been drunk, can obliterate the memory of all 
the deeds that have been done, how, O Plato, 
dost thou obtain the knowledge of this fact 
(since thy soul is now in the body), that, before 
it entered into the body, it was made to drink 
by the demon a drug which caused oblivion? 
For if thou hast a remembrance of the demon, 
and the cup, and the entrance [into life], thou 
oughtest also to be acquainted with other things ; 
but if, on the other hand, thou art ignorant of 
them, then there is no truth in the story of the 
demon, nor in the cup of oblivion prepared with 
art. 

3. In opposition, again, to those who affirm 
that the body itself is the drug of oblivion, this 
observation may be made: How, then, does it 
come to pass, that whatsoever the soul sees by 
her own instrumentality, both in dreams and by 
reflection or earnest mental exertion, while the 
body is passive, she remembers, and reports to 
her neighbours? But, again, if the body itself 
were [the cause of] oblivion, then the soul, as 
existing in the body, could not remember even 
those things which were perceived long ago 
either by means of the eyes or the ears ; but, as 
soon as the eye was turned from the things 





t It is a mistake of Irenzeus to say that the doctrine of metempsy- 
chosis originated with Plato: it was first publicly taught by Pythago- 
ras, who learned it from the Egyptians, mp. Clem, Alex., Siren. j 
4, 15: Herodot., ii. 123. 


© 








IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


looked at, the memory of them also would un- 
doubtedly be destroyed. For the soul, as exist- 
ing in the very [cause of ] oblivion, could have 
no knowledge of anything else than that only 
which it saw at the present moment. How, too, 
could it become acquainted with divine things, 
and retain a remembrance of them while existing 
in the body, since, as they maintain, the body 
itself is [the cause of] oblivion? But the 
prophets also, when they were upon the earth, 
remembered likewise, on their returning to their 
ordinary state of mind,? whatever things they 
spiritually saw or heard in visions of heavenly 
objects, and related them to others. The body, 
therefore, does not cause the soul to forget 
those things which have been spiritually wit- 
nessed; but the soul teaches the body, and 
shares with it the spiritual vision which it has 
enjoyed. 

4. For the body is not possessed of greater 
power than the soul, since indeed the former is 
inspired, and vivified, and increased, and held 
together by the latter; but the soul possesses 3 
and rules over the body. It is doubtless retarded 
in its velocity, just in the exact proportion in 
which the body shares in its motion; but it 
never loses the knowledge which properly belongs 
to it. For the body may be compared to an in- 
strument ; but the soul is possessed of the reason 
of an artist. As, therefore, the artist finds the 
idea of a work to spring up rapidly in his mind, 
but can only carry it out slowly by means of an in- 
strument, owing to the want of perfect pliability 
in the matter acted upon, and thus the rapidity 
of his mental operation, being blended with the 
slow action of the instrument, gives rise to a 
moderate kind of movement [towards the end 
contemplated] ; so also the soul, by being mixed 
up with the body belonging to it, is in a certain 
measure impeded, its rapidity being blended with 
the body’s slowness. Yet it does not lose alto- 
gether its own peculiar powers ; but while, as it 
were, sharing life with the body, it does not itself 
cease to live. Thus, too, while communicating 
other things to the body, it neither loses the 
knowledge of them, nor the memory of those 
things which have been witnessed. 

5. If, therefore, the soul remembers nothing 4 
of what took place in a former state of existence, 
but has a perception of those things which are 
here, it follows that she never existed in other 
bodies, nor did things of which she has no knowl- 
edge, nor [once] knew things which she can- 
not [now mentally] contemplate. But, as each 
one of us receives his body through the skilful 





2 “(Tn hominem conversi,” literally, “‘ returning into man.” 
-s 3 “ Possidet.” Massuet suppses this word to represent xvpcever, 
rules over,” and Stieren xparvyver, governs ; while Harvey thinks 
the whole clause corresponds to'xparet kai xuptever ToD cweparow 
which we have rendered as above; 
4 Literally, none of things pst. 


TRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





Atl 





working of God, so does he also possess his soul. 
For God is not so poor or destitute in resources, 
that He cannot confer its own proper soul on 
each individual body, even as He gives it also its 
special character. And therefore, when the num- 
ber [fixed upon] is completed, [that number] 
which He had predetermined in His own counsel, 
all those who have been enrolled for life [eternal ] 
shall rise again, i i ies, and 
having also their own souls, and their own spirits, 
in which they had pleased God. Those, on the 
other hand, who are worthy of punishment, shall 
go away into it, they too having their own souls, 
and their own bodies, in which they stood apart 


from the grace of God. Both classes shall. 


then cease from any longer begetting and being 
begotten, from marrying and being given in mar- 
riage ; so that the number of mankind, corre- 
sponding to the fore-ordination of God, being 
completed, may fully realize the scheme formed 
by the Father." 


CHAP. XXXIV. — SOULS CAN BE RECOGNISED IN THE 
SEPARATE STATE, AND ARE IMMORTAL ALTHOUGH 
THEY ONCE HAD A BEGINNING. 


1. The Lord has taught with very great ful- 
ness, that souls not only continue to exist, not 
by passing from body to body, but that they 
preserve the same form ? [in their separate state ] 
as the body had to which they were adapted, and 
that they remember the deeds which they did in 
this state of existence, and from which they have 
now ceased, — in that narrative which is recorded 
respecting the rich man and. that Lazarus who 
found repose in the bosom of Abraham. In 
this account He states3 that Dives knew Lazarus 
after death, and Abraham in like manner, and 
that each one of these persons continued in his 
own proper position, and that [Dives] requested 
Lazarus to be sent to relieve him— [Lazarus], 
on whom he did not [formerly] bestow even the 
crumbs [which fell] from his table. [He tells 
us] also of the answer given by Abraham, who 
was acquainted not only with what respected 
himself, but Dives also, and who enjoined those 
who did not wish to come into that place of tor- 
ment to believe Moses and the prophets, and to 
receive + the preaching of Him who was > to rise 
again from the dead. By these things, then, it 
is plainly declared that souls continue to exist, 





I The Latin text is here very confused, but the Greek original of 
the greater part of this section has happily been preserved. [This 
Father here anticipates in outline many ideas which St. Augustine 
afterwards corrected and elaborated. ] : i : 

2 Grabe refers to Tertullian, De Anima, ch, vii., as making a 
similiar statement. Massuet, on the other hand, denies that Irenzeus 
here expresses an opinion like that of Tertullian in the passage re- 
ferred to, and thinks that the special form (character) mentioned is 
to be understood as simply denoting individual sfzrztual properties. 
But his remarks are not satisfactory. 

3 Luke xvi. 19, etc. 

4 With Massuet and Stieren, we here supply esse. 

5 Some read resurgeret, and others resurrexerit ; 
ferincs reading preferable. 


we deem the 











that they do not pass from body to body, that 
they possess the form of a man, so that they may 
be recognised, and retain the memory of things 
in this world ; moreover, that the gift of prophecy 
was possessed by Abraham, and that each class 
[of souls] receives a habitation such as it has 
deserved, even before the judgment. 

2. But if any persons at this point maintain 
that those souls, which only began a little while 
ago to exist, cannot endure for any length of 
time ; but that they must, on the one hand, either 
be unborn, in order that they may be immortal, 
or if they have had a beginning in the way of 
generation, that they should die with the body it- 
self — let them learn that God alone, who is Lord 
of all, is without beginning and without end, being 
truly and for ever the same, and always remain- 
ing the same unchangeable Being. But all things 
which proceed from Him, whatsoever have been 
made, and are made, do indeed receive their own 
beginning of generation, and on this account are 
inferior to Him who formed them, inasmuch as 
they are not unbegotten. Nevertheless they en- 
dure, and extend their existence into a long series 
of ages in accordance with the will of God their 
Creator ; so that He grants them that they should 
be thus formed at the beginning, and that they 
should so exist afterwards. 

3. For as the heaven which is above us, the 
firmament, the sun, the moon, the rest of the 
stars, and all their grandeur, although they had no 
previous existence, were called into being, and 
continue throughout a long course of time ac- 
cording to the will of God, so also any one who 
thinks thus respecting souls and spirits, and, in 
fact, respecting all created things, will not by any 
means go far astray, inasmuch as all things that 
have been made had a beginning when they were 
formed, but endure as long as God wills that 
they should have an existence and continuance. 
The prophetic Spirit bears testimony to these 
opinions, when He declares, “ For He spake, and 
they were made ; He commanded, and they were 
created: He hath established them for ever, yea, 
for ever and ever.” ® And again, He thus speaks 
respecting the salvation of man: “ He asked life 
of Thee, and Thou gavest him length of days for 
ever and ever ;”’7 indicating that it is the Father 
of all who imparts continuance for ever and ever 
on those who are saved. For life does not arise 
from us, nor from our own nature ; but it is be- 
stowed according to the grace of God. And 
therefore he who shall preserve the life bestowed 
upon him, and give thanks to Him who imparted 
it, shall receive also length of days for ever and 
ever. But he who shall reject it, and prove him- 
self ungrateful to his Maker, inasmuch as he has 
been created, and has not recognised Him who 
et ee an, ek 


6 Ps, cxlviii. 5, 6. 
7 Ps, xxi. 4. 


Ar2 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





bestowed [the gift upon him], deprives himself 
of [the privilege of] continuance for ever and 
ever. And, for this reason, the Lord declared to 
those who showed themselves ungrateful towards 
Him: “ If ye have not been faithful in that which 
is little, who will give you that which is great?” ? 
indicating that those who, in this brief temporal 
life, have shown themselves ungrateful to Him 
who bestowed it, shall justly not receive from 
Him length of days for ever and ever. 

4. But as the animal body is certainly not 
itself the soul, yet has fellowship with the soul 
as long as God pleases; so the soul herself is 
not life,3 but partakes in that life bestowed upon 
her by God. Wherefore also the prophetic word 
declares of the first-formed man, “‘ He became a 
living soul,” 4 teaching us that by the participation 
of life the soul became alive; so that the soul, 
and the life which it possesses, must be under- 
stood as being separate existences. When God 
therefore bestows life and perpetual duration, it 
comes to pass that even souls which did not pre- 
viously exist should henceforth endure [for ever], 
since God has both willed that they should exist, 
and should continue in existence. For the will 
of God ought to govern and rule in all things, 
while all other things give way to Him, are in 
subjection, and devoted to His service. Thus 
far, then, let me speak concerning the creation 
and the continued duration of the soul. 


CHAP. XXXV.— REFUTATION OF BASILIDES, AND 
OF THE OPINION THAT THE PROPHETS UTTERED 
THEIR PREDICTIONS UNDER THE INSPIRATION OF 
DIFFERENT GODS. 


1. Moreover, in addition to what has been 
said, Basilides himself will, according to his own 
principles, find it necessary to maintain not 
only that there are three hundred and sixty-five 
heavens made in succession by one another, but 
that an immense and innumerable multitude of 
heavens have always been in the process of being 
made, and are being made, and will continue to 
be made, so that the formation of heavens of 
this kind can never cease. For if from the efflux 
of the first heaven the second was made after its 
likeness, and the third after the likeness of the 
second, and so on with all the remaining subse- 
quent ones, then it follows, as a matter of neces- 
sity, that from the efflux of our heaven, which 
he indeed terms the last, another be formed like 
to it, and from that again a third ; and thus there 
can never cease, either the process of efflux from 





T As Massuet observes, this statement is to be understood in har- 
mony with the repeated assertion of Irenzeus that the wicked will 
exist in misery for ever. It refers not to annihilation, but to depriva- 
tion of happiness. 

7 Luke xvi. rr, quoted loosely from memory. Grabe, however, 
pis ey are cited from the apocryphal Gospel according to the 
gyptians. 

3 Comp, Justin Martyr, Dial. c. Tryph., ch. vi. 

4 Gen. ii. 7. 


§ Bx defluxu, corresponding to é¢ amoppocas in the Greek, 


signify “ that which contains all.” 


those heavens which have been already made, 
or the manufacture of [new] heavens, but the 
operation must go on ad infinitum, and give rise 
to a number of heavens which will be altogether 
indefinite. 

2. The remainder of those who are falsely 
termed Gnostics, and who maintain that the 
prophets uttered their prophecies’ under the 
inspiration of different gods, will be easily over- 
thrown by this fact, that all the prophets pro- 
claimed one God and Lord, and that the very 
Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things 
which are therein; while they moreover an- 
nounced the advent of His Son, as I shall dem- 
onstrate from the Scriptures themselves, in the 
books which follow. 

3. If, however, any object that, in the Hebrew 
language, diverse expressions [to represent God] 
occur in the Scriptures, such as Sabaoth, Eloe, 
Adonai, and all other such terms, striving to 
prove from these that there are different powers 
and gods, let them learn that all expressions of 
this kind are but announcements and appella- 
tions of one and the same Being. For the term 
£loé in the Jewish language denotes God, while 
Eloeim® and Eloeuth in the Hebrew language 
As to the 
appellation Adonai, sometimes it denotes what 
is nameable? and admirable; but at other times, 
when the letter Dade¢h in it is doubled, and the 
word receives an initial® guttural sound — thus 
Addonai — [it signifies], “One who bounds and 
separates the land from the water,” so that the 
water should not subsequently? submerge the 
land. In like manner also, Sadaoth,'? when it 
is spelled by a Greek Omega in the last syllable 
[Sabaoth], denotes “a@ voluntary agent;” but 
when it is spelled with a Greek Omicron — as, 
for instance, Sabadth — it expresses “ the first 
heaven.” In the same way, too, the word /Jaoth,™ 
when the last syllable is made long and aspirated, 





6 Elog here occurs in the Latin text, but Harvey supposes that the 
Greek had been "EAweiu. He also remarks that Eloeuth (nindx) 


is the rabbinical abstract term, Godhead. 
7 All that can be remarked on this is, that the Jews substituted 


the term Adonat C278) for the name ¥ehovakh, as often as the 


latter occurred in the sacred text. The former might therefore be 
styled xameadle. 

8 The Latin text is, “ aliquando autem duplicata litera delta cum 
aspiratione,” and Harvey supposes that the doubling of the Daleth 
would give “‘to the scarcely articulate & a more decidedly guttural 
character; ” but the sense is extremely doubtful. 

9 Instead of ‘‘ nec posteaquam insurgere,” Feuardent and Massuet 
read “ne possit insurgere,” and include the clause in the definition 
of Addonaz. 

10 The author is here utterly mistaken, and, notwithstanding Har- 
vey’s earnest claim for him of a knowledge of Hebrew, seems clearly 
to betray his ignorance of that language. The term Sadaoth is never 
written with an Omicron, either in the LXX. or by the Greek Fathers, 
but always with an Omega (Zafawé), Although Harvey remarks 
in his preface, that “ it is focal the Hebrew attainments of Irenzus 
will no longer be denied,” there appears enough, in the etymologies 
and explanations of Hebrew terms given in this chapter by the 
venerable Father, to prevent such a conclusion; and Massuet’s obser- 
vation on the passage seems not improbable, when he says, ‘‘ Sciolus 
quispiam Irenzo nostro, in Hebraicis haud satis perito, hic fucum 
ecisse videtur.” 


11 Probably corresponding to the Hebrew term ¥ehovak (iN). 
ve 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


413 





denotes “a predetermined measure ;” but when 
it is written shortly by the Greek letter Omicron, 
namely /ad¢h, it signifies “one who puts evils to 


flight.” All the other expressions likewise bring 
out! the title of one and the same Being ; as, for 
example (in English ?), Zhe Lord of Powers, The 
Father of all, God Almighty, The Most High, 
The Creator, The Maker, and such like. These 
are not the names and titles of a succession of 
different beings, but of one and the same, by 
means of which the one God and Father is re- 
vealed, He who contains all things, and grants 
to all the boon of existence. 

4. Now, that the preaching of the apostles, 
the authoritative teaching of the Lord, the an- 
nouncements of the prophets, the dictated utter- 
ances of the apostles,3 and the ministration of 
the law —all of which praise one and the same 
Being, the God and Father of all, and not many 
diverse beings, nor one deriving his substance 
from different gods or powers, but [declare] that 
all things [were formed] by one and the same 
Father (who nevertheless adapts [His works] to 





I Literally, “‘ belong to one and the same name.” 

2 “Secundum Latinitatem” in the text. 

3 The words are “‘apostolorum dictatio,” probably peat 3 to 
the Jetfers of the apostles, as distinguished from their preaching 
already mentioned. 


the natures and tendencies of the materials dealt 
with), things visible and invisible, and, in short, 
all things that have been made [were created] 
neither by angels, nor by any other power, but 
by God alone, the Father —are all in harmony 
with our statements, has, I think, been sufficiently 
proved, while by these weighty arguments it has 
been shown that there is but one God, the Maker 
of all things. But that I may not be thought to 
avoid that series of proofs which may be derived 
from the Scriptures of the Lord (since, indeed, 
these Scriptures do much more evidently and 
clearly proclaim this very point), I shall, for the 
benefit of those at least who do not bring a de- 
praved mind to bear upon them, devote a special 
book to the Scriptures referred to, which shall 
fairly follow them out [and explain them], and I 
shall plainly set forth from these divine Scriptures 
proofs to [satisfy] all the lovers of truth.‘ 





4 This last sentence is very confused and ambiguous, and the 
editors throw but little light upon it. We have endeavoured to trans- 
late it according to the ordinary text and punctuation, but strongly 
suspect interpolation and corruption. If we might venture to strike 
out “has Scripturas,” and connect “his tamen” with “ przedicanti- 
bus,” a better sense would be yielded, as follows: ‘“ But that I may not 
be thought to avoid that series of proofs which may be derived from 
the Scriptures of the Lord (since, indeed, these Scriptures do much 
more evidently and clearly set forth this very point, to those at least 
who do not bring a depraved mind to their consideration), I shall 
devete the particular book which follows to them, and shall,” etc. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


BOOK. III. 





PREFACE. 


Tuou hast indeed enjoined upon me, my very 
dear friend, that I should bring to light the 
Valentinian doctrines, concealed, as their vota- 
ries imagine ; that I should exhibit their diversity, 
and compose a treatise in refutation of them. I 
therefore have undertaken — showing that they 
spring from Simon, the father of all heretics — 
to exhibit both their doctrines and successions, 
and to set forth arguments against them all. 
Wherefore, since the conviction of these men 
and their exposure is in many points but one 
work, I have sent unto thee [certain] books, of 
which the first comprises the opinions of all these 
men, and exhibits their customs, and the char- 
acter of their behaviour. In the second, again, 
their perverse teachings are cast down and over- 
thrown, and, such as they really are, laid bare 
and open to view. But in this, the third book, 
I shall adduce proofs from the Scriptures, so 
that I may come behind in nothing of what thou 
hast enjoined ; yea, that over and above what 
thou didst reckon upon, thou mayest receive 
from me the means of combating and vanquish- 
ing those who, in whatever manner, are propa- 
gating falsehood. For the love of God, being 
rich and ungrudging, confers upon the suppliant 
more than he can ask from it. Call to mind, 
then, the things which I have stated in the two 
preceding books, and, taking these in connection 
with them, thou shalt have from me a very copi- 
ous refutation of all the heretics ; and faithfully 
and strenuously shalt thou resist them in defence 
of the only true and life-giving faith, which the 
Church has received from the apostles and im- 


parted to her sons. For the Lord of all gave 
to His apostles the power of the Gospel, through 
whom also we have known the truth, that is, the 
doctrine of the Son of God; to whom also did 
the Lord declare : “He that heareth you, heareth 
Me ; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me, 
and Him that sent Me.”? 


1 Luke x. 16. 
414 


CHAP. I.—THE APOSTLES DID NOT COMMENCE TO 
PREACH THE GOSPEL, OR TO PLACE ANYTHING 
ON RECORD, UNTIL THEY WERE ENDOWED WITH 
THE GIFTS AND POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
THEY PREACHED ONE GOD ALONE, MAKER OF 
HEAVEN AND EARTH. 


1. WE have learned from none others the plan 
of our salvation, than from those through whom 
the Gospel has come down to us, which they did 
at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later 
period, by the will of God, handed down to us 
in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of 
our faith.2_ For it is unlawful to assert that they 
preached before they possessed “ perfect knowl- 
edge,” as some do even venture to say, boasting 
themselves as improvers of the apostles. For 
after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles} 
were invested with power from on high when the 
Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled 
from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge : 
they departed to the ends of the earth, preach- 
ing the glad tidings of the good things [sent] 
from God to us, and proclaiming the peace of 
heaven to men, who indeed do all equally and 
individually possess the Gospel of God. "Mat- 
thew also issued a written Gospel among the 
Hebrews3 in their own dialect, while Peter and 
Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the 
foundations of the Church. After their depart- 
ure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, 
did also hand down to us in writing what had 
been preached by Peter. Luke also, the com- 
panion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel 
preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple 
of the Lord, who also had leaned upon “His 
breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his 
residence at Ephesus in Asia. 

2. These have all declared to us that there is 
one God, Creator of heaven and earth, announced 


2 See x Tim. iii. 15, where these terms are used in reference to 
the Church. 


3 On this and similar statements in the Fathers, the reader may 
consult Dr. Roberts's Discussions on the Gospels, in which they are 
fully criticised, and the Greek original of St. Matthew’s Gospel main- 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 415 










































by the law and the prophets ; and one Christ, 
the Son of God. If any one do not agree to 
these truths, he despises the companions of the 
Lord; nay more, he despises Christ Himself 
the Lord ; yea, he despises the Father also, and 
stands self-condemned, resisting and opposing 
his own salvation, as is the case with all heretics. 


fluence of error to repent, yet, on the other hand, 
it is not altogether impossible to escape from 
error when the truth is brought alongside it. 


CHAP. III. — A REFUTATION OF THE HERETICS, FROM 
THE FACT THAT, IN THE VARIOUS CHURCHES, A 
PERPETUAL SUCCESSION OF BISHOPS WAS KEPT 
UP. 


1. It is within the power of all, therefore, in 
every Church, who may wish to see the truth, 
to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apos- 
tles manifested throughout the whole world ; 
and we are in a position to reckon up those who 
were by the apostles instituted bishops in the 
Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession 
of these men to our own times; those who 
neither taught nor knew of anything like what 
these [heretics] rave about. For if the apostles 
had known hidden mysteries, which they were in 
the habit of imparting to “the perfect” apart and 
privily from the rest, they would have delivered 
them especially to those to whom they were also 
committing the Churches themselves. For they 
were desirous that these men should be very per- 
fect and blameless in all things, whom also they 
were leaving behind as their successors, delivering 
up their own place of government to these men ; 
which men, if they discharged their functions 
honestly, would be a great boon [to the Church], 
but if they should fall away, the direst calamity. 

2. Since, however, it would be very tedious, 
in such a volume as this, to reckon up the suc- 
cessions of all the Churches, we do put to con- 
fusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether 
by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blind- 
ness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthor- 
ized meetings ; [we do this, I say, ] by indicating 
that tradition derived from the apostles, of the 
very great, the very ancient, and universally 
known Church founded and organized at Rome 
by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and 
Paul ; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached 
to men, which comes down to our time by means 
of the successions of the bishops. For it is a 
matter of necessity that every Church should 
agree with this Church, on account of its pre- 
eminent authority,’ that is, the faithful every- 


CHAP. II.— THE HERETICS FOLLOW NEITHER 
SCRIPTURE NOR TRADITION. 


1. When, however, they are confuted from the 
Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these 
same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor 
of authority, and [assert] that they are ambigu- 
ous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from 
them by those who are ignorant of tradition. 
For [they allege] that the truth was not delivered 
by means of written documents, but wvd voce: 
wherefore also Paul declared, “ But we speak 
wisdom among those that are perfect, but not 
the wisdom of this world.”* And this wisdom 
each one of them alleges to be the fiction of his 
own inventing, forsooth; so that, according to 
their idea, the truth properly resides at one time 
in Valentinus, at another in Marcion, at another 
in Cerinthus, then afterwards in Basilides, or has 
even been indifferently in any other opponent,” 
who could speak nothing pertaining to salvation. 
For every one of these men, being altogether 
of a perverse disposition, depraving the system of 
truth, is not ashamed to preach himself. 

2. But, again, when we refer them to that tra- 
dition which originates from the apostles, [and] 
which is preserved by means of the successions 
of presbyters in the Churches, they object to 
tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser 
not merely than the presbyters, but even than 
the apostles, because they have discovered the 
unadulterated truth. For [they maintain] that 
the apostles intermingled the things of the law 
with the words of the Saviour ; and that not the 
apostles alone, but even the Lord Himself, spoke 
as at one time from the Demiurge, at another 
from the intermediate place, and yet again from 
the Pleroma, but that they themselves, indubi- 
tably, unsulliedly, and purely, have knowledge of 
the hidden mystery : this is, indeed, to blaspheme 
their Creator after a most impudent manner! 
It comes to this, therefore, that these men do 
now consent neither to Scripture nor to tradition. 

3. Such are the adversaries with whom we have 
to deal, my very dear ‘friend, endeavouring like 
slippery serpents to escape at all points. Where- 
fore they must be opposed at all points, if per- 
chance, by cutting off their retreat, we may succeed 
in turning them back to the truth. For, though 
it is not an easy thing for a soul under the in- 
(eee I Se 


1 x Cor. ii. 6. svete + WA - 
2 This is Harvey's rendering of the old Latin, is slo gut contra 


disputat. 


3 The Latin text of this difficult but important clause is, “‘ Ad 
hanc enim ecclesiam propter potiorem principalitatem necesse est 
omnem convenire ecclesiam.” Both the text and meaning have here 
given rise to much discussion. It is impossible to say with certainty 
of what words in the Greek original “ potiorem principalitatem ” may 
be the translation. We are far from sure that the rendering given 
above is correct, but we have been unable to think of anything better. 
[A most extraordinary confession. It would be hard to find a worse; 

ut take the following from a candid Roman Catholic, which is better 
and more literal: ‘For to this Church, on account of more potent 
principality, it is necessary that eve! Church (that is, those who are 
on every side faithful) xesor¢ ; in w ich Church ever, by those who 
are on every side, has been preserved that tradition which is from 
the apostles.” (Berington and Kirk, vol. i. p. 252.) Here it is ob- 
vious that (the vent olor kept_at_ Rome, by those who resort there 
from all quarter She was a mirror of the Catholic World, owing 
her orthodoxy to them; not the, Sun, dispensin; her own light to 
others, but the glass bringing their rays into a focus. See note at 
end of book iii.) A discussion of the subject ma, be seen in chap. xii. 
ef Dr. Wordsworth’s St. Hippolytus and the Church of Rome, 


416 


where, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has 
been preserved continuously by those [faithful 
men] who exist everywhere. 

3. The blessed apostles, then, having founded 
and built up the Church, committed into the 
hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of 
this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles 
to Timothy. To him succeeded Anacletus ; and 
after him, in the third place from the apostles, 
Clement was allotted the bishopric. This man, 
as he had seen the blessed apostles, and had 
been conversant with them, might be said to 
have the preaching of the apostles still echoing 
[in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes. 
Nor was he alone [in this], for there were many 
still remaining who had received instructions 
from the apostles. In the time of this Clement, 
no small dissension having occurred among the 
brethren at Corinth, the Church in Rome de- 
spatcheda most powerful letter to the Corinthians, 
exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith, 
and declaring the tradition which it had lately 
received from the apostles, proclaiming the one 
God, omnipotent, the Maker of heaven and earth, 
the Creator of man, who brought on the deluge, 
and called Abraham, who led the people from 
the land of Egypi, spake with Moses, set forth 
the law, sent the prophets, and who has prepared 
fire for the devil and his angels. From this 
document, whosoever chooses to do so, may 
learn that He, the Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, was preached by the Churches, and may 
also understand the apostolical tradition of the 
Church, since this Epistle is of older date than 
these men who are now propagating falsehood, 
and who conjure into existence another god 
beyond the Creator and the Maker of all exist- 
ing things. To this Clement there succeeded 
Evaristus. Alexander followed Evaristus ; then, 
sixth from the apostles, Sixtus was appointed ; 
after him, Telephorus, who was gloriously mar- 
tyred; then Hyginus; after him, Pius; then 
after him, Anicetus. Soter having succeeded 
Anicetus, Eleutherius does now, in the twelfth 
place from the apostles, hold the inheritance of 
the episcopate. In this order, and by this suc- 
cession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the 
apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have 
come down to us. And this is most abundant 
proof that there is one and the same vivifying 
faith, which has been preserved in the Church 
from the apostles until now, and handed down 
in truth. /“ ‘ 

4. But Polycarp also was not only instructed 
by apostles;-and”conversed with many who had 
seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, 
appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, 
whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried 
[on earth] a very long time, and, when a very 
old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering 











IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


martyrdom,’ departed this life, having always 
taught the things which he had learned from the 
apostles, and which the Church has handed down, 
and which alone are true. To these things all 
the Asiatic Churches testify, as do also those 
men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the 
present time, —a man who was of much greater 
weight, and a more stedfast witness of truth, 
than Valentinus, and Marcion, and the rest of 
the heretics. He it was who, coming to Rome 
in the time of Anicetus caused many to turn 
away from the aforesaid heretics to the Church 
of God, proclaiming that he had received this 
one and sole truth from the apostles, — that, 
namely, which is handed down by the Church.’ 
There are also those who heard from him that 
John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at 
Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed 
out of the bath-house without bathing, exclaim- 
ing, “Let us fly, lest even the bath-house fall 
down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, 
is within.” And Polycarp himself replied to 
Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and 
said, “ Dost thou know me?” “I do know thee, 
the first-born of Satan.” Such was the horror 
which the apostles and their disciples had against 
holding even verbal communication with any 
corrupters of the truth; as Paul also says, “A 
man that is an heretic, after the first and second 
admonition, reject ; knowing that he that is such 
is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of 
himself.” 3 There is also a very powerful + Epis- 
tle of Polycarp written to the Philippians, from 
which those who choose to do so, and are anxious 
about their salvation, can learn the character of 
his faith, and the preaching of the truth. Then, 
again, the Church in Ephesus, founded by Paul, 
and having John remaining among them perma- 
nently until the times of Trajan, is a true witness 
of the tradition of the apostles. 


CHAP. IV. — THE TRUTH IS TO BE FOUND NOWHERE 
ELSE BUT IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, THE SOLE 
DEPOSITORY OF APOSTOLICAL DOCTRINE. HERE- 
SIES ARE OF RECENT FORMATION, AND CANNOT 
TRACE THEIR ORIGIN UP TO THE APOSTLES. 


1. Since therefore we have such proofs, it is not 
necessary to seek the truth among others which 
it is easy to obtain from the Church; since the 
apostles, like a rich man [depositing his money] 
in a bank, lodged in her hands most copiously 
all things pertaining to the truth: so that every 
man, whosoever will, can draw from her the 


1 eae suffered about the year 167, in the reign of Marcus 
Aurelius. His c age of eighty-six years implies that he was con- 
temporary with St. John for nearly twenty years, 

2 So the Greek. The Latin reads: ‘ which he also handed down 
to the Church.” 

3 Tit, iii, 10. 

4 ixavwrarn. oes translates this a@ll-suficten?, and thus 


paraphrases: But his Epistle ts all-suffictent, to teach those that 
are destrous to learn, 


IRENAZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 






water of life. For she is the entrance to life ; 
all others are thieves and robbers. On this ac- 
count are we bound to avoid “hem, but to make 
choice of the things pertaining to the Church 
with the utmost diligence, and to lay hold of the 
tradition of the truth. For how stands the case? 
Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some 
important question? among us, should we not 
have recourse to the most ancient Churches with 
which the apostles held constant intercourse, and 
learn from them what is certain and clear in re- 
gard to the present question? For how should 
it be if the apostles themselves had not left us 
writings? Would it not be necessary, [in that 
case, ] to follow the course of the tradition which 
they handed down to those to whom they did 
commit the Churches? 

2. Towhich course many nations of those bar- 
barians who believe in Christ do assent, having 
salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit, with- 
out paper or ink, and, carefully preserving the 
ancient tradition,3 believing in one God, the 
Creator of heaven and earth, and all things there- 
in, by means of Christ Jesus, the Son of God; 
who, because of His surpassing love towards His 
creation, condescended to be born of the virgin, 
He Himself uniting man through Himself to 
God, and having suffered under Pontius Pilate, 
and rising again, and having been received up 
in splendour, shall come in glory, the Saviour 
of those who are saved, and the Judge of those 
who are judged, and sending into eternal fire 
those who transform the truth, and despise His 
Father and His advent. Those who, in the 
absence of written documents,* have believed 
this faith, are barbarians, so far as regards our 
language ; but as regards doctrine, manner, and 
tenor of life, they are, because of faith, very wise 
indeed ; and they do please God, ordering their 
conversation in all righteousness, chastity, and 
wisdom. If any one were to preach to these 
men the inventions of the heretics, speaking to 
them in their own language, they would at once 
stop their ears, and flee as far off as possible, 
not enduring even to listen to the blasphemous 
address. Thus, by means of that ancient tradi- 
tion of the apostles, they do not suffer their mind 
to conceive anything of the [doctrines suggested 
by the] portentous language of these teachers, 
among whom neither Church nor doctrine has 
ever been established. ; 

_.3.. For, prior to Valentinus, those who follow 
Yalentinus had no existence ; nor did those from 
Marcion exist before Marcion ; nor, in short, had 
Ll ae ae 


1 Rey. xxii. 17. \ 

2 Latin, ‘‘ modica questione.” ; ' 

3 [The uneducated barbarians must receive ‘the Gospel on testi- 
mony. Irenzus puts apostolic traditions, genuine and uncorrupt, in 
this relation to the primary authority of the written word, 2 Thess. 11. 
15, iii. 6.] 

4 Literally, 
ink,” a few lines previously. 


“ without letters; ” equivalent to, “* without paper and 


417 


any of those malignant-minded people, whom I 
have above enumerated, any being previous to 
the initiators and inventors of their perversity. 
For Valentinus came to Rome in the time of 
Hyginus, flourished—under Pius, and remained 
until Anicetus. (Cerdon, too, Marcion’s prede- 
cessor, himself arrived in the time of Hyginus, 
who was the ninth bishop.’ Coming frequently 
into the Church, and making public confession, 
he thus remained, one time teaching in secret, 
and then again making public confession ; but 
at last, having been denounced for corrupt teach- 
ing, he was excommunicated ® from the assembly 
of the brethren. Marcion, then, succeeding 
him, flourished under Anicetus, who held the 
tenth place of the episcopate. But the rest, who 
are called Gnostics, take rise from Menander, 
Simon’s disciple, as I have shown ; and each one 
of them appeared to be both the father and the 
high priest of that doctrine into which he has 
been initiated. But all these (the Marcosians) 
broke out into their apostasy much later, even 
during the intermediate period of the Church. 


CHAP. V. — CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES, WITHOUT ANY 
FRAUD, DECEPTION, OR HYPOCRISY, PREACHED 
THAT ONE GOD, THE FATHER, WAS THE FOUNDER 
OF ALL THINGS. THEY DID NOT ACCOMMODATE 
THEIR DOCTRINE TO THE PREPOSSESSIONS OF 
THEIR HEARERS. 


1. Since, therefore, the tradition from the 
apostles does thus exist in the Church, and is 
permanent among us, let us revert to the Scrip- 
tural proof furnished by those apostles who did 
also write the Gospel, in which they recorded the 
doctrine regarding God, pointing out that our 
Lord Jesus Christ is the truth,” and that no lie is 
in Him. As also David says, prophesying His 
birth from a virgin, and the resurrection from the 
dead, “Truth has sprung out of the earth.” ® 
The apostles, likewise, being disciples of the 
truth, are above all falsehood ; for a lie has no 
fellowship with the truth, just as darkness has 
none with light, but the presence of the one 
shuts out that of the other. Our Lord, there- 
fore, being the truth, did not speak lies; and 
whom He knew to have taken origin from a de- 
fect, He never would have acknowledged as God, 
even the God of all, the Supreme King, too, and 
His own Father, an imperfect being as a perfect 
one, an animal one as a spiritual, Him who was 
without the Pleroma as Him who was within it. 





$ The old Latin translation says the ezghth bishop, but there is 
no discrepancy. Eusebius, who has preserved the Greek of this pas- 
sage, probably counted the apostles as the ji7st step in the episcopal 
succession. As Irenzus tells us in the preceding chapter, Linus is to 
be counted as the first bishop. 4 

6 It is thought that this does not mean excommunication properly 
i.e., anticipating 


so called, but a species of self-excommunication, tiny 
See Valesius’s 


the sentence of the Church, by quitting it altogether. 
note in his edition of Eusebius. 

7 John xiv. 6. 

8 Ps. Lxxxy. 11, 


418 





Neither did His disciples make mention of any 
other God, or term any other Lord, except Him, 
who was truly the God and Lord of all, as these 
most vain sophists affirm that the apostles did 
with hypocrisy frame their doctrine according to 
the capacity of their hearers, and gave answers 
after the opinions of their questioners, — fabling 
blind things for the blind, according to their 
blindness ; for the dull according to their dul- 
ness ; for those in error according to their error. 
And to those who imagined that the Demiurge 
alone was God, they preached him ; but to those 
who are capable of comprehending the unname- 
able Father, they did declare the unspeakable 
mystery through parables and enigmas: so that 
the Lord and the apostlés exercised the office 
of teacher not to further the cause of truth, but 
even in hypocrisy, and as each individual was 
able to receive it ! 

2. Such [a line of conduct] belongs not to 
those who heal, or who give life: it is rather that 
of those bringing on diseases, and increasing 
ignorance ; and much more true than these men 
shall the law be found, which pronounces every 
one accursed who sends the blind man astray in 
the way. For the apostles, who were commis- 
sioned to find out the wanderers, and to be for 
sight to those who saw not, and medicine to the 
weak, certainly did not address them in accord- 
ance with their opinion at the time, but according 
to revealed truth. For no persons of any kind 
would act properly, if they should advise blind 
men, just about to fall over a precipice, to con- 
tinue their most dangerous path, as if it were the 
right one, and as if they might go on in safety. 
Or what medical man, anxious to heal a sick 
person, would prescribe in accordance with the 
patient’s whims, and not according to the requi- 
site medicine? But that the Lord came-as the 
physician of the sick, He does Himself declare, 
saying, “They that are whole need not a physi- 
cian, but they that are sick; I came not to 
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” ! 
How then shall the sick be strengthened, or how 
shall sinners come to repentance? Is it by per- 
severing in the very same courses? or, on the 
contrary, is it by undergoing a great change and 
reversal of their former mode of living, by which 
they have brought upon themselves no slight 
amount of sickness, and many sins? But igno- 
rance, the mother of all these, is driven out by 
knowledge. Wherefore the Lord used to impart 
knowledge to His disciples, by which also it was 
His practice to heal those who were suffering, 
and to keep back sinners from sin. He there- 
fore did not address them in accordance with 
their pristine notions, nor did He reply to them 
in harmony with the opinion of His questioners, 





* Luke v. 31, 32. 











IRENZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





but according to the doctrine leading to salva- 
tion, without hypocrisy or respect of person. 

3. This is also made clear from the words of 
the Lord, who did truly reveal the Son of God 
to those of the circumcision — Him who had 
been foretold as Christ by the prophets ; that is, 
He set Himself forth, who had restored liberty 
to men, and bestowed on them the inheritance 
of incorruption. And again, the apostles taught 
the Gentiles that they should leave vain stocks 
and stones, which they imagined to be gods, and 
worship the true God, who had created and 
made all the human family, and, by means of 
His creation, did nourish, increase, strengthen, 
and preserve them in being ; and that they might 
look for His Son Jesus Christ, who redeemed us 
from apostasy with His own blood, so that we 
should also be a sanctified people, — who shall 
also descend from heaven in His Father’s power, 
and pass judgment upon all, and who shall 
freely give the good things of God to those who 
shall have kept His commandments. He, ap- 
pearing in these last times, the chief corner- 
stone, has gathered into one, and united those 
that were far off and those that were near ;? that 
is, the circumcision and the uncircumcision, en- 
larging Japhet, and placing him in the dwelling 
of Shem.3 


CHAP. VI. —— THE HOLY GHOST, THROUGHOUT THE 
OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES, MADE MENTION OF 
NO OTHER GOD OR LORD, SAVE HIM WHO IS THE 
TRUE GOD. 


1. Therefore neither would the Lord, nor the 
Holy Spirit, nor the apostles, have ever named 
as God, definitely and absolutely, him who was 
not God, unless he were truly God; nor would 
they have named any one in his own person 
Lord, except God the Father ruling over all, 
and His Son who has received dominion from 
His Father over all creation, as this passage has 
it: “The Lorp said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at 
my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy 
footstool.” + Here the [Scripture] represents to 
us the Father addressing the Son ; He who gave 
Him the inheritance of the heathen, and sub- 
jected to Him all His enemies. Since, there- 
fore, the Father is truly Lord, and the Son truly 
Lord, the Holy Spirit has fitly designated them 
by the title of Lord. And again, referring to the 
destruction of the Sodomites, the Scripture says, 
“Then the Lorp rained upon Sodom and upon 
Gomorrah fire and brimstone from the Lorp 
out of heaven.”5 For it here points out that 
the Son, who had also been talking with Abra- 
ham, had received power to judge the Sodomites 





2 Eph. ii. 17. 
3 Gen. ix. 27. 
4 Ps. cx. 3. 


5 Gen, xix. 24. 


IREN4US AGAINST HERESIES. 419 


















































for their wickedness. And this [text following] 
does declare the same truth: “Thy throne, O 
God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of Thy 
kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou hast loved 
righteousness, and hated iniquity : therefore God, 
Thy God, hath anointed Thee.” * For the Spirit 
designates both [of them] by the name of God 
— both Him who is anointed as Son, and Him 
- who does anoint, that is, the Father. And 
again : “God stood in the congregation of the 
gods, He judges among the gods.” He [here] 
refers to the Father and the Son, and those who 
have received the adoption; but these are the 
CChurch.) For she is the synagogue of God, 
which God—that is, the Son Himself — has 
gathered by Himself. Ofwhom He again speaks : 
“The God of gods, the Lord hath spoken, and 
hath called the earth.”3 Who is meant by God? 
He of whom He has said, “God shall come 
openly, our God, and shall not keep silence ;” ¢ 
that is, the Son, who came manifested to men, 
who said, “I have openly appeared to those who 
seek Me not.”5 But of what gods [does he 
speak]? [Of those] to whom He says, “I have 
said, Ye are gods, and all sons of the Most 
High.”° To those, no doubt, who have re- 
ceived the grace of the “adoption, by which we 
cry, Abba Father.’’7 
2. Wherefore, as I have already stated, no 
other is named as God, or is called Lord, except 
Him who is God and Lord of all, who also said 
to Moses, “I am THAT I am. And_ thus shalt 
thou say to the children of Israel: He who is, 
hath sent me unto you;’’® and His Son Jesus 
Christ our Lord, who makes those that believe 
in His name the sons of God. And again, when 
the Son speaks to Moses, He says, “1 am come 
down to deliver this people.”9 For it is He 
who descended and ascended for the salvation 
of men. Therefore God has been declared 
through the Son, who is in the Father, and has 
the Father in Himself — He wuo 1s, the Father 
bearing witness to the Son, and the Son an- 
nouncing the Father. — As also Esaias says, “T too 
am witness,” he declares, “saith the Lorp God, 
and the Son whom I have chosen, that ye may 
know, and believe, and understand that I am.” 7° 
. When, however, the Scripture terms them 
[gods] which are no gods, it does not, as I have 
already remarked, declare them as gods in every 
sense, but with a certain addition and significa- 
tion, by which they are shown to be no gods at 
all. As with David: “The gods of the heathen 
ip fee ee 


are idols of demons;”' and, “Ye shall not 
follow other gods.” 7. For in that he says “ the 
gods of the heathen” — but the heathen are ig- 
norant of the true God — and calls them “ other 
gods,” he bars their claim [to be looked upon] 
as gods at all. But as to what they are in their 
own person, he speaks concerning them; “ for 
they are,” he says, “the idols of demons.” And 
Esaias : “ Let them be confounded, all who blas- 
pheme God, and carve useless things ;*? even I 
am witness, saith God.”'4 He removes them 
from [the category of ] gods, but he makes use 
of the word alone, for this [purpose], that we 
may know of whom he speaks. Jeremiah also 
says the same: “The gods that have not made 
the heavens and earth, let them perish from the 
earth which is under the heaven.’’?5 For, from 
the fact of his having subjoined their destruction, 
he shows them to be no gods at all. Elias, too, 
when all Israel was assembled at Mount Carmel, 
wishing to turn them from idolatry, says to them, 
“How long halt ye between two opinions? ’® If the 
Lorp be God,?7 follow Him.” ® And again, at the 
burnt-offering, he thus addresses the idolatrous 
priests: “Ye shall call upon the name of your 
gods, and I will call on the name of the Lorp 
my God ; and the Lord that will hearken by fire,’ 
He is God.” Now, from the fact of the prophet 
having said these words, he proves that these gods 
which were reputed so among those men, are no 
gods at all. He directed them to that God upon 
whom he believed, and who was truly God ; 
whom invoking, he exclaimed, “ Lorp God of 
Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, hear 
me to-day, and let all this people know that Thou 
art the God of Israel.” 7° 

4. Wherefore I do also call upon thee, Lorp 
God of Abraham, and God of Isaac, and God of 
Jacob and Israel, who art the Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, the God who, through the abun- 
dance of Thy mercy, hast had a favour towards 
us, that we should know Thee, who hast made 
heaven and earth, who rulest over all, who art 
the only and the true God, above whom there is 
none other God ; grant, by our Lord Jesus Christ, 
the governing power of the Holy Spirit ; give to 
every reader of (this book) to know Thee, that 
Thou art God alonié; to be strengthened in Thee, 
and to avoid every heretical, and godless, and 
impious doctrine. 
ee gg 


II Ps, xcvi. 5- 
12 Ps, Ixxxi. 9. > 


13 These words are an interpolation: it is supposed they have been 
carelessly repeated from the preceding quotation of Isaiah. 


1 Ps. xlv. 6. - Isa. xliv. 9. 
ii er. X. II. 
3 pe Cet =, 16 Literally, ‘‘In both houghs,” 27 ambabus suffraginibus. 
4 Ps] a 17 The old Latin translation has, “ Si ##2s est Dominus Deus” — 


If the Lora God is one; which is supposed by the critics to have 
occurred through carelessness of the translator. 

18 y Kings xviil. 21, etc. 4 ; 

19 The Latin version has, “‘ that answereth to-day (hodte),— an 
evident error for 2g7e. 


20 1 Kings xvin. 36. 


S Isa, lxv. x. 

6 Ps. Ixxxii. 6. 
7 Rom. viii. 15. 
8 Ex. iii. 14. 

9 Ex. iii. 8. 

10 Isa. xlili. 10, 


420 


IRENAZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


NII STs A ak es 


s. And the Apostle Paul also, saying, “ For 
though ye have served them which are no gods ; 
ye now know God, or rather, are known of 
God,” * has made a separation between those 
that were not [gods] and Him who is God. 
And again, speaking of Antichrist, he says, “ who 
opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is 
called God, or that is worshipped.” ? He points 
out here those who are called gods, by such as 
know not God, that is, idols. For the Father of 
all is called God, and is so; and Antichrist shall 
be lifted up, not above Him, but above those 
which are indeed called gods, but are not. And 
Paul himself says that this is true: “We know 
that an idol is nothing, and that there is none 
other God but one. For though there be that are 
called gods, whether in heaven or in earth ; yet to 
us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are 
all things, and we through Him; and one Lord 
Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by 
Him.”3 For he has made a distinction, and 
separated those which are indeed called gods, but 
which are none, from the one God the Father, 
from whom are all things, and, he has confessed 
in the most decided manner in his own person, 
one Lord Jesus Christ. But in this [clause], 
“whether in heaven or in earth,’ he does not 
speak of the formers of the world, as these 
[teachers] expound it; but his meaning is simi- 
lar to that of Moses, when it is said, “ Thou shalt 
not make to thyself any image for God, of what- 
soever things are in heaven above, whatsoever in 
the earth beneath, and whatsoever in the waters 
under the earth.”4+ And he does thus explain 
what are meant by the things in heaven: “ Lest 
when,” he says, “looking towards heaven, and 
observing the sun, and the moon, and the stars, 
and all the ornament of heaven, falling into 
error, thou shouldest adore and serve them.’’5 
And Moses himself, being a man of God, was 
indeed given as a god before Pharaoh ;° but he 
is not properly termed Lord, nor is called God 
by the prophets, but is spoken of by the Spirit as 
“Moses, the faithful minister and servant of 
God,” 7 which also he was. 


CHAP. VII.— REPLY TO AN OBJECTION FOUNDED 
ON THE WORDS OF ST. PAUL (2 COR. IV. 5). 
ST. PAUL OCCASIONALLY USES WORDS NOT IN 
THEIR GRAMMATICAL SEQUENCE. 


1. As to their affirming that Paul said plainly 
in the Second [Epistle] to the Corinthians,:“ In 
whom the god of this world hath blinded the 
minds of them that believe not,” ® and maintain- 





t Gal. iv. 8, 9. 
2 2 Thess. ii. 4. 

3 x Cor. viii. 4, etc. 
4 Deut. v. 8. 

5 Deut. iv. 19. 
x. Wii. 1. 

7 Heb. iii. 5; 
® 2 Cor, iy. 4. 


oa 


Num. xii. 7. 











ing that there is indeed one god of this world, 
but another who is beyond all principality, and 
beginning, and power, we are not to blame if 
they, who give out that they do themselves know 
mysteries beyond God, know not how to read 
Paul. For if any one read the passage thus — 
according to Paul’s custom, as I show elsewhere, 
and by many examples, that he uses transposi- 
tion of words — “In whom God,” then pointing 
it off, and making a slight interval, and at the 
same time read also the rest [of the sentence] 
in one [clause], “hath blinded the minds of 
them of this world that believe not,’’ he shall 
find out the true [sense]; that it is contained 
in the expression, ‘God hath blinded the minds 
of the unbelievers of this world.” And this is 
shown by means of the little interval [between 
the clause]. For Paul does not say, ‘“ the God 
of this world,” as if recognising any other beyond 
Him; but he confessed God as indeed God. 
And he says, “the unbelievers of this world,” 
because they shall not inherit the future age of 
incorruption. I shall show from Paul himself, 
how it is that God has blinded the minds of them 
that believe not, in the course of this work, that 
we may not just at present distract our mind 
from the matter in hand, [by wandering] at 
large. 

2. From many other instances also, we may 
discover that the apostle frequently uses a trans- 
posed order in his sentences, due to the rapidity 
of his discourses, and the impetus of the Spirit 
which is in him. An example occurs in the 
[Epistle] to the Galatians, where he expresses 
himself as follows: “Wherefore then the law of 
works?9 It was added, until the seed should 
come to whom the promise was made; [and it 
was | ordained by angels in the hand of a Media- 
tor.” 7° For the order of the words runs thus: 
“Wherefore then the law of works? Ordained 
by angels in the hand of a Mediator, it was added 
until the seed should come to whom the promise 
was made,’ — man thus asking the question, and 
the Spirit making answer. And again, in the 
Second to the Thessalonians, speaking of Anti- 
christ, he says, “And then shall that wicked be 
revealed, whom the Lord Jesus Christ ™ shall slay 
with the Spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy 
him * with the presence of his coming ; [even 
him] whose coming is after the working of Satan, 
with all power, and signs, and lying wonders.” 2 
Now in these [sentences] the order of the words 
is this: ‘“ And then shall be revealed that wicked, 
whose coming is after the working of Satan, with 
all power, and signs, and lying wonders, whom 
__9 This is according to the reading of the old Italic version, for it 


is not so read in any of our existing manuscripts of the Greek New 
Testament. 


10 Gal. iti. 19. 
1! This word is not found in the second quotation of this passage 
immediately following. 

12 2 Thess. ii. 8, 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


421 


a ee a 


the Lord Jesus shall slay with the Spirit of His 
mouth, and shall destroy with the presence of 
His coming.” For he does not mean that the 
coming of the Lord is after the working of 
Satan ; but the coming of the wicked one, whom 
we also call Antichrist. If, then, one does not 
attend to the [proper] reading [of the passage], 
and if he do not exhibit the intervals of breath- 
ing as they occur, there shall be not only incon- 
gruities, but also, when reading, he will utter 
blasphemy, as if the advent of the Lord could 
take place according to the working of Satan. 
So therefore, in such passages, the hyperdaton 
must be exhibited by the reading, and the apos- 
tle’s meaning following on, preserved ; and thus 
we do not read in that passage, “the god of 
this world,” but, “God,” whom we do truly 
call God; and we hear [it declared of] the 
unbelieving and the blinded of this world, that 
they shall not inherit the world of life which is 
to come. 


CHAP. VIII.— ANSWER TO AN OBJECTION, ARISING 
FROM THE WORDS OF CHRIST (MATT. VI. 24). 
GOD ALONE IS TO BE REALLY CALLED GOD AND 
LORD, FOR HE IS WITHOUT BEGINNING AND END. 


1. This calumny, then, of these men, having 
been quashed, it is clearly proved that neither 
the prophets nor the apostles did ever name 
another God, or call [him] Lord, except the 
true and only God. Much more [would this be 
the case with regard to] the Lord Himself, who 
did also direct us to “render unto Cesar the 
things that are Ceesar’s, and to God the things 
that are God’s;’* naming indeed Ceesar as 
Cesar, but confessing God as God. In like 
manner also, that [text] which says, “ Ye cannot 
serve two masters,”’? He does Himself interpret, 
saying, ‘Ye cannot serve God and mammon ;” 
acknowledging God indeed as God, but men- 
tioning mammon, a thing having also an exist- 
ence. He does not call mammon Lord when 
He says, “ Ye cannot serve two masters ;’’ but 
He teaches His disciples who serve God, not to 
be subject to mammon, nor to be ruled by it. 
For He says, “He that committeth sin is the 
slave of sin.”3 Inasmuch, then, as He terms 
those “the slaves of sin’’ who serve sin, but does 
not certainly call sin itself God, thus also He 
terms those who serve mammon “the slaves 
of mammon,” not calling mammon God. For 
mammon is, according to the Jewish language, 
which the Samaritans do also use, a covetous 
man, and one who wishes to have more than he 
ought to have. But according to the Hebrew, 
+ ic by the addition of a syllable (adjunctive) 





1 Matt. xxii. 21. 
* Mutt. vi 2¢ 
3 John viit 34. 








called Mamuel,* and signifies gwdosum, that is, 
one whose gullet is insatiable. Therefore, ac- 
cording to both these things which are indicated, 
we cannot serve God and mammon. 

2. But also, when He spoke of the devil as 
strong, not absolutely so, but as in comparison 
with us, the Lord showed Himself under every 
aspect and truly to be the strong man, saying 
that one can in no other way “spoil the goods 
of a strong man, if he do not first bind the 
strong man himself, and then he will spoil his 
house.” 5 Now we were the vessels and the 
house of this [strong man] when we were in 
a state of apostasy; for he put us to whatever 
use he pleased, and the unclean spirit dwelt 
within us. For he was not strong, as opposed 
to Him who bound him, and spoiled his house ; 
but as against those persons who were his tools, 
inasmuch as he caused their thought to wander 
away from God: these did the Lord snatch from 
his grasp. As also Jeremiah declares, “The 
Lorp hath redeemed Jacob, and has snatched 
him from the hand of him that was stronger 
than he.”® If, then, he had not pointed out 
Him who binds and spoils his goods, but had 
merely spoken of him as being strong, the 
strong man should have been unconquered. 
But he also subjoined Him who obtains and 
retains possession ; for he holds who binds, but 
he ts held who is bound. And this he did with- 
out any comparison, so that, apostate slave as 
he was, he might not be compared to the Lord: 
for not he alone, but not one of created and 
subject things, shall ever be compared to the 
Word of God, by whom all things were made, 
who is our Lord Jesus Christ. 

3. For that all things, whether Angels, or 
Archangels, or Thrones, or Dominions, were 
both established and created by Him who is 
God over all, through His Word, John has thus 
pointed out. For when he had spoken of the 
Word of God as having been in the Father, he 
added, “All things were made by Him, and 
without Him was. not anything made.”7 David 
also, when he had enumerated [His] praises, 
subjoins by name all things whatsoever I have 
mentioned, both the heavens and all the pow- 
ers therein: “For He commanded, and they 
were created ; He spake, and they were made.” 
Whom, therefore, did He command? The Word, 
no doubt, “by whom,” he says, “the heavens 
were established, and all their power by the 
breath of His mouth.” *® But that He did Him- 





4 A word of which many explanations have been proposed, but 
none are quite satisfactory. Harvey seems inclined to suspect the 
reading to be corrupt, through the ignorance and carelessness of 
the copyist. [Irenzeus undoubtedly relied for Hebrew criticisms on 
some incompetent retailer of rabbinical refinements. ] 

5 Matt. xii. 29. 


6 Jer. xxxi. 11. 
7 Ween? 3. 


© Ps, xxxiii, 6. 


422 


self make all things freely, and as He pleased, 
again David says, “ But our God is in the heavens 
above, and in the earth ; He hath made all things 
whatsoever He pleased.” But the things es- 
tablished are distinct from Him who has estab- 
lished them, and what have been made from 
Him who has made them. For He is Himself 
uncreated, both without beginning and end, and 
lacking nothing. He is Himself sufficient for 
Himself ; and still further, He grants to all others 
this very thing, existence ; but the things which 
have been made by Him have received a begin- 
ning. But whatever things had a beginning, and 
are liable to dissolution, and are subject to and 
stand in need of Him who made them, must 
necessarily in all respects have a different term 
[applied to them], even by those who have but 
a moderate capacity for discerning such things ; 
so that He indeed who made all things can alone, 
together with His Word, properly be termed God 
and Lord: but the things which have been made 
cannot have this term applied to them, neither 
should they justly assume that appellation which 
belongs to the Creator. 


CHAP. IX.— ONE AND THE SAME GOD, THE CRE- 
ATOR OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, IS HE WHOM 
THE PROPHETS FORETOLD, AND WHO WAS DE- 
CLARED BY THE GOSPEL. PROOF OF THIS, AT 
THE OUTSET, FROM ST. MATTHEW’S GOSPEL. 


1. This, therefore, having been clearly demon- 
strated here (and it shall yet be so still more 
clearly), that neither the prophets, nor the apos- 
tles, nor the Lord Christ in His own person, did 
acknowledge any other Lord or God, but the 
God and Lord supreme: the prophets and the 
apostles confessing the Father and the Son; but 
naming no other as God, and confessing no other 
as Lord: and the Lord Himself handing down 
to His disciples, that He, the Father, is the only 
God and Lord, who alone is God and ruler of 
all ; —it is incumbent on us to follow, if we are 
their disciples indeed, their testimonies to this 
effect. For Matthew the apostle — knowing, as 
one and the same God, Him who had given 
promise to Abraham, that He would make his 
seed as the stars of heaven,? and Him who, by 
His Son Christ Jesus, has called us to the knowl- 
edge of Himself, from the worship of stones, so 


that those who were not a people were made’ a. 


people, and she beloved who was not beloved 3 
— declares that John, when preparing the way 
for Christ, said to those who were boasting of 
their relationship [to Abraham] according to the 
flesh, but who had their mind tinged and stuffed 
with all manner of evil, preaching that repentance 
which should call them back from their evil 





I Ps. cxv. 3. 
2 Gen. xv. 5. 
% Rom, ix. ag. 








IRENEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


doings, said, “O generation of vipers, who hath 
shown you to flee from the wrath to come? 
Bring forth therefore fruit meet for repentance. 
And think not to say within yourselves, We have 
Abraham [to our] father: for I say unto you, 
that God is able of these stones to raise up chil- 
dren unto Abraham.’’* He preached to them, 
therefore, the repentance from wickedness, but 
he did not declare to them another God, besides 
Him who made the promise to Abraham ; he, 
the forerunner of Christ, of whom Matthew 
again says, and Luke likewise, “ For this is he 
that was spoken of from the Lord by the prophet, 
The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Pre- 
pare ye the way of the Lord, make straight the 
paths of our God. Every valley shall be filled, 
and every mountain and hill brought low; and 
the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough 
into smooth ways ; and all flesh shall see the sal- 
vation of God.”5 There is therefore one and 
the same God, the Father of our Lord, who also 
promised, through the prophets, that He would 
send His forerunner; and His salvation — that 
is, His Word — He caused to be made visible to 
all flesh, [the Word] Himself being made incar- 
nate, that in all things their King might become 
manifest. For it is necessary that those [beings] 
which are judged do see the judge, and know 
Him from whom they receive judgment ; and it 
is also proper, that those which follow on to glory 
should know Him who bestows upon them the 
gift of glory. 

2. Then again Matthew, when speaking of the 
angel, says, “The angel of the Lord appeared 
to Joseph in sleep.” ® Of what Lord he does 
himself interpret: “That it may be fulfilled 
which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, 
Out of Egypt have I called my son.” 7 ‘Behold, 
a virgin shall conceive, and shall bring forth a son, 
and they shall call his name Emmanuel; which 
is, being interpreted, God with us.”® David 
likewise speaks of Him who, from the virgin, is 
Emmanuel: “Turn not away the face of Thine 
anointed. The Lorp hath sworn a truth to 
David, and will not turn from him. Of the fruit 
of thy body will I set upon thy seat.”9 And 
again: “In Judea is God known; His place 
has been made in peace, and His dwelling in 
Zion.” '° Therefore there is.one and_the same 
God, who was proclaimed by the prophets and 
announced by the Gospel; and His Son, who 
was of the fruit of David’s body, that is, of the 
virgin of [the house of ] David, and Emman- 
uel; whose star also Balaam thus prophesied : 
“There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a 

5 Matt. iii. 3. 

6 Matt. i. 20. 

7 Matt. ii. x5. 

8 Matt. i. 23 


9 Ps, cxxxii. rz. 


10 Ps. Ixxvi. 1. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


423 





leader shall rise in Israel.‘ But Matthew says, 
that the Magi, coming from the east, exclaimed, 
“For we have seen His star in the east, and are 
come to worship Him ;”’? and that, having been 
led by the star into the house of Jacob to 
Emmanuel, they showed, by these gifts which 
they offered, who it was that was worshipped : 
myrrh, because it was He who should die and be 
buried for the mortal human race ; go/d, because 
He was a King, “‘ of whose kingdom is no end ;’’3 
and frankincense, because He was God, who also 
“was made known in Judea,” * and was “ de- 
clared to those who sought Him not.” 5 

3. And then, [speaking of His] baptism, 
Matthew says, “The heavens were opened, and 
He saw the Spirit of God, as a dove, coming 
upon Him: and lo a voice from heaven, saying, 
This is my beloved—Son, in whom I am well 
pleased.” © For Christ)did not at that time de- 
scend upon (Jesus) neither was Christ one and 
Jesus anothér:—but the Word of God—who is the 
Saviour of all, and the ruler of heaven and earth, 
who is Jesus, as I have already pointed out, who 
did also take upon Him flesh, and was anointed 
by the Spirit from the Father — was made Jesus 
Christ, as Esaias also says, “There shall come 
forth a rod from the root of Jesse, and a flower 
shall rise from his root; and the Spirit of God 
shall rest upon Him: the spirit of wisdom and 
understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, 
the spirit of knowledge and piety, and the spirit 
of the fear of God, shall fill Him. He shall not 
judge according to glory,” nor reprove after the 
manner of speech; but He shall dispense judg- 
ment to the humble man, and reprove the haughty 
ones of the earth.”* And again Esaias, point- 
ing out beforehand His unction, and the reason 
why he was anointed, does himself say, “ The 
Spirit of God is upon Me, because He hath 
anointed Me: He hath sent Me to preach the 
Gospel to the lowly, to heal-the broken up in 
heart, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and 
sight to the blind; to announce the acceptable 
year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance ; to 
comfort all that mourn.” For inasmuch as the 
Word of God was man from the root of Jesse, 
and son of Abraham, in this respect did the 
Spirit of God rest upon Him, and anoint Him 
to preach the Gospel to the lowly. But inasmuch 
as He was God, He did not judge according to 








I Num xxiv. 17. 

2 Matt. ii. 2. 

3 Luke i. 33. 

4 Ps. Ixxvi. 1. ' 

5 Isa. Ixv.1. [A beautiful idea for poets and orators, but not to 
be pressed dogmatically. ] 

6 Matt. ili. 16. ‘ j ate 

7 This is after tle version of the Septuagint, ov kata Tnv ddtav : 
but the word ééa may have the meaning ofz7zo as well as glorda. 
If this be admitted here, the passage would bear much the same 
sense as it does in the authorized version, ‘‘ He shall not judge after 
the sight of His eyes.” 

8 Jsa, xi. 1, etc. 

9 Isa. lxi. x. 











glory, nor reprove after the manner of speech. 
For “ He needed not that any should testify to 
Him of man,'° for He Himself knew what was in 
man.” ™ For He called all men that mourn; 
and granting forgiveness to those who had been 
led into captivity by their sins, He loosed them 
from their chains, of whom Solomon says, 
“Every one shall be holden with the cords of 
his own sins.” ? Therefore did the Spirit of God 
descend upon Him, [the Spirit] of Him who 
had promised by the prophets that He would 
anoint Him, so that we, receiving from the 
abundance of His unction, might be saved. 
Such, then, [is the witness] of Matthew. 


CHAP, X.—PROOFS OF THE FOREGOING, DRAWN 
FROM THE GOSPELS OF MARK AND LUKE. 


1. Luke also, the follower and disciple of the 
apostles, referring to Zacharias and Elisabeth, 
from whom, according to promise, John was 
born, says: “ And they were both righteous be- 
fore God, walking in all the commandments and 
ordinances of the Lord blameless.” "3 And again, 
speaking of Zacharias: ‘And it came to pass, 
that while he executed the priest’s office before 
God in the order of his course, according to the 
custom of the priest’s office, his lot was to burn 
incense ;”’ "+ and he came to sacrifice, “ entering 
into the temple of the Lord.’’'5 Whose angel 
Gabriel, also, who stands prominently in the 
presence of the Lord, simply, absolutely, and 
decidedly confessed in his own person as God 
and Lord, Him who had chosen Jerusalem, and 
had instituted the sacerdotal office. For he knew 
of none other above Him; since, if he had been 
in possession of the knowledge of any other 
more perfect God and Lord besides Him, he 
surely would never —as I have already shown — 
have confessed Him, whom he knew to be the 
fruit of a defect, as absolutely and altogether God 
and Lord. And then, speaking of John, he thus 
says: “For he shall be great in the sight of the 
Lord, and many of the children of Israel shall 
he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go 
before Him in the spirit and power of Elias, 
to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” 
For whom, then, did he prepare the people, and 
in the sight of what Lord was he made great? 
Truly of Him who said that John had something 
even “more than a prophet,” ’7 and that “among 
those born of women none is greater than John 
the Baptist ;’? who did also make the people 
ready for the Lord’s advent, warning his fellow- 
servants, and preaching to them repentance, that 





10 This is according to the Syvzac Peschito version. 

11 John ii, 25. 

12 Prov, v. 22. 

13 Luke i. 6. : x 

14 Literally, “that he should place the incense. The next clause 
is most likely an interpolation for the sake of explanation. 

1s Luke i. 8, etc. 

16 Luke i. 15, etc. 

17 Matt. xi. 9, 11. 


424 





they might receive remission from the Lord when 
He should be present, having been converted to 
Him, from whom they had been alienated be- 
cause of sins and transgressions. As also David 
says, “ The alienated are sinners from the womb : 
they go astray as soon as they are born.” * And 
it was on account of this that he, turning them 
to their Lord, prepared, in the spirit and power 
of Elias, a perfect people for the Lord. 

2. And again, speaking in reference to the 
angel, he says: “But at that time the angel 
Gabriel was sent from God, who did also say to 
the virgin, Fear not, Mary; for thou hast found 
favour with God.”? And he says concerning the 
Lord: “He shall be great, and shall be called 
the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall 
give unto Him the throne of His father David : 
and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for 
ever; and of His kingdom there shall be no 
end.”3 For who else is there who can reign 
uninterruptedly over the house of Jacob for ever, 
except Jesus Christ our Lord, the Son of the 
Most High God, who promised by the law and 
the prophets that He would make His salvation 
visible to all flesh; so that He would become 
the Son of man for this purpose, that man also 
might become the son of God? And Mary, exult- 
ing because of this, cried out, prophesying on be- 
half of the Church, “ My soul doth magnify the 
Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Sav- 
iour. For He hath taken up His child Israel, in 
remembrance of His mercy, as He spake to our 
fathers, Abraham, and his seed for ever.” 4+ By 
these and such like [passages] the Gospel points 
out that it was God who spake to the fathers ; 
that it was He who, by Moses, instituted the legal 
dispensation, by which giving of the law we know 
that He spake to the fathers. This same God, 
atter His great goodness, poured His compassion 
upon us, through which compassion “the Day- 
spring from on high hath looked upon us, and 
appeared to those who sat in darkness and the 
shadow of death, and has guided our feet into 
the way of peace ;”’5 as Zacharias also, recover- 
ing from the state of dumbness which he had 
sutfered on account of unbelief, having been filled 
with a new spirit, did bless God in a new man- 
ner. For all things had entered upon a new 
phase, the Word arranging after a new manner 
the advent in the flesh, that He might win back ° 
to God that human nature (hominem) which had 
departed from God; and therefore men were 


taught _to worship God after a_new fashion, but | 


not another god, because in truth there is but 
“one God,) who justifieth the circumcision by 


‘ 

I Ps. lviii. 3. 

2 Luke i. 26, etc. 

3 Luke i. 32. 

4 Luke i. 46. 

5 Luke i. 78. 

6 * Ascriberet Deo” — make the property of Ged. 











IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


ee 


faith, and the uncircumcision through faith.” 7 
But Zacharias prophesying, exclaimed, “ Blessed 
be the Lord God of Israel ; for He hath visited 
and redeemed His people, and hath raised up an 
horn of salvation for us in the house of His ser- 
vant David; as He spake by the mouth of His 
holy prophets, which have been since the world 
begun ; salvation from our enemies, and from 
the hand of all that hate us; to perform the 
mercy [promised] to our fathers, and to remem- 
ber His holy covenant, the oath which He sware 
to our father Abraham, that He would grant unto 
us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of 
our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in 
holiness and righteousness before Him, all our 
days.”® Then he says to John: “And thou, 
child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest : 
for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to 
prepare His ways; to give knowledge of salva- 
tion to His people, for the remission of their 
sins.” 9 For this is the knowledge of salvation 
which was wanting to them, that of the Son of 
God, which John made known, saying, “ Behold 
the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the 
world. This is He of whom I said, After me 
cometh a man who was made before me ;*° be- 
cause He was prior to me: and of His fulness 
have all we received.” "! This, therefore, was the 
knowledge of salvation; but [it did not consist 
in] another nor at Father, nor Bythus, 
tr the Herons ts om nor the Mother 
of ver) Ogdoad: but the knowledge of 
salvation was the knowledge of the Son of God, 
who is both called and actually is, salvation, and 
Saviour, and salutary. Salvation, indeed, as fol- 
lows: “I have waited for Thy salvation, O 
Lord.” 2 And then again, Saviour: “ Behold 
my God, my Saviour, I will put my trust in 
Him.” ‘3 But as bringing salvation, thus: ‘God 
hath made known His salvation (sa/uéare) in 
the sight of the heathen.” For He is indeed 
Saviour, as being the Son and Word of God ; 
but salutary, since [He is] Spirit; for he says: 
“The Spirit of our countenance, Christ the 
Lord.”'5 But salvation, as being flesh : for “the 
Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” '© 
This knowledge of salvation, therefore, John 
did impart to those repenting, and believing in 
the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of 
the world. 

3. And the angel of the Lord, he says, 

7 Rom. iii. 30. 

8 Luke i. 68, etc. 

9 Luke i. 76. 

to Harvey observes that the Syriac, agreeing with the Latin here, 
expresses priority in point of time; but our translation, without rea- 
son, makes it the precedence of honour, viz., was preferred before 
me. The Greek is, mpa@rds pov. 

Gen sae ae 

13 Isa. xii, 2. 

M4 Ps, xcviii. 2. 


15 Lem. iv. 20, after LXX. 
16 John i, 14. 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES, 





425 





appeared to the shepherds, proclaiming joy 
to them: “ For’ there is born in the house of 
David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 
Then [appeared] a multitude of the heavenly 
host, praising God, and saying, Glory in the 
highest to God, and on earth peace, to men 
of good will.”? The falsely-called Gnostics say 
that these angels came from the Ogdoad, and 
made manifest the descent of the superior Christ. 
But they are again in error, when saying that 
the Christ and Saviour from above was not born, 
but that also, after the baptism of the dispensa- 
tional Jesus, he, [the Christ of the Pleroma, ] 
descended upon him as a dove. Therefore, 
according to these men, the angels of the Ogdoad 
lied, when they said, “ For unto you is born this 
day a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the 
city of David.” For neither was Christ nor 
the Saviour born at that time, by their account ; 
but it was he, the dispensational Jesus, who is 
of the framer of the world, the [Demiurge], 
and upon whom, after his baptism, that is, after 
[the lapse of ] thirty years, they maintain the 
Saviour from above descended. But why did 
[the angels] add, “in the city of David,” if they 
did not proclaim the glad tidings of the fulfil- 
ment of God’s promise made to David, that from 
the fruit of his body there should be an eternal 
King? For the Framer [Demiurge] of the en- 
tire universe made promise to David, as David 
himself declares: “ My help is from God, who 
made heaven and earth;”3 and again: “In 
His hand are the ends of the earth, and the 
heights of the mountains are His. For the sea 
is His, and He did Himself make it; and His 
bands founded the dry land. Come ye, let us 
worship and fall down before Him, and weep in 
the presence of the Lord who made us ; for He 
is the Lord our God.”’* The Holy Spirit evi- 
dently thus declares by David to those hearing 
him, that there shall be those who despise Him 
who formed us, and who is God alone. Where- 
fore he also uttered the foregoing words, mean- 
ing to say: See that ye do not err; besides or 
above Him there is no other God, to whom ye 





angels [proclaimed]. For when they exclaim, 
“Glory to God in the highest, and in earth 
peace,” they have glorified with these words 
Him who is the Creator of the highest, that is, 
of super-celestial things, and the Founder of 
everything on earth: who has sent to His own 
handiwork, that is, to men, the blessing of His 
salvation from heaven. Wherefore he adds: 
“The shepherds returned, glorifying God for 
all which they had heard and seen, as it was told 
unto them.”5 For the Israelitish shepherds did 
not glorify another god, but Him who had been 
announced by the law and the prophets, the 
Maker of all things, whom also the angels 
glorified. But if the angels who were from 
the Ogdoad were accustomed to glorify any 
other, different from Him whom the shepherds 
[adored], these angels from the Ogdoad brought 
to them error and not truth. 

4. And still further does Luke say in reference 
to the Lord: “When the days of purification 
were accomplished, they brought Him up to 
Jerusalem, to present Him before the Lord, as 
it is written in the law of the Lord, That every 
male opening the womb shall be called holy to 
the Lord ; and that they should offer a sacrifice, 
as it is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of 
turtle-doves, or two young pigeons:’’® in his 
own person most clearly calling Him Lord, 
who appointed. the legal dispensation. But 
“Simeon,” he also says, “blessed God, and 
said, Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart 
in peace ; for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, 
which Thou hast prepared before the face of all 
people ; a light for the revelation of the Gentiles, 
and the glory of Thy people Israel.’? And 
“Anna’’® also, “the prophetess,” he says, in 
like manner glorified God when she saw Christ, 
“and spake of Him to all them who were look- 
ing for the redemption of Jerusalem.”9 Now 
by all these one God is shown forth, revealing to 
men the new dispensation of liberty, the cove- 


nant, through the new nt of His Son. 
5. Wherefore also (Mark, the interpreter_and_ 
follower of Peter, does this commence his Gos- 


should rather stretch out [your hands], thus| pel narrative: “The beginning of the Gospel of 


rendering us pious and grateful towards Him 
who made, established, and [still] nourishes us. 
What, then, shall happen to those who have been 
the authors of so much blasphemy against their 
Creator? This identical truth was also what the 


Se eS 


I Luke ii. 11, etc. 

2 Thus found also in the Vulgate. Harvey supposes that the 
original of Irenzeus read according to our textus receptus, and that 
the Vulgate rendering was adopted in this passage by the transcribers 
of the Latin version of our author. [No doubt a just remark, ] 
There can be no doubt, however, that the readin evdoxias is sup- 
ported by many and weighty ancient authorities. | But on this point 
see the facts as given by Burgon, in his refutation of the rendering 
adopted by late revisers, Revzston Revised, p. 41. London, Murray, 
1883. 

3 Ps, cxxiv. 8. 

4 Ps, xcv. 4. 





Jesus Christ, the Son of God ; as it is written in 
the prophets, Behold, I send My messenger 
before Thy face, which shall prepare Thy way.’° 
The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Pre- 
pare ye the way of the Lord, make the paths 








5 Luke ii. 

6 Luke ii. 22. 

7 Luke ii. 29, etc. 

8 Luke ii. 3 , ’ ‘ 

9 The text seems to be corrupt in the old Latin translation. ‘lhe 
rendering here follows Harvey's conjectural restoration of the original 
Greek of the passage. 

10 The Greek of this passage in St. Mark [i. 2] reads, ras tp:Bous 
avrod, i.e., Hzs paths, which varies from the Hebrew original, 
to which the text of Irenzeus seems to revert, unless indeed his 
copy of the Gospels contained the reading of the Codex Bez. [See 
book iii. cap. xii 


20, 


0! 


xii. 3, 14, below; also, xiv. 2 and xxii, 3. On this 
Codex, see Burgon, Revision Revised, p. 12, etc., and references. ] 


426 





straight before our God.” Plainly does the 
commencement of the Gospel quote the words 
of the holy prophets, and point out Him at 
once, whom they confessed as God and Lord ; 
Him, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
had also made promise to Him, that He would 
send His messenger before His face, who was 
John, crying in the wilderness, in “the spirit 
and power of Elias,‘ “ Prepare ye the way of 
the Lord, make straight paths before our God.” 
For the prophets did not announce one and 
another God, but one and the same; under 
various aspects, however, and many titles. For 
varied and rich in attribute is the Father, as I 
nave already shown in the book preceding ? this ; 
and I shall show [the same truth] from the 
prophets themselves in the further course of this 
work. Also, towards the conclusion of his Gos- 
pel, Mark says: “So then, after the Lord Jesus 
had spoken to them, He was received up into 
heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God ;’’3 
confirming what had been spoken by the prophet : 
“The Lorp said to my Lord, Sit Thou on My 
right hand, until ¥ make Thy foes Thy foot- 
stool.”* Thus Gord and the Father are truly 
one and the same; He who was announced by 
the prophets, and handed down by the true 
Gospel; whom we Cnhristians worship and love 
with the whole heart, as the Maker of heaven 
and earth, and of ail things therein. 


4 CHAP. XI.— PROOFS IN CONTINUATION, EXTRACTED 

FROM/ ST. JOHN’S GOSPEL. THE GOSPELS ARE 

O IN NUMBER, NEITHER MORE NOR LESS. 
MYSTIC REASONS FOR THIS. 


this faith, and seeks, by the proclamation ofthe 


1. John, the disciple of the Lord, hate 


Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus) 


had been disseminated among men, and-a~tong 
/) time previously by those termed Nicolaitans, who 
are an offset of that “knowledge” falsely so 

















called, that he might confound them, and per- 
suade them that there is but one God, who made 
all things by His Word ; and not, as they allege, 
that the Creator was one, but the Father of the 
Lord another ; and that the Son of the Creator 
was, forsooth, one, but the Christ from above 
another, who also continued impassible, descend- 
ing upon Jesus, the Son of the Creator, and flew 
back again into His Pleroma; and that Mono- 
genes was the beginning, but Logos was the true 
son of Monogenes; and that this creation to 
which we belong was not made by the primary 
God, but by some power lying far below Him, 
and shut off from communion with the things 
invisible and ineffable. The disciple of the Lord 





t Luke i. 17, 

2 See ii. 35, 3. 
3 Mark xvi, 19 
APES CXS, Sy 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 








therefore desiring to put an end to all such doc- 
trines, and to establish the_rule of truth’ in the 
Church, that there is one Almighty God, who 
made all things by His Word, both visible and 
invisible ; showing at the same time, that by the 
Word, through whom God made the creation, 
He also bestowed salvation on the men included 
in the creation ; thus commenced His teaching 
in the Gospel: “ In the beginning was the Word, 
and the Word was with God, and the Word was 
God. ‘The same was in the beginning with God. 
All things were made by Him, and without Him 
was nothing made.’ What was made was life 
in Him, and the life was the light of men. And 
the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness 
comprehended it not.”® “All things,” he says, 
“were made by Him ;” therefore in “all things” 
this creation of ours is [included], for we cannot 
concede to these men that [the words] “all 
things” are spoken in reference to those within 
their Pleroma. For if their Pleroma do indeed 
contain these, this creation, as being such, is not 
outside, as I have demonstrated in the preced- 
ing book ;7 but if they are outside the Pleroma, 
which indeed appeared impossible, it follows, in 
that case, that their Pleroma cannot be “all 
things: ” therefore this vast creation is not out- 
side [the Pleroma]. 

2. John, however, does himself put this mat- 
ter beyond all controversy on our part, when he 
says, ‘‘ He was in this world, and the world was 
made by Him, and the world knew Him not. 
He came unto His own [things], and His own 
[people] received Him not.”® But according 
to Marcion, and those like him, neither was the 
world made by Him; nor did He come to His 
own things, but to those of a . And, ac- 
cording to certain of the Gnostics,) this world 
was made by angels, and not by-the Word of 
God. But according to the followers of Valen- 
tinus, the world was not made by Him, but by 
the Demiurge. For he (Soter) caused such simil- 
itudes to be made, after the pattern of things 
above, as they allege; but the Demiurge ac- 
complished the work of creation. For they say 
that he, the Lord and Creator of the plan of 
creation, by whom they hold that this world was 
made, was produced from the Mother; while 
the Gospel affirms plainly, that by the Word, 
which was in the beginning with God, all things 
were made, which Word, he says, “was made 
flesh, and dwelt among us.”’ 9 

3. But, according to these men, neither was 
the Word made flesh, nor Christ, nor the Saviour 
(Soter), who was produced from [the joint con- 





5 Irenzeus frequently quotes this text, and always uses the punc- 
tuation here adopted. Tertullian and many others of the Fathers fol 
low his example. 

6 John i. 1, etc. 

7 See ii. 1, etc. 

8 John i. ro, 11. 

9 John i, 14, 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


wtbutions of] all [the AZons]. For they will 
have it, that the Word and Christ never came 
into this world; that the Saviour, too, never 
became incarnate, nor suffered, but that He de- 
scended like a dove upon the dispensational 
Jesus ; and that, as soon as He had declared 
the unknown Father, He did again ascend_ into 
the Pleroma. Some, however, make the asser- 
tion, that this dispensational Jesus did become 
incarnate, and suffered, whom they represent as 
having passed through Mary just as water through 
a tube ; but others allege him to be the Son of 
the Demiurge, upon whom the dispensational 
Jesus descended ; while others, again, say that 
Jesus was born from Joseph and Mary, and that 
the Christ from above descended upon him, 
being without flesh, and impassible. But ac- 
cording to the opinion of no one of the heretics 
was the Word of God made flesh. For if any 
one carefully examines the systems of them all, 
he will find that the Word of God is brought ia 
by all of them as not having become incarnate 
(sine carne) and impassible, as is also the Christ 
from above. Others consider Him to have been 
manifested as a transfigured man ; but they main- 
tain Him to have been neither born nor to have 
become incarnate ; whilst others [hold] that He 
did not assume a human form at all, but that, 
as a dove, He did descend upon that Jesus 
who was born from Mary. Therefore the Lord’s 
disciple, pointing them all out as false witnesses, 
says, “ And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt 
among us.” ' 

4. And that we may not have to ask, Of what 
God was the Word made flesh? he does himself 
previously teach us, saying, “There was a man 
sent from God, whose name was John. The 
same came as a witness, that he might bear wit- 
ness of that Light. He was not that Light, but 
[came] that he might testify of the Light.”? 
By what God, then, was John, the forerunner, 
who testifies of the Light, sent [into the world]? 
Truly it was by Him, of whom Gabriel is the 
angel, who also announced the glad tidings of 
his birth: [that God] who also had promised 
by the prophets that He would send His mes- 
senger before the face of His Son,3 who should 
prepare His way, that is, that he should bear 
witness of that Light in the spirit and power of 
Flias.4 But, again, of what God was Elias the ser- 
vant and the prophet? Of Him who made heaven 
and earth, as he does himself confess. John, 
therefore, having been sent by the founder and 
maker of this world, how could he testify of that 
Light, which came down from things unspeakable 
OE ne i Fa 5k ER 


1 fora i, 14. 





2 John i. 6. 
3 Mal. iii. 1. 
4 Luke i. 17. 


5 This evidently refers to 1 Kings xviii. 36, where Elijah invokes 
God as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, etc. 








427 





and invisible? For all the heretics have decided 
that the Demiurge was ignorant of that Power 
above him, whose witness and herald John is 
found to be. Wherefore the Lord said that He 
deemed him “ more than a prophet.”® For all 
the other prophets preached the advent of the 
paternal Light, and desired to be worthy of seeing 
Him whom they preached ; but John did both 
announce [the advent] beforehand, in a like 
manner as did the others, and actually saw Him 
when He came, and pointed Him out, and per- 
suaded many to believe on Him, so that he did 
himself hold the place of both prophet and apostle. 
For this is to be more than a prophet, because, 
“first apostles, secondarily prophets ;”’7 but all 
things from one and the same God Himself. 

5. That wine,® which was produced by God in 
a vineyard, and which was first consumed, was 
good. None? of those who drank of it found 
fault with it; and the Lord partook of it also. 
But that wine was better which the Word made 
from water, on the moment, and simply for the 
use of those who had been called to the mar- 
riage. For although the Lord had the power to 
supply wine to those feasting, independently of 
any created substance, and to fill with food those 
who were hungry, He did not adopt this course ; 
but, taking the loaves which the earth had pro- 
duced, and giving thanks,'® and on the other 
occasion making water wine, He satisfied those 
who were reclining [at table], and gave drink to 
those who had been invited to the marriage ; 
showing that the God who made the earth, and 
commanded it to bring forth fruit, who estab- 
lished the waters, and brought forth the foun- 
tains, was He who in these last times bestowed 
upon mankind, by His Son, the blessing of food 
and the favour of drink: the Incomprehensible 
[acting thus] by means of the comprehensible, 
and the Invisible by the visible ; since there is 
none beyond Him, but He exists in the bosom 
of the Father. _ 

6. For “no man,” he says, “hath seen God 
at any time,” unless “the only-begotten Son of 
God, which is in the bosom of the Father, He 
hath declared [Him].”'! For He, the Son who 
is in His bosom, declares to all the Father who is 
invisible. Wherefore sey know Him to whom 
the Son reveals Him ; and again, the Father, by 
means of the Son, gives knowledge of His Son to 
those who love Him. By whom also Nathanael, 
being taught, recognised [Him], he to whom 
also the Lord bare witness, that he was “an 
Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile.” 7 The 





6 Matt. xi. 9; Luke vii, 26, 

7 1. Cor. xil, 28. tte 

8 ‘The transition here is so abrupt, that some critics suspect the 
loss of part of the text before these words. 

9 John ii. 3. 

to John vi, 11. 

11 John i, 18. 

12 John i. 47. 


428 





Israelite recognised his King, therefore did he 
cry out to Him, “Rabbi, Thou art the Son of 
God, Thou art the King of Israel.” By whom 
also Peter, having been taught, recognised Christ 
as the Son of the living God, when [God] said, 
“Behold My dearly beloved Son, in whom I am 
well pleased: I will put my Spirit upon Hin, 
and He shall show judgment to the Gentiles. 
He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any 
man hear His voice in the streets. A bruised 
reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall 
He not quench, until He send forth judgment 
into contention ;' and in His name shall the 
Gentiles trust.” ? 

7. Such, then, are the first principles of the 
Gospel: that there is one God, the Maker of 
this universe ; He who was also announced by 
the prophets, and who by Moses set forth the 
dispensation of the law,— [principles] which 
proclaim the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
and ignore any other God or Father except 
Him. So firm is the ground upon which these 
Gospels rest, that the very heretics themselves 
bear witness to them, and, starting from these 
[documents], each one of them endeavours to 
establish _his own peculiar doctrine. For the 
(Ebionites,) who use Matthew’s Gospel; only, 
are—confuted out of this very same, making 
false suppositions with regard to the Lord. But 
__Marcion, mutilating that according to Luke, is 
proved to be a blasphemer of the only existing 
God, from those [passages | which he still retains. 
Those, again, who separate Jesus from.Christ, 
alleging that Christ remained impassible, but 
that it was Jesus who suffered, preferring the 
Gospel by Mark, if they read it with a love of 
truth, may have their errors rectified. Those, 
moreover, who follow Valentinus, making copious 
use of that according to John, to illustrate their 
conjunctions, shall be proved to be totally in 
error by means of this very Gospel, as I have 
shown in the first book. Since, then, our oppo- 
nents do bear testimony to us, and make use of 
these [documents], our proof derived from them 
is firm and true. 

8. It is not possible that the Gospels can be 
either more or fewer in number than they are. 
For, since there are four zones of the world in 
which we live, and four principal winds,‘ while 
the Church-is-scattered throughout all the world, 
and the i and ground’’5 of the Church is 
the Gospelvand the spiritof life ; it is fitting that 
she should have four pillars, breathing out im- 





IRENZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


Se a eS renal 


mortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh. 
From which fact, it is evident that the Word, the 
Artificer of all, He that sitteth upon the cheru- 
bim, and contains all things, He who was mani- 
fested to men, has given us the Gospel under 
four aspects, but bound together by one Spirit. 
As also David says, when entreating His mani- 
festation, “‘Thou that sittest between the cheru- 
bim, shine forth.” © For the cherubim, too, were 
four-faced, and their faces were images of the 
dispensation of the Son of God. For, [as the 
Scripture] says, “The first living creature was 
like a lion,” 7 symbolizing His effectual working, 
His leadership, and royal power; the second 
[living creature ] was like a calf, signifying [His] 
sacrificial and sacerdotal order; but “the third 
had, as it were, the face as of a man,’’—an evi- 
dent description of His advent as a human be- 
ing ; “ the fourth was like a flying eagle,” pointing 
out the gift of the Spirit hovering with His wings 
over the Church. And therefore the Gospels are 
in accord with these things, among which Christ 
Jesus is seated. For that according to John re- 
lates His original, effectual, and glorious gener- 
ation from the Father, thus declaring, “In the 
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God.”® Also, “all 
things were made by Him, and without Him 
was nothing made.” For this reason, too, is 
that Gospel full of all confidence, for such is 
His person.2 But that according to Luke, tak- 
ing up [His] priestly character, commenced 
with Zacharias the priest offering sacrifice to 
God. For now was made ready the fatted calf, 
about to be immolated for’® the finding again 
of the youngerson. Matthew, again, relates His 
generation as a man, saying, “The book of the 
generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, 
the son of Abraham ;”’ " and also, “ The birth of 
Jesus Christ was on this wise.”’ This, then, is 
the Gospel of His humanity ; * for which reason 
it is, too, that [the character of ] a humble and 
meek man is kept up through the whole Gospel. 
Mark, on the other hand, commences with [a 
reference to] the prophetical spirit coming down 
from on high to men, saying, “The beginning 
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in 
Esaias the prophet,” — pointing to the winged 
aspect of the Gospel; and on this account he 
made a compendious and cursory narrative, for 
such is the prophetical character. And the Word 
of God Himself used to converse with the ante- 
Mosaic patriarchs, in accordance with His di- 





I! The reading vetkos having been followed instead of vikos, vic- 
tory. 

2 John i. 49, vi. 69; Matt. xii. 18 

3 Harvey thinks that this is the Hebrew Gospel of which Irenzeus 
speaks in the opening of this book; but comp. Dr. Roberts’s Dzsczs- 
stons on the Gospels, part ii. chap. iv. 

‘ Literally, “four catholic spirits;” Greek, résoapa Ka@oAuKd 
mvevpata; Latin, ‘ quatuor principales spiritus.” 

5 x Tim. iii, 15. 


6 Ps. Ixxx. 1. 

7 Rev. iv. 7. 

8 John i. x. 
___9 The above is the literal rendering of this very obscure sentence; 
it is not at all represented in the Greek here preserved. 

to The Greek is iwép: the Latin, ‘ pro.” 

II Matt. i. x, 18, 

12 The Greek text of this clause, literally rendered is, “‘ This Gow 
pel, then, is anthropomorphic.” 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 








429 





vinity and glory ; but for those under the law he 
instituted a sacerdotal and liturgical service. 
Afterwards, being made man for us, He sent 
the gift of the celestial Spirit over all the earth, 
protecting us with His wings. Such, then, as 
was the course followed by the Son of God, so 
was also the form of the living creatures; and 
such as was the form of the living creatures, so 
was also the character of the Gospel.?_ For the 
living creatures are quadriform, and the Gospel 
is quadriform, as is also the course followed by 


the Lord. For this reason were four principal 


(xafoArca‘) covenants given to the human race :3 
one, prior to the deluge, under Adam ; the sec- 
ond, that after the deluge, under Noah; the 
third, the giving of the law, under Moses ; the 
fourth, that which renovates man, and sums up 
all things in itself by means of the Gospel, rais- 
ing and bearing men upon its wings into the 
heavenly kingdom. 

g. These things being so, all who destroy the 
form of the Gospel are vain, unlearned, and 
also audacious ; those, [I mean,] who represent 
the aspects of the Gospel ‘as being either more 
in number than as aforesaid, or, on the other 
hand, fewer. The former class [do so], that 
they may seem to have discovered more than is 
of the truth; the latter, that they may set the 
dispensations of God aside. For Marcion, re- 
jecting, the entire Gospel, yea rather, cutting 
himself off from the Gospel, boasts that he has 
part in the [blessings of] the Gospel.t Others, 
again (the Montanists), that they may set at 
nought the gift of the Spirit, which in the latter 
times has been, by the good pleasure of the 
Father, poured out upon the human race, do 
not admit that aspect [of the evangelical dis- 
pensation] presented by John’s Gospel, in which 
the Lord promised that He would send the 
Paraclete ;5 but set aside at once both the Gos- 
pel and the prophetic Spirit. Wretched men 
indeed ! who wish to be pseudo-prophets, for- 
sooth, but who set aside the gift of prophecy 





I Or, “a sacerdotal and liturgical order,” following the fragment 
of the Greek text recovered here. Harvey thinks that the old Latin 
“ actum” indicates the true reading of the original mpagwv, and that 
tag is an error. The earlier editors, however, are of a contrary 
opinion. sant 

2 That is, the appearance of the Gospel taken as a whole; it being 
presented under a fourfold aspect. EMS 

3 A portion of the Greek has been preserved here, but it differs 
materially from the old Latin version, which seems to represent the 
original with greater exactness, and has therefore been followed. The 
Greek represents the first covenant as having been given to Noah, at 
the deluge, under the sign of the rainbow; the second as that given to 
Abraham, under the sign of circumcision; the third, as being the giv- 
ing of the law, under Moses; and the fourth, as that of the Gospel, 
through our Lord Jesus Christ. [Paradise with the tree of life, Adam 
with the Shechinah (Gen. iii. 24, iv. 16), Noah with, the rainbow, 
Abraham with czrcumctsion, Moses with the ark, Messiah with 
the sacraments, and heaven with the river of life, seem the com- 

plete system, i ane 
; 4 the old Latin reads, ‘‘ partem gloriatur se habere Evangelii. 
Massuet changed partem into pariter, thinking that fartem gave a 
sense inconsistent with the Marcionite curtailment of St. Luke. 
Harvey, however, observes: ‘‘ But the Gosfe/ here means the bless- 
ings of the Gospel, in which Marcion certainly claimed a share, 

5 John xiv. 16, etc. 


munion of the brethren. 








from the Church ; acting like those (the Encra- 
tite)° who, on account of such as come in 
hypocrisy, hold_themselves-aloof—from-the..com- 
We must conclude, 
moreover, that these men (the Montanists) can- 
not admit the Apostle Paul either. For, in his 
Epistle to the Corinthians,7 he speaks expressly 
of prophetical gifts, and recognises men and 
women prophesying in the Church. Sinning, 
therefore, in all these particulars, against the 
Spirit of God,® they fall into the irremissible sin. 


But those who are from Valentinus, being, on 


the other hand, altogether reckless, while they 
put forth their own compositions, boast that they 
possess more Gospels than there really are. In- 
deed, they have arrived at such a pitch of au- 
dacity, as to entitle their comparatively recent 
writing “ the Gospel of Truth,” though it agrees 
in nothing with the Gospels of the Apostles, so 
that they have really no Gospel which is not full 
of blasphemy. For if what they have published 
is the Gospel of truth, and yet is totally unlike 
those which have been handed down to us from 
the apostles, any who please may learn, as is 
shown from the Scriptures themselves, that that 
which has been handed down from the apostles 
can no longer be reckoned the Gospel of truth. 
But that these Gospels alone are true and relia- 
ble, and admit neither an increase nor diminu- 
tion of the aforesaid number, I have proved by 
so many and such [arguments]. For, since 
God made all things in due proportion and 
adaptation, it was fit also that the outward aspect 
of the Gospel should be well arranged and _ har- 
monized. ‘The opinion of those men, therefore, 
who handed the Gospel down to us, having been 
investigated, from their very fountainheads, let 
us proceed also to the remaining apostles, and 
inquire into their doctrine with regard to God ; 
then, in due course we shall listen to the very 
words of the Lord. 


CHAP. XII. — THE DOCTRINE OF THE REST OF THE 
APOSTLES. 


1. The Apostle Peter, therefore, after the res- 
urrection of the Lord, and His assumption into 
the heavens, being desirous of filling up the num- 
ber of the twelve apostles, and in electing into 
the place of Judas any substitute who should 
be chosen by God, thus addressed those who 
were present: “ Men [and] brethren, this Scrip- 
ture must needs have been fulfilled, which the 
Holy Ghost, by the mouth of David, spake be- 
fore concerning Judas, which was made guide to 
them that took Jesus. For he was numbered 
with us:9 ... Let his habitation be desolate, 


a 


6 Slighting, as did some later heretics, the Pauline Epistles. 
Fox Cor. XA, S- 

8 Matt. xii. 31. 

9 Acts i. 16, etc, 





and let no man dwell therein ; * and, His bishop- 
rick let another take ;”"? — thus leading to the 
completion of the apostles, according to the 
words spoken by David. Again, when the Holy 
Ghost had descended upon the disciples, that 
they all might prophesy and speak with tongues, 
and some mocked them, as if drunken with new 





IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both 
Lord and Christ.’7_ And when the multitudes 
exclaimed, “ What shall we do then?” Peter 
says to them, “Repent, and be baptized every 
one of you in the name of Jesus for the remis- 
sion of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of 
the Holy Ghost.” 8 Thus the apostles did not 


wine, Peter said that they were not drunken, for| preach another God, or another Fulness ; nor, 


it was the third hour of the day; but that this 
was what had been spoken by the prophet: “ It 
shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I 
will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and 
‘they shall prophesy.” 3 The God, therefore, who 
did promise by the prophet, that He would send 
His Spirit upon the whole human race, was He 
who did send; and God Himself is announced 
by Peter as having fulfilled His own promise. 

2. For Peter said, “Ye men of Israel, hear 
my words ; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved 
by God among you by powers, and wonders, 
and signs, which God did by Him in the midst 
of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being 
delivered by the determined counsel and fore- 
knowledge of God, by the hands of wicked men 
ye have slain, affixing [to the cross]: whom 
God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of 
death; because it was not possible that he 
should be holden of them. For David speak- 
éth concerning Him,‘ I foresaw the Lord always 
before my face; for He is on my right hand, 
lest I should be moved: therefore did my heart 
rejoice, and my tongue was glad ; moreover also, 
my flesh shall rest in hope: because Thou wilt 
not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou give 
Thy Holy One to see corruption.”5 Then he 
proceeds to speak confidently to them concern- 
ing the patriarch David, that he was dead and 
buried, and that his sepulchre is with them to 
this day. He said, “ But since he was a prophet, 
and knew that God had sworn with an oath to 
him, that of the fruit of his body one should sit 
in his throne ; foreseeing this, he spake of the 
resurrection of Christ, that He was not left in 
hell, neither did His flesh see corruption. This 
Jesus,” he said, “hath God raised up, of which 
we all are witnesses: who, being exalted by the 
right hand of God, receiving from the Father 
the promise of the Holy Ghost, hath shed forth 
this gift® which ye now see and hear. For 
David has not ascended into the heavens ;, but 
he saith himself, The Lorp said unto my Lord, 
Sit Thou on My right hand, until I make Thy 
foes Thy footstool. Therefore let all the house 
of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made 





T Ps, Ixix, 25, 
2 Ps. cix, 8. 
3 Neg li, 28. 
aS KV Ss 
5 Acts ii. 22-27, : 
_ © The word S@pov or Sépyua is supposed by some to have ex- 
isted in the earliest Greek texts, although not found in any extant 
now. It is thus quoted by others besides Irenzus. 








that the Christ who suffered and rose again was 
one, while he who flew off on high was another, 


and remained impassible; but that there was - 


one and_the same God the Father, and Christ 
Jesus who rose from the dead; and_ they 
preached faith in Him, to those who did not 
believe on the Son of God, and exhorted them 
out of the prophets, that the Christ whom God 
promised to send, He sent in Jesus, whom they 
crucified and God raised up. 

3. Again, when Peter, accompanied by John, 
had looked upon the man lame from his birth, 
before that gate of the temple which is called 
Beautiful, sitting and seeking alms, he said to 
him, “Silver and gold I have none; but such as 
I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ 
of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And immedi- 
ately his legs and his feet received strength ; and 
he walked, and entered with them into the tem- 
ple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.” 9 
Then, when a multitude had gathered around 
them from all quarters because of this unex- 
pected deed, Peter addressed them: “Ye men 
of Israel, why marvel ye at this; or why look 
ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own 
power we had made this man to walk? The God 
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of 
Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified 
His Son, whom ye delivered up for judgment,'° 
and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he 
wished to let Him go. But ye were bitterly set 
against '° the Holy One and the Just, and de- 
sired a murderer to be granted unto you; but 
ye killed the Prince of life, whom God hath 
raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses. 
And in the faith of His name, him, whom ye 
see and know, hath His name made strong; 
yea, the faith which is by Him, hath given him 
this perfect soundness in the presence of you 
all. And now, brethren, I wot that through 
ignorance ye did this wickedness.’° ... But 
those things which God before had showed by 
the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ 
should suffer, He hath so fulfilled. Repent ye 
therefore, and be converted, that your sins may 
be blotted out, and that" the times of refresh- 


7 Acts ii. 30-37. 

8 Acts ii. 37, 38. 

9 Acts iii. 6, etc. 

10 These interpolations are also found in the Codex Bezz. 

ir “Et veniant” in Latin text: omws av éA@worv in Greek. The 
translation of these Greek words by “when . . . come,” is one of 
the most glaring errors in the authorized English version. 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





ing may come to you from the presence of the 
Lord ; and He shall send Jesus Christ, prepared 
for you beforehand,’ whom the heaven must 
indeed receive until the times of the arrange- 
ment? of all things, of which God hath spoken 
by His holy prophets. For Moses truly said 
unto our fathers, Your Lord God shall raise up 
to you a Prophet from your brethren, like unto 
me; Him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever 
He shall say unto you. And it shall come to 
pass, that every soul, whosoever will not hear 
that Prophet, shall be destroyed from among the 
people. And all [the prophets] from Samuel, 
and henceforth, as many as have spoken, have 
likewise foretold of these days. Ye are the chil- 
dren of the prophets, and of the covenant which 
God made with our fathers, saying unto Abra- 
ham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of 
the earth be blessed. Unto you first, God, hav- 
ing raised up His Son, sent Him blessing you, 
that each may turn himself from his iniquities.’’ 
Peter, together with John, preached to them 
this plain message of glad tidings, that the prom- 
ise which’ God made to the fathers had been 
fulfilled by Jesus; not certainly proclaiming 
another god, but the Son of God, who also was 
made man; and suffered; thus leading Israel 
into~knowledge, and through Jesus preaching 
the resurrection of the dead,* and showing, that 
whatever the prophets had proclaimed as to the 
suffering of Christ, these had God fulfilled. 

4. For this reason, too, when the chief priests 
were assembled, Peter, full of boldness, said to 
them, “Ye rulers of the people, and elders of 
Israel, if we this day be examined by you of the 
good deed done to the impotent man, by what 
means he has been made whole ; be it known to 
you all, and to-all the people of Israel, that by 
the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye 
crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even 
by Him doth this man stand here before you 
whole. This is the stone which was set at nought 
of you builders, which is become the head-stone 
of the corner. [Neither is there salvation in 
any other: for] there is none other name under 
heaven, which is given to men, whereby we must 
be saved.” Thus the apostles did not change 
God, but preached to the people that Christ 
was Jesus the crucified One, whom the same 
God that had sent the prophets, being God 
Himself, raised. up, and gave in Him salvation 
to men. 

5. They were confounded, therefore, both by 
this instance of healing (“ for the man was above 
forty years old on whom this miracle: of healing 





1 Irenzus, like the majority of the early authorities, manifestly read 
poke XELpLTLEVvOV instead of mpoxexypuymevov, as in textus receptus. 

2 Dispositionis. 

3 Acts iii, 12, etc. 

4 Acts iv. 2. 

4 Acts iv. 8, etc. 


431 


took place ’’®), and by the doctrine of the apos- 
tles, and by the exposition of the prophets, when 
the chief priests had sent away Peter and John. 
[These latter] returned to the rest of their fel- 
low-apostles and disciples of the Lord, that is, 
to the Church, and related what had occurred, 
and how courageously they had acted in the 
name of Jesus. The whole Church, it is then 
said, “when they had heard that, lifted up the 
voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, 
Thou art God, which hast made heaven, and 
earth, and the sea, and all that in them is ; who, 
through the Holy Ghost,” by the mouth of our 
father David, Thy servant, hast said, Why did 
the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain 
things? The kings of the earth stood up, and 
the rulers were gathered together against the 
Lord, and against His Christ. For of a truth, 
in this city,’ against Thy holy Son Jesus, whom 
Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius 
Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of 
Israel, were gathered together, to do whatsoever 
Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before 
to be done.”9 These fare the] voices of the 
‘hurch had its origin ; 
these are the voices of the metropolis of the citi- 
zens of the new covenant; these are the voices 
of the apostles ; these are voices of the disciples 
of the Lord, the truly perfect, who, after the as- 
sumption of the Lord, were perfected by the 
Spirit, and called upon the God who made heav- 
en, and earth, and the sea, — who was announced 
by the prophets,—and Jesus Christ His Son, 
whom God anointed, and who knew no other 
[God]. For-at-that_time_and_place.there.was 
neither Valentinus, nor Marcion, nor the rest of 
these subverters [of the truth], and their adher- 
ents. Wherefore God, the Maker of all things, 
heard them. For it is said, “The place was 
shaken where they were assembled together ; 
and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and 
they spake the word of God with boldness”’ '° to 
every one that was willing to believe." “ And 
with great power,” it is added, “ gave the apos- 
tles witness of the resurrection of the Lord 
Jesus,” 1? saying to them, “The God of our fathers 
raised up Jesus, whom ye seized and slew, hang- 
ing [Him] upon a beam of wood: Him hath 
God raised up by His right hand 3 to be a Prince 
and Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and 


eS 





6 Acts iv. 22. ‘ 

7 These words, though not in textus receptus, are found in some 
ancient MSS. and versions; but not the words “our father,” which 
follow. 

8 ‘Tn hac civitate” are words not represented in the textus re- 
ceptus, but have a place in all modern critical editions of the New 
Testament. 

9 Acts iv. 24, etc, 

10 Acts iv. 31. . F 3 

11 The Latin is, “‘ ut convertat se unusquisque, 

12 Acts iv. 33. 

13 This is dellowing Grabe’s emendation of the text. The old 
Latin reads “ gloria sua,” the translator having evidently mistaken 


Seftg for dogy- 


432 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


ae a er ec ES ee 


forgiveness of sins. And we are in this witnesses 
of these words ; as also is the Holy Ghost, whom 
God hath given to them that believe in Him.” * 
“ And daily,” it is said, “in the temple, and from 
house to house, they ceased not to teach and 
preach Christ Jesus,”? the Son of God. For 
this was the knowledge of salvation, which ren- 
ders those who acknowledge His Son’s advent 
perfect towards God. 

6. But as some of these men impudently as- 
sert that the apostles, when preaching among the 
Jews, could not declare to them another god 
besides Him in whom they (their hearers3) be- 
lieved, we say to them, that if the apostles used 
to speak to people in accordance with the opin- 
ion instilled into them of old, no one learned the 
truth from them, nor, at a much earlier date, 
from the Lord ; for they say that He did Him- 
self speak after the same fashion. Wherefore 
neither do these men themselves know the truth ; 
but since such was their opinion regarding God, 
they had just received doctrine as they were able 
to hear it. = dhewie to this manner of speak- 
ing, therefore, ‘the rule of truthDcan be with no- 
body ; but all learners-will ascribe this practice 
to all [teachers ], that just as every person thought, 
and as far as his capability extended, so was also 
the language addressed to him. But the advent 
of the Lord will appear superfluous and useless, 
if He did indeed come intending to tolerate 
and to preserve each man’s idea regarding God 
rooted in him from of old.- Besides this, also, 
it was a much heavier task, that He whom the 
Jews had seen as a man, and had fastened to the 
cross, should be preached as Christ the Son of 
God, their eternal King. Since this, however, 
was so, they certainly did not speak to them in 
accordance with their old belief. For they, who 
told them to their face that they were the slay- 
ers of the Lord, would themselves also much 
more boldly preach that Father who is above the 
Demiurge, and not what each individual bid 
himself believe [respecting God]; and the sin 
was much less, if indeed they had not fastened 
to the cross the superior Saviour (to whom it be- 
hoved them to ascend), since He was impassible. 
For, as they did not speak to the (Gentiles) in 
compliance with their notions, but told them with 
boldness that their gods were no gods, but the 
idols of demons ; so would they in like manner 
have preached to the Jews, if they had known 
another greater or more perfect Father, not nour- 
ishing nor strengthening the untrue opinion of 
these men regarding God. Moreover, while de- 
stroying the error of the Gentiles, and bearing 
them away from their gods, they did not certainly 
induce another error upon them ; but, removing 
ws MN RE Sel cera ee hi 





1 Acts v. 30. 
2 Acts v. 42. 
3 These words have apparently been omitted through inadvertence, 





those which were no gods, they pointed out 
Him who alone was God and the true Father. 
7. From the words of Peter, therefore, which 
he addressed in Czesarea to Cornelius the centu- 
rion, and those Gentiles with him, to whom the 
word of God was first preached, we can under- 
stand what the apostles used to preach, the 
nature of their preaching, and their idea with 
regard to God. Eor this Cornelius was, it is 
said, “a devout man, and one who feared God 
with all his house, giving much alms to the peo- 
ple, and praying to God always. He saw there- 
fore, about the ninth hour of the day, an angel 
of God coming in to him, and saying, Thine 
alms are come up for a memorial before God. 
Wherefore send to Simon, who is called Peter.’’+ 
But when Peter saw the vision, in which the 
voice from heaven said to him, “ What God hath 
cleansed, that call not thou common,’’5 this 
happened [to teach him] that the God who had, 
through the law, distinguisked between clean 
and unclean, was He who had purified the Gen- 
tiles through the blood of His Son— He whom 
also Cornelius worshipped; to whom Peter, 
coming in, said, “Of a truth I perceive that 
God is no respecter of persons: but in every 
nation, he that feareth Him, and worketh right- 
eousness, is acceptable to Him.”°® He thus 
clearly indicates, that He whom Cornelius had 
previously feared as God, of whom he had heard 
through the law and the prophets, for whose 
sake also he used to give alms, is, in truth, God. 
the knowledge of the Son was, however, wanting 
to him ; therefore did [Peter] add, “The word, 
ye know, which was published throughout all 
Judea, beginning from Galilee, after the baptism 
which John preached, Jesus of Nazareth, how 
God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost, and with 
power ; who went about doing good, and healing 
all that were oppressed of the devil; for God 
was with Him. And we are witnesses of all those 
things which He did both in the land of the 
Jews and in Jerusalem ; whom they slew, hang- 
ing Him on a beam of wood: Him God raised 
up the third day, and showed Him openly ; not 
to all the people, but unto us, witnesses chosen 
before of God, who did eat and drink with Him 
after the resurrection from the dead. And He 
commanded us to preach unto the people, and 
to testify that it is He which was ordained of 
God to be the Judge of quick and dead. To 
Him give all the prophets witness, that, through 
His name, every one that believeth in Him does 
receive remission of sins.”7 The apostles, 
therefore, did preach the Son of God, of whom 
men were ignorant; and His advent, to those 








4 Acts x, 1-5. 

5 Acts x. 15. 

6 Acts x. 34, 35. 
7 Acts x. 37-44. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





433 





who had been already instructed as to God; 
but they did not bring in another god. For if 
Peter had known any such thing, he would have 
preached freely to the Gentiles, that the God of 
the Jews was indeed one, but the God of the 
Christians another; and all of them, doubtless, 
being awe-struck because of the vision of the 
angel, would have believed whatever he told 
them. But it is evident from Peter’s words 
that he did indeed still retain the God who was 
already known to them; but he also bare wit- 
ness to them that Jesus Christ was the Son of 
God, the Judge of quick and dead, into whom 
he did also command them to be baptized for 
the remission of sins ; and not this alone, but he 
witnessed that Jesus was Himself the Son of God, 
who also, having been anointed with the Holy 
Spirit, is called Jesus Christ. And i 
same being that was born of Mary, as the testi- 
mony of Peter implies. Can it really be, that 
Peter was not at that time as yet in possession 
of the perfect knowledge which these men dis- 
covered afterwards? According to them, there- 
fore,Peter was imperfect,/and the rest of the 
apostles wére imperfect; and so it would be 
fitting that they, coming to life again, should 
become disciples of these men, in order that 
they too might be made perfect. But this is 
truly ridiculous. These men, in fact, are proved 
to be not disciples of the apostles, but of their 
own wicked notions. To this cause also are 
due the various opinions which exist among 
them, inasmuch as each one adopted error just 
as he was capable ' [of embracing it]. But the 
Church throughout all the world, having its 
origin firm from the apostles, perseveres in one 
and the same opinion with regard to God and 
His Son. , 

3. But again: Whom did Philip preach to the 
eunuch of the queen of the Ethiopians, returning 
from Jerusalem, and reading Esaias the prophet, 
when he and this man were alone together? 
Was it not He of whom the prophet spoke: 
“ He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as 
a lamb dumb before the shearer, so He opened 
not the month?” “But who shall declare His 
nativity? for His life shall be taken away from 
the earth.”? [Philip declared] that this was 
Jesus, and that the Scripture was fulfilled in 
Him ; as did also the believing eunuch himself : 
and, immediately requesting to be baptized, he 
said, “I believe Jesus Christ to be the Son of 
God.’3 This man was also sent into the regions 
of Ethiopia, to preach what he had himself be- 
lieved, that there was one God preached by the 
prophets, but that the Son of this [God] had 


0 a, a ama 


l Ouemadmodum capiebat ; perhaps, “just as it presented itself 
to him.” 

2 Acts viii. 32: Isa. lili. 7, 8. 

3 Acts viii. 37- 





already made [His] appearance in human nature 
(secundum hominem), and had been led as a 
sheep to the slaughter; and all the other state- 
ments which the prophets made regarding Him. 

g. Paul himself also—after that the Lord 
spoke to him out of heaven, and showed him 
that, in persecuting His disciples, he persecuted 
his own Lord, and sent Ananias to him that 
he might recover his sight, and be baptized — 
“preached,” it is said, “ Jesus in the synagogues 
at Damascus, with all freedom of speech, that 
this is the Son of God, the Christ.”* This is 
the mystery which he says was made known to 
him by revelation, that He who suffered under 
Pontius Pilate, the same is Lord of all, and King, 
and God, and Judge, receiving power from Him 
who is the God of all, because He became 
“obedient unto death, even the death of the 
cross.”5 And inasmuch as this is true, when 
preaching to the Athenians on the Areopagus — 
where, no Jews being present, he had it in his 
power to preach God with freedom of speech — 
he said to them: “God, who made the world, 
and all things therein, He, being Lord of heaven 
and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with 
hands ; neither is He touched © by men’s hands, 
as though He needéd anything, seeing He giveth 
to all life, and breath, and all things ; who hath 
made from one blood the whole race of men to 
dwell upon the face of the whole earth,’ pre- 
determining the times according to the boundary 
of their habitation, to seek the Deity, if by any 
means they might be able to track Him out, or 
find Him, although He be not far from each of 
us. For in Him we live, and move, and have 
our being, as certain men of your own have said, 
For we are also His offspring. Inasmuch, then, 
as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to 
think that the Deity is like unto gold or silver, 
or stone graven by art or man’s device. There- 
fore God, winking at the times of ignorance, 
does now command all men everywhere to turn 
to Him with repentance; because He hath ap- 
pointed a day, on which the world shall be judged 
in righteousness by the man Jesus ; whereof He 
hath given assurance by raising Him from the 
dead.” Now in this passage he does not only 
declare to them God as the Creator of the world, 
no Jews being present, but that He did also 
make one race of men to dwell upon all the 
earth ; as also Moses declared : “ When the Most 
High divided the nations, as He scattered the 
sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the nations 
after the number of the angels of God ;”° but 





4 Acts ix, 20. 

S Phil. ii. 8. : 

6 Latin translation, tractatur » which Harvey thinks affords a 
conclusive proof that Irenzeus occasionally quotes Scripture by re- 
translating from the Syriac. ‘ ; 

7 It will be observed that Scripture is here very loosely quoted. 

8 Acts xvil. 24, etc! 

9 Deut. xxxii. 8 [LXX.]. 


434 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


SSS SS Ean 


that people which believes in God is not now 
under-the-power of angels, but under the Lord’s 
[rule]. ‘For His people Jacob was made the 
portion of the Lord, Israel the cord of His inherit- 
ance.”! And again, at Lystra of Lycia (Lycao- 
nia), when Paul was with Barnabas, and in the 
name of our Lord Jesus Christ had made a man 
to walk who had been lame from his birth, and 
when the crowd wished to honour them as gods 
because of the astonishing deed, he said to them : 
““We are men like unto you, preaching to you 
God, that ye may be turned away from these vain 
idols to [serve] the living God, who made heaven, 
and earth, and the sea, and all things that are 
therein ; who in times past suffered all nations 
to walk in their own ways, although He left not 
Himself without witness, performing acts of good- 
ness, giving you rain from heaven, and fruitful 
seasons, filling your hearts with food and glad- 
ness.”"? But that all _his-Epistles are consonant 
to these declarations, I shall, when expound- 
ing the apostle, show from the Epistles them- 
selves, in the right place. But while I bring 
out by these proofs the truths of Scripture, and 
set forth briefly and compendiously things which 
are stated in various ways, do thou also attend 
to them with patience, and not deem them pro- 
lix; taking this into account, that proofs [of the 
things which are] contained in the Scriptures 
cannot be shown except from the Scriptures 
themselves. , 

1o. And still further, Stephen, who was chosen 
the first deacon by the apostles, and who, of all 
men, was the first to follow the footsteps of the 
martyrdom of the Lord, being the first that was 
slain for confessing Christ, speaking boldly among 
the people, and teaching them, says: ‘The God 
of glory appeared to our father Abraham, .. . 
and said to him, Get thee out of thy country, 
and from thy kindred, and come into the land 
which I shall show thee; . . . and He removed 
him into this land, wherein ye now dwell. And 
He gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so 
much as to set his foot on; yet He promised 
that He would give it to him for a possession, 
and to his seed after him. . . . And God spake 
on this wise, That his seed should sojourn in a 
strange land, and should be brought into bond- 
age, and should be evil-entreated four hundred 
years; and the nation whom they shall serve 
will I judge, says the Lord. And after that shall 
they come forth, and serve me in this place. 
And He gave him the covenant of circumcision : 
and so [Abraham] begat Isaac.”3 And the rest 
of his words announce the same God, who was 
with Joseph and with the patriarchs, and who 
spake with Moses. 


T Deut, xxxii. 9. 
2 Acts xiv. 15-17. 
3 Acts vii. 2-8. 





11. And that the whole range of the doctrine 
of the apostles proclaimed one and the same 
God, who removed Abraham, who made to him 
the promise of inheritance, who in due season 
gave to him the covenant of circumcision, who 
called his descendants out of Egypt, preserved 
outwardly by circumcision — for he gave it as a 
sign, that they might not be like the Egyptians 
— that He was the Maker of all things, that He 
was the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that He 
was the God of glory,—they who wish may learn 
from the very words and acts of the apostles, and 
may contemplate the fact that this God is one, 
above whom is no other. But even if there were 
another god above Him, we should say, upon 
[instituting] a comparison of the quantity [of 
the work done by each], that the latter is supe- 
rior to the former. For by deeds the better man 
appears, as I have already remarked ; + and, in- 
asmuch as these men have no works of their 
father to adduce, the latter is shown to be God 
alone. But if any one, “doting about ques- 
tions,’ 5 do imagine that what the apostles have 
declared about God should be allegorized, let 
him consider my previous statements, in which 
I set forth one God as the Founder and Maker 
of all things, and destroyed and laid bare their 
allegations ; and he shall find them agreeable to 
the doctrine of the apostles, and so to maintain 
what they used to teach, and were persuaded of, 
that there is one God, the Maker of all things. 
And when he shall have divested his mind ot 
such error, and of that blasphemy against God 
which it implies, he will of himself find reason 
to acknowledge that both the Mosaic law and 


‘the grace of the new covenant, as both fitted for 


the times [at which they were given], were be- 
stowed by one and the same God for the benefit 
of the human race. 

12. For all those who are of a perverse-mind, 
having been set against the Mosaic legislation, 
judging it to be dissimilar and contrary to the 
doctrine of the Gospel, have not applied them- 
selves to investigate the causes of the difference 
of each covenant. Since, therefore, they have 
been deserted by the paternal love, and puffed 
up by Satan, being brought over to the doctrine 
of Simon Magus, they have apostatized in their 
opinions from Him who is God, and imagined 
that they have themselves discovered more than 
the apostles, by finding out another god; and 
[maintained] that the apostles preached the 
Gospel still somewhat under the influence of 
Jewish opinions, but that they themselves are 
purer [in doctrine], and more intelligent, than 
the apostles. Wherefore also Marcion and his 
followers have betaken themselves to mutilating 
the Scriptures, not acknowledging some books 





4 Book ii. ch. xxx. 2. 
5 x Tim. vi. 4. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


435 





at all; and, curtailing the Gospel according to 
Luke and the Epistles of Paul, they assert that 
these are alone authentic, which they have them- 
selves thus shortened. In another work,: how- 
ever, I shall, God granting [me strength], refute 
them out of these which they still retain. But 
all the rest, inflated with the false name of 
“knowledge,” do certainly recognise the Scrip- 


tures ; but they pervert the interpretations, as I 
have shown in the first book. And, indeed, the 


fo s of Marcion do directly blaspheme the 
reatoy, alleging him to be the creator of evils, 
holding a more tolerable? theory as to his 
origin, [and] maintaining that there are two 
beings, gods by nature, differing from each other, 
—the one being good, but the other evil. Those 
from Valentinus, however, while they employ 
names of a more honourable kind, and set forth 
that He who is Creator is both Father, and Lord, 
and God, do [nevertheless] render their theory 
or sect more plasphemous, by maintaining that 
He_was not produced from any one of those 
Eons within the Pleroma, but from that defect 
rich had been expelled beyond the Pleroma. 
Ignorance of the Scriptures and of the dispensa- 
tion of God has brought all these things upon 
them. And in the course of this work I shall 
touch upon the cause of the difference of the 
covenants on the one hand, and, on the other 
hand, of their unity and harmony. 

13. But that both the apostles and their dis- 
ciples thus taught as the Church preaches, and 
thus teaching were perfected, wherefore also they 
were called away to that which is perfect — 
Stephen, teaching these truths, when he was yet 
on earth, saw the glory of God, and Jesus on 
His right hand, and exclaimed, “ Behold, I see 
the heavens opened, and the Son of man stand- 
ing on the right hand of God.” These words 
he said, and was stoned ; and thus did he fulfil 
the perfect doctrine, copying in every respect 
the Leader of martyrdom, and praying for those 
who were slaying him, in these words: “ Lord, 
lay not this sin to their charge.” Thus were 
they perfected who knew one and the same God, 
who from beginning to end was present with 
mankind in the various dispensations ; as the 
prophet Hosea declares: “I have filled up vis- 
ions, and used similitudes by the hands of the 
prophets.”4 Those, therefore, who delivered up 
their souls to death for Christ’s Gospel—how 
could they have spoken to men in accordance 
with old-established opinion? If this had been 
the course adopted by them, they should not 
have suffered ; but inasmuch as they did preach 





I No reference is made to this promised work in the writings of 
his successors. Probably it never was undertaken. 

2 Most of the mss. read “‘ intolerabiliorem,” but one reads as 
above, and is followed by all the editors. 

3 Acts vii. 56. 

4 Hos. xii. ro. 





things contrary to those persons who did not 
assent to the truth, for that reason they suffered. 
It is evident, therefore, that they did not relin- 
quish the truth, but with all boldness preached 
to the Jews and Greeks. To the Jews, indeed, 
[they proclaimed] that the Jesus who was cruci- 
fied by them was the Son of God, the Judge of 
quick and dead, and that He has received from 
His Father an eternal kingdom in Israel, as I 
have pointed out; but to the Greeks they 
preached one God, who made all things, and 
Jesus Christ His Son. 

14. This is shown in a still clearer light from 
the letter of the apostles, which they forwarded 
neither to the Jews nor to the Greeks, but to 
those who from the Gentiles believed in Christ, 
confirming their faith, For when certain men 
had come down from Judea to Antioch — where 
also, first of all, the Lord’s disciples were called 
Christians, because of their faith in Christ — and 
sought to persuade those who had believed on 
the Lord to be circumcised, and to perform 
other things after the observance of the law; 
and when Paul and Barnabas had gone up to 
Jerusalem to the apostles on account of this 
question, and the whole Church had convened 
together, Peter thus addressed them: “ Men, 
brethren, ye know how that from the days of 
old God made choice among you, that the Gen- 
tiles by my mouth should hear the word of the 
Gospel, and believe. And God, the Searcher 
of the heart, bare them witness, giving them the 
Holy Ghost, even as to us ; and put no difference 
between us and them, purifying their hearts by 
faith. Now therefore why tempt ye God, to 
impose a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, 
which neither our fathers nor we were able to 


bear? But we believe that, through the grace 


of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are to be saved, 
even as they.”5 After him James spoke as fol- 
lows: “ Men, brethren, Simon hath declared how 
God did purpose to take from among the Gen- 
tiles a people for His name. And thus® do the 
words of the prophets agree, as it is written, After 
this I will return, and will build again the taber- 
nacle of David, which is fallen down ; and I will 
build the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: that 
the residue of men may seek after the Lord, and 
all the Gentiles, among whom my name has 
been invoked, saith the Lord, doing these things.” 
Known from eternity is His work toGod. Where- 
fore I for my part give judgment, that we trouble 
not them who from among the Gentiles are turned 
to God: but that it be enjoined them, that they 


es ca“O“ GS ao 


5 Acts xv. 15, etc. 

6 Irenzus manifestly read ot ws for tovTw, and in this he agrees 
with Codex Beze. We may remark, once for all, that in the varia- 
tions from the received text of the New Testament which occur in our 
author, his quotations are very often in accordance with the readings 
of the Cambridge ms. 

7 Amos ix. 11, 12. 


436 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





do abstain from the vanities of idols, and from 
fornication, and from blood; and whatsoever ' 
they wish not to be done to themselves, let them 
not do to others.” 2 And when these things had 
been said, and all had given their consent, they 
wrote to them after this manner: “The apostles, 
and the presbyters, [and] the brethren, unto those 
brethren from among the Gentiles who are in 
Antioch, and Syria, and Cilicia, greeting: For- 
asmuch as we have heard that certain persons 
going out from us have troubled you with words, 
subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be cir- 
cumcised, and keep the law; to whom we gave 
no such commandment: it seemed good unto 
us, being assembled with one accord, to send 
chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas 
and Paul; men who have delivered up their soul 
for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have 
sent therefore Judas and Silas, that they may 
declare our opinion by word of mouth. For it 
seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to 
lay upon you no greater burden than these neces- 
sary things; that ye abstain from meats offered 
to idols, and from blood, and from fornication ; 
and whatsoever ye do not wish to be done to 
you, do not ye to others: from which preserving 
yourselves, ye shall do well, walking 3 in the Holy 
Spirit.” From all these passages, then, it is evi- 
dent that they did not teach the existence of 
another Father, but gave the new covenant of 
liberty to those who had lately believed in God 
by the Holy Spirit. But they clearly indicated, 
from the nature of the point debated by them, 
as to whether or not it were still necessary to 
circumcise the disciples, that they had no idea 
of another god. 

15. Neither [in that case] would they have 
had such a terror with regard to the first cove- 
nant, as not even to have been willing to eat with 
the Gentiles. For even Peter, although he had 
been sent to instruct them, and had been con- 
strained by a vision to that effect, spake never- 
theless with not a little hesitation, saying to them : 
“Ye know how it is an unlawful thing for a man 
that is a Jew to keep company with, or to 
come unto, one of another nation ; but God hath 
shown me that I should not call any man common 
or unclean. Therefore came I without gainsay- 
ing ;’’ 4 indicating by these words, that he would 
not have come to them unless he had been com- 
manded. Neither, for a like reason, would he 
have given them baptism so readily, had he not 
heard them prophesying when the Holy Ghost 
rested upon them. And therefore did he ex- 
claim, “Can any man forbid water, that these 





re This addition is also found in Codex Bezz, and in Cyprian and 
others, 

2 Acts xv. 14, etc. , 
. 3 Another addition, also found in the Codex Bez, and in Tertul- 


an. 
4 Acts x. 28, a9. 








should not be baptized, who have received the 
Holy Ghost as wellas we?’’5 He persuaded, at 
the same time, those that were with him, and 
pointed out that, unless the Holy Ghost had 
rested upon them, there might have been some 
one who would have raised objections to their 
baptism. And the apostles who were with James 
allowed the Gentiles to act freely, yielding us up 
to the Spirit of God. But they themselves, while 
knowing the-same God, continued in the ancient 
observances ; so that even Peter, fearing also lest 
he might incur their reproof, although formerly 
eating with the Gentiles, because of the vision, 
and of the Spirit who had rested upon them, 
yet, when certain persons.came from James, 
withdrew himself, and did not eat with them. 
And Paul said that Barnabas likewise did the 
same thing.© Thus did the apostles, whom the 
Lord made witnesses of every action and of every 
doctrine — for upon all occasions do we find 
Peter, and James, and John present with Him — 
scrupulously act according to the dispensation of 
the Mosaic law, showing that it was from one 
and the same God; which they certainly never 
would have done, as I have already said, if they 
had learned from the Lord [that there existed ] 
another Father besides Him who appointed the 
dispensation of the law. 


CHAP. XIII—- REFUTATION OF THE OPINION, THAT 
PAUL WAS THE ONLY APOSTLE WHO HAD KNOWL- 
EDGE OF THE TRUTH. 


1. With regard to those (the Marcionites) who 
allege that Paul alone knew the truth, and that 
to him the mystery was manifested by revelation, 
let Paul himself convict them, when he says, that 
one and the same God wrought in Peter for the - 
apostolate of the circumcision, and in himself for 
the Gentiles.?_ Peter, therefore, was an apostle of 
that very God whose was also Paul; and Him 
whom Peter preached as God among those of 
the circumcision, and likewise the Son of God, did 
Paul [declare] also among the Gentiles. For 
our Lord never came to save Paul alone, nor is 
God so limited in means, that He should have 
but one apostle who knew the dispensation of 
His Son. And again, when Paul says, “ How 
beautiful are the feet of those bringing glad 
tidings of good things, and preaching the Gospel 
of peace,” ® he shows clearly that it was not 
merely one, but there were many who used to 
preach the truth. And again, in the Epistle to 
the Corinthians, when he had recounted all those 
who had seen God? after the resurrection, he 





5 Acts x. 47. 
© Gal. ii. 12, 13. 
7 Gal. ii. 8. 


8 Rom, x. 15; Isa. lii. 7. : 

9 All the previous editors accept the reading Dex without re- 
mark, but Harvey argues that it must be regarded as a mistake for 
Dominum. He scarcely seems, however, to give sufficient weight to 
the quotation which immediately follows. 


IRENAZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


437 


i a eee eee 


says in continuation, ** But whether it were I or 
they, so we preach, and so ye believed,”* ac- 
know(edging as one and the same, the preaching 
of ali tnose who saw God? after the resurrection 
from the dead. 

2. And again, the Lord replied to Philip, who 
wished to behold the Father, ‘‘ Have I been so 
iong a time with you, and yet thou hast not 
known Me, Philip? He that sees Me, sees also 
the Father ; and how sayest thou then, Show us 
the Father? For I am in the Father, and the 
Father in Me; and henceforth ye know Him, 
and have seen Him.’”’3 To these men, therefore, 
did the Lord bear witness, that in Himself they 
had both known and seen the Father (and the 
Father is truth). To allege, then, that these 
men did not know the truth, is to act the part of 
false witnesses, and of those who have been 
alienated from the doctrine of Christ. For why 
did the Lord send the twelve apostles to the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel,+ if these men did 
not know the truth? How also did the seventy 
preach, unless they had themselves previously 
known the truth of what was preached? Or how 
could Peter have been in ignorance, to whom 
the Lord gave testimony, that flesh and blood 
had not revealed to him, but the Father, who is 
in heaven?’ Just, then, as “ Paul [was] an apos- 
tle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus 
Christ, and God the Father,”’® [so with the rest ; ]7 
the Son indeed leading them to the father, 
but the Father revealing to them the Son. 

3. But that Paul acceded to [the request of | 
those who summoned him to the apostles, on 
account of the question [which had been raised], 
and went up to them, with Barnabas, to Jerusa- 
lem, not without reason, but that the liberty of 

-the Gentiles might be confirmed by them, he 
does himself say, in the Epistle to the Galatians : 
“Then, fourteen years after, I went up again to 
Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking also Titus, But 
I went up by revelation, and communicated to 
them that Gospel which I preached among the 
Gentiles. ’’® And again he says, “ For an hour 
we did give place to subjection,? that the truth 
of the gospel might continue with you.” If, then, 
any one shall, from the Acts of the Apostles, 
carefully scrutinize the time concerning which it 
is written that he went up to Jerusalem on ac- 





1 1 Cor. xv. 11. 

2 See note g, p. 436. 

3 John xiv. 7, 9, 10. 

4 Matt. x, 6. 

5 Matt. xvi. 17. 

6 Gal. i. 1. 

7 Some such supplement seems necessary, as Grabe suggests, 
though Harvey contends that no apodosis is requisite. 

8 Gal. ii. 1, 2. ? wae 4 Y 

9 Latin, “ Ad horam cessimus subjectioni” (Gal. ii, 5). Irenzus 
gives it an altogether different meaning from that which it has in the 
received text. Jerome says that there was as much variation in the 
copies of Scripture in his day with regard to the passage, — some 
retaining, others rejecting the negative. Tertullian argues for the 
removal of the negative (dav. Marc. v. 3). 











count of the forementioned question, he will find 
those years mentioned by Paul coinciding with 
it. Thus the statement of Paul harmonizes with, 
and is, as it were, identical with, the testimony of 
Luke regarding the apostles. 


CHAP. XIV.—IF PAUL HAD KNOWN ANY MYSTERIES 
UNREVEALED TO THE OTHER APOSTLES, LUKE, 
HIS CONSTANT COMPANION AND FELLOW-TRAV- 
ELLER, COULD NOT HAVE BEEN IGNORANT OF 
THEM; NEITHER COULD THE TRUTH HAVE 
POSSIBLY LAIN HID FROM HIM, THROUGH WHOM 
ALONE WE LEARN MANY AND MOST IMPORTANT 
PARTICULARS OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 


1. But that this Luke was inseparable from Paul, 
and his fellow-labourer in the Gospel, he him- 
self clearly evinces, not as a matter of boasting, 
but as bound to do so by the truth itself. For 
he says that when Barnabas, and John who was 
called Mark, had parted company from Paul, and 
sailed to Cyprus, “we came to Troas;”?° and 
when Paul had beheld in a dream a man of 
Macedonia, saying, ‘Come into Macedonia, Paul, 
and help us,” “immediately,” he says, “ we en- 
deavoured to go into Macedonia, understanding 
that the Lord had called us to preach the Gos- 
pel untothem. Therefore, sailing from Troas, we 
directed our ship’s course towards Samothracia.” 
And then he carefully indicates all the rest of 
their journey as far as Philippi, and how they 
delivered their first address: “for, sitting down, ” 
he says, “we spake unto the women who had 
assembled ;”’!! and certain believed, evena great 
many. And again does he say, “ But we sailed 
from Philippi after the days of unleavened 
bread, and came to Troas, where we abode seven 
days.” #2, And all the remaining [details] of his 
course with Paul he recounts, indicating with all 
diligence both places, and cities, and number of 
days, until they went up to Jerusalem ; and what 
befell Paul there," how he was sent to Rome in 
bonds ; the name of the centurion who took him 
in charge ; ‘+ and the signs of the ships, and how 
they made shipwreck ; "5 and the island upon 
which they escaped, and how they received kind- 
ness there, Paul healing the chief man of that 
island; and how they sailed from thence to 
Puteoli, and from that arrived at Rome ; and for 
what period they sojourned at Rome. As Luke 
was present at all these occurrences, he carefully 
noted them down in writing, so that he cannot 
be convicted of falsehood or boastfulness, because 
all these [particulars] proved both that he was 
senior to all those who now teach otherwise, and 
that he was not ignorant of the truth. That he 





Io Acts xvi. 8, etc. 
II Acts xvi. 13- 

12 Acts xx, 5, 6. 

13 Acts xxi. 

14 Acts xxvii, 

15 Acts xxviil, 1%. 


438 





was not merely a follower, but also a fellow- 
labourer of the apostles, but especially of Paul, 
Paul has himself declared also in the Epistles, 
saying: “ Demas hath forsaken me, . . . and is 
departed unto Thessalonica ; Crescens to Gala- 
tia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me.” ! 
From this he shows that he was always attached 
to and inseparable from him. And again he says, 
in the Epistle to the Colossians: “ Luke, the be- 
loved physician, greets you.” But surely if 
Luke, who always preached in company with 
Paul, and is called by him “the beloved,” and 
with him performed the work of an evangelist, 
and was entrusted to hand down to us a Gospel, 
learned nothing different from him (Paul), as 
has been pointed out from his words, how can 
these men, who were never attached to Paul, 
boast that they have learned hidden and unspeak- 
able mysteries ? 

2. But that Paul taught with simplicity what 
he knew, not only to those who were [employed ] 
with him, but to those that heard him, he does 
himself make manifest. For when the bishops 
and presbyters who came from Ephesus and the 
other cities adjoining had assembled in Miletus, 
since he was himself hastening to Jerusalem to 
observe Pentecost, after testifying many things 
to them, and declaring what must happen to 
him at Jerusalem, he added: “I know that ye 
shall see my face no more. Therefore I take 
you to record this day, that I am pure from the 
blood of all. For I have not shunned to declare 
unto you all the counsel of God. Take heed, 
therefore, both to yourselves, and to all the flock 
over which the Holy Ghost has placed you as 
bishops, to rule the Church of the Lord,3 which 
He has acquired for Himself through His own 
blood.” 4 Then, referring to the evil teachers 
who should arise, he said: “I know that after 
my departure shall grievous wolves come to you, 
not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves 
shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to 
draw away disciples after them.” “I have not 
shunned,” he says, “to declare unto you all the 
counsel of God.’’ Thus did the apostles simply, 
and without respect of persons, deliver to all 
what they had themselves learned from the Lord. 
Thus also does Luke, without respect of persons, 
deliver to us what he had learned from them, as 
he has himself testified, saying, “Even as they 
deiivered them unto us, who from the beginning 
were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word.” 5 

3. Now if any man set Luke aside, as one who 
did not know the truth, he will, [by so acting, ] 


‘I 2 Tim, iv. 10, 11. 

2 Col. iv. 14, 

3 In this very important passage of Scripture, Irenzeus manifestly 
read Kupiov instead of @eov, which is found in fext. ree. The Codex 
Bezz has the same reading; but all the other most ancient mss. 
agree with the received text. 

4 Acts xx, 25, etc. 

5 Luke i, 2. 





IRENAZEUS. AGAINST HERESIES. 


manifestly reject that Gospel of which he claims 
to be a disciple. For through him we have be- 
come acquainted with very many and important 
parts of the Gospel ; for instance, the generation 
of John, the history of Zacharias, the coming of 
the angel to Mary, the exclamation of Elisabeth, 
the descent of the angels to the shepherds, the 
words spoken by them, the testimony of Anna 
and of Simeon with regard to Christ, and that 
at twelve years of age He was left behind at 
Jerusalem ; also the baptism of John, the nur 

ber of the Lord’s years when He was baptized 

and that this occurred in the fifteenth year of 
Tiberius Cesar. And in His office of teacher 
this is what He has said to the rich: “ Woe unto 
you that are rich, for ye have received your con- 
solation ;”® and, ‘Woe unto you that are full, 
for ye shall hunger ; and ye who laugh now, for 
ye shall weep ;” and, “Woe unto you when all 
men shall speak well of you: for so did your 
fathers to the false prophets.” All things of the 
following kind we have known through Luke 
alone (and numerous actions of the Lord we 
have learned through him, which also all [the 
Evangelists] notice): the multitude of fishes 
which Peter’s companions enclosed, when at 
the Lord’s command they cast the nets;7 the 
woman who had suffered for eighteen years, and 
was healed on the Sabbath-day ;® the man who 
had the dropsy, whom the Lord made whole on 
the Sabbath, and how He did defend Himself 
for having performed an act of healing on that 
day ; how He taught His disciples not to aspire 
to the uppermost rooms ; how we should invite 
the poor and feeble, who cannot recompense us ; 


the man who knocked during the night to obtain 4 


loaves, and did obtain them, because of the 
urgency of his importunity ;? how, when [our 
Lord] was sitting at meat with a Pharisee, a 
woman that was a sinner kissed His feet, and 
anointed them with ointment, with what the 
Lord said to Simon on her behalf concerning 
the two debtors ;° also about the parable of that 
rich man who stored up the goods which had 
accrued to him,.to whom it was also said, “In 
this night they shall demand thy soul from thee ; 
whose then shall those things bew hich thou hast 
prepared ?” '* and similar to this, that of the rich 
man, who was clothed in purple and who fared 
sumptuously, and the indigent Lazarus ;*? also 
the answer which He gave to His disciples when 
they said, “Increase our faith ;” *3 also His con- 
versation with Zaccheus the publican ;'4 also about 





6 Luke vi. 24, etc. 
7 Luke v. 

8 Luke xiii. 

9 Luke xi. 

10 Luke vii. 

11 Luke xii. 20. 

12 Luke xvi. 

13 Luke xvii. 5. 

14 Luke xix. 


IRENAZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





439. 





the Pharisee and the publican, who were pray- 
ing in the temple at the same time 3 also the 
ten lepers, whom He cleansed in the way simul- 
taneously ;? also how He ordered the lame and 
the blind to be gathered to the wedding from 
the lanes and streets ;3 also the parable of the 
judge who feared not God, whom the widow’s 
importunity led to avenge her cause ;4 and about 
the fig-tree in the vineyard which produced no 
fruit. There are also Many other particulars to 
be found mentioned by Luke alone, which are 
made use of by both Marcion and Valentinus. 
And besides all these, [he records] what [Christ] 
said to His disciples in the way, after the resur- 
rection, and how they recognised Him in the 
breaking of bread.s 

4. It follows then, as of course, that these 
men must either receive the rest of his narrative, 
or else reject these parts also. For no persons 
of common sense can permit them to receive 
some things recounted by Luke as being true, 
and to set others aside, as if he had not known 
the truth. And if indeed Marcion’s followers 
reject these, they will then possess no Gospel ; 
for, curtailing that according to Luke, as I have 
said already, they boast in having the Gospel [in 
what remains]. But the followers of Valentinus 
must give up their utterly vain talk; for they 
have taken from that [Gospel] many occasions 
for their own speculations, to put an evil inter- 
pretation upon what he has well said. If, on 
the other hand, they feel compelled to receive 
the remaining portions also, then, by studying the 
perfect Gospel, and the doctrine of the apostles, 
they will find it necessary to repent, that they 
may be saved from the danger [to which they 
are exposed ]. 


CHAP. XV.— REFUTATION OF THE EBIONITES, WHO 
DISPARAGED THE AUTHORITY OF ST. PAUL, FROM 
THE WRITINGS OF ST. LUKE, WHICH MUST BE 
RECEIVED AS A WHOLE. EXPOSURE OF THE HY- 
POCRISY, DECEIT, AND PRIDE OF THE GNOSTICS. 
THE APOSTLES AND THEIR DISCIPLES KNEW AND 
PREACHED ONE GOD, THE CREATOR OF THE 
WORLD. 


1. But again, we allege the same against those 
who do not recognise Paul as an apostle: that 
they should either reject the other words of the 
Gospel which we have come to know through 
Luke alone, and not make use of them; or else, 
if they do receive all these, they must necessarily 
admit also that testimony concerning Paul, when 
he (Luke) tells us that the Lord spoke at first to 
him from heaven: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest 
thou Me? Iam Jesus Christ, whom thou per- 





I Luke xviii. 
2 Luke xvii. 
3 Luke xviii. 
4 Luke xiii. 
5 Luke xxiv. - 








secutest ;’’° and then to Ananias, saying regard- 
ing him: “Go thy way; for he is a chosen 
vessel unto Me, to bear My name among the 
Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. 
For I will show him, from this time, how great 
things he must suffer for My name’s sake.’ 7 
Those, therefore, who do not accept of him [as 
a teacher], who was chosen by God for this pur- 
pose, that he might boldly bear His name, as 
being sent to the forementioned nations, do de- 
spise the election of God, and separate them- 
selves from the company of the apostles. For 
neither can they contend that Paul was no apostle, 
when he was chosen for this purpose ; nor can 
they prove Luke guilty of falsehood, when he 
proclaims the truth to us with all diligence. It 
may be, indeed, that it was with this view that 
God set forth very many Gospel truths, through 
Luke’s instrumentality, which all should esteem 
it necessary to use, in order that all persons, 
following his subsequent testimony, which treats 
upon the acts and the doctrine of the apostles, 
and holding the unadulterated rule of truth, may 
be saved. His testimony, therefore, is true, and 
the doctrine of the apostles is open and stedfast, 
holding nothing in reserve ; nor did they teach one 
set of doctrines in private, and another in public. 

2. For this is the subterfuge of false persons, 
evil seducers, and hypocrites, as they act whe 
are from Valentinus. These men discourse to 
the multitude about those who belong to the 


Church, whom they do themselves term “ yul-_ 


gar,” and “ ecclesiastic.” ® By these words they 
entrap the more simple, and entice them, imi- 
tating our phraseology, that these [dupes] may 
listen to them the oftener; and then these are 
asked 9 regarding us, how it is, that when they 
hold doctrines similar to ours, we, without cause, 
keep ourselves aloof from their company; and 


[how it is, that] when they say the same things, . 
and hold the same doctrine, we call_them_here-.. 


tics? When they have thus, by means of ques- 
“tions, overthrown the faith of any, and rendered 
them uncontradicting hearers of their own, they 
describe to them in private the unspeakable 
mystery of their Pleroma. But they are ‘alto- 
gether deceived, who imagine that they may 
learn from the Scriptural texts adduced by here- 
tics, that [doctrine] which their words plausibly 
teach.'° For error is plausible, and bears a re- 





© Acts xxii. 8, xxvi. 15. 

7 Acts ix. 15, 16, : 

8 Latin, “‘communes et ecclesiasticos: ” xa@oAuKovs is translated 
here “‘communes,” as for some time after the word catholicus had 
not been added to the Latin language in its ecclesiastical sense. {The 
Roman Creed was remarkable for its omission of the word Cathodic. 
See Bingham, Az#tzguztzes, book x. cap. iv. sect. 11.] | 

9 We here follow the text of Harvey, who prints, without remark, 
queruntur, instead of gueruntur, as in Migne’s edition. : 

10 Such is the sense educed by Harvey from the old Latin version, 
which thus runs: “ Decipiuntur autem omnes, qui quod est in verbis 
verisimile, se putant posse discere a veritate.” For ‘‘ omnes” he would 


» 


read “‘omnino,” and he discards the emendation proposed by the for 
mer editors, viz., ‘‘ discernere ” for “‘ discere. ‘ 


440 


semblance to the truth, but requires to be dis- 
guised ; while truth is without disguise, and 
therefore has been entrusted to children. And 
if any one of their auditors do indeed demand 
explanations, or start objections to them, they 
afarm that he is one not capable of receiving. 


the truth, and not having from above the seed} 


[derived] from their Mother; and thus ‘really 
give him no reply, but simply declare that he is 
of the intermediate regions, that is, belongs to 
animal natures. But if any one do yield himself 
“up to them like a little sheep, and-follows out 
their practice, and their “tedemption,” such an 
one is puffed up to such an extent, that he thinks 
he is neither in heaven nor on earth, but that 
he has passed within the Pleroma; and having 
already embraced his angel, he walks with a 
strutting gait and a supercilious countenance, 
possessing all the pompous air of a cock. There 
are those among them who assert that that man 
who comes from above ought to follow a good 
course of conduct ; wherefore they do also pre- 
tend a gravity [of demeanour] with a certain 
superciliousness. The majority, however, having 
become scoffers also, as if already perfect, and 
living without regard [to appearances], yea, in 
contempt [of that which is good], call them- 
selves “the spiritual,” and allege that they have 
already become acquainted with that place of 
refreshing which is within their Pleroma. 

3. But let us revert to the same line of argu- 
ment [hitherto pursued]. For when it has been 
manifestly declared, that they who were the 
preachers of the truth and the apostles of liberty 
termed no one else God, or named him Lord, 
except the only true God the Father, and His 
Word, who has the pre-eminence in all things ; 
it shall then be clearly proved, that they (the 
apostles) confessed as the Lord God Him who 
was the Creator of heaven and earth, who also 
spoke with Moses, gave to him the dispensation 
of the law, and who called the fathers ; and that 
they knew no other. The opinion of the apostles, 
therefore, and of those (Mark and Luke) who 
‘earned from their words, concerning God, has 
been made manifest. 


CHAP. XVI. — PROOFS FROM THE APOSTOLIC WRIT- 
INGS, THAT JESUS CHRIST WAS ONE AND THE 
SAME, THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD, PER- 
FEC? GOD AND PERFECT MAN. 


1. But! there are some who say that Jesus 
was merely a receptacle of Christ, upon whom 
the Christ, as a dove, descended from above, 
and that when He had declared the unnameable 
Father He entered into the Pleroma in an in- 








1 We here omit s7#ce, and insert therefore afterwards, to avoid 
the extreme length of the sentence as it stands in the Latin version. 
The apodosis does not occur till the words, “I judge it necessary,” 
are reached. Ae 














IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





comprehensible and invisible manner : for that 
He was not comprehended, not only by men, 
but not even by those powers and virtues which 
are in heaven, and that Jesus was the Son, but 
that? Christ was the Father, and the Father of 
Christ, God; while others say that He merely 
suffered in outward appearance, being naturally 
impassible. The_Valentinians, again, maintain 
that the dispensational Jesus was the same who 
passed through Mary, upon whom that Saviour 
from the more exalted [region] descended, who 
was also termed Pan,3 because He possessed the 
names (vocadula) of all those who had produced 
Him; but that [this latter] shared with Him, 
the dispensational one, His power and His name ; 
so that by His means death was abolished, but 
the Father was made known by that Saviour who 
had descended from above, whom they do also 
allege to be Himself the receptacle of Christ and 
of the entire Pleroma; confessing, indeed, in 
tongue one Christ Jesus, but being divided in 
[actual] opinion : for, as I have already observed, 
it is the practice of these men to say that there 
was one Christ, who was produced by Monogenes, 
for the confirmation of the Pleroma; but that 
another, the Saviour, was sent [forth] for the 
glorification of the Father ; and yet another, the 
dispensational one, and whom they represent 
as having suffered, who also bore [in himself] 
Christ, that Saviour who returned into the Ple- 
roma. I judge it necessary therefore to take 
into account the entire mind of the apostles 
regarding our Lord Jesus Christ, and to show 
that not only did they never hold any such opin- 
ions regarding Him; but, still further, that they 
announced through the Holy Spirit, that those 
who should teach such doctrines were agents of 
Satan, sent forth for the purpose of overturning the 
faith of some, and drawing them away from life. 

2. That John knew the one and the same Word 
of God, and that He was the only begotten, and 
that He became incarnate for our salvation, Jesus 
Christ our Lord, I have sufficiently proved from 
the word of John himself. And Matthew, too, 
recognising one and the same Jesus Christ, ex- 
hibiting his generation as a man from the Virgin,‘ 
even as God did promise David that He would 
raise up from the fruit of his body an eternal 
King, having made the same promise to Abraham 
a long time previously, says: “The book of the 
generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, 
the son of Abraham.”5 Then, that he might 
free our mind from suspicion regarding Joseph, 
he says: “ But the birth of Christ® was on this 


2 See book i. 12, 4. 

3 The Latin text has ‘‘Christum,” which is supposed to be an 
erroneous reading. See also book ii, c. xii. s. 6. 

4 Ps, cxxxii. 11. 

5 Matt. i. 1. 
_ © Matt. i. 18. It is to be observed that Irenzeus here reads Christ 
instead of Fesus Christ, as in text. rec., thus agreeing with the 
reading of the Vulgate in the passage. led 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


441 





wise. When His mother was espoused to Joseph, 
before they came together, she was found with 
child of the Holy Ghost.” Then, when Joseph 
had it in contemplation to put Mary away, since 
she proved with child, [Matthew tells us of] the 
angel of God standing by him, and saying: 
“Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for 
that which is conceived in her is of the Holy 
Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and 
thou shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall 
save His people from their sins. Now this was 
done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken 
of the Lord by the prophet: Behold, a virgin 
shall conceive, and bring forth a son, and they 
shall call His name Emmanuel, which is, God 
with us ;” clearly signifying that both the prom- 
ise made to the fathers had been accomplished, 
that the Son of God was born of a virgin, and 
that He Himself was Christ the Saviour whom 
the prophets had foretold; not, as these men 
assert, that Jesus was He who was born of 


Mary, but that Christ was He who descended | 


from above, 
“Now the birth of Jesvs was on this wise ;” but 
the Holy Ghost, foreseeing the corrupters [of the 
truth], and guarding by anticipation against their 
deceit, says by Matthew, “ But the birth of 
Christ was on this wise ;” and that He is Em- 
manuel, lest perchance we might consider Him 
as a mere man: for “not by the will of the flesh, 
nor by the will of man, but by the will of God, 
was the Word made flesh ;’’ : and that we should 
not imagine that Jesus was one, and Christ 
another, but should know them to be one and 
the same. 

3. Paul, when writing to the Romans, has 
explained this very point: “ Paul, an apostle of 
Jesus Christ, predestinated unto the Gospel of 
God, which He had promised by His prophets 
in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who 
was made to Him of the seed of David accord- 
ing to the flesh, who was predestinated the Son 
of God with power through the Spirit of holi- 
ness, by the resurrection from the dead of our 
Lord Jesus Christ.”2 And again, writing to the 
Romans about Israel, he says: ‘“ Whose are the 
fathers, and from whom is Christ according to 
the flesh, who is God over all, blessed for ever.’’3 
And again, in his Epistle to the Galatians, he 
says: “ But when the fulness of time had come, 
God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, 
made under the law, to redeem them that were 
under the law, that we might receive the adop- 
tion ;” 4 plainly indicating one God, who did by 
Say oi ee eS 


1 John i. 13, 14. From this, and also a quotation of the same 
passage in chap. xix. of this book, it appears that Trenzus must have 
read os... . €yevv7yOy here, and not ot... eyevyn Ooo. | Tertullian 
quotes the verse to the same effect (Lid, de Carne Christ2, cap. 19 
and 24). 

2 Rom. i, 1-4. 

3 Rom, ix. 5. 

4 Gal. iv. 4, 5 


Matthew might certainly have said, | 





t 











the prophets make promise of the Son, and one 
Jesus Christ our Lord, who was of the seed of 
David according to His birth from Mary; and 
that Jesus Christ was appointed the Son of God 
with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, 
by the resurrection from the dead, as being the 
first begotten in all the creation ;5 the Son of 
God being made the Son of man, that through 
Him we may receive the adoption, — humanity ° 
sustaining, and receiving, and embracing the 
Son of God. Wherefore Mark also says: “The 
beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son 
of God; as it is written in the prophets.”7 
Knowing one and the same Son of God, Jesus 
Christ, who was announced by the prophets, who 
from the fruit of David’s body was Emmanuel, 
“the messenger of great counsel of the Father ;”* 
through whom God caused the day-spring and 
the Just One to arise to the house of David, 
and raised up for him an horn of salvation, “ and 
established a testimony in Jacob;”9 as David 
says when discoursing on the causes of His birth : 
“ And He appointed a law in Israel, that another 
generation might know [Him,] the children 
which should be born from these, and they aris- 
ing shall themselves declare to their children, so 
that they might set their hope in God, and seek 
after His commandments.” '® And again, the 
angel said, when bringing good tidings to Mary: 
“He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of 
the Highest ; and the Lord shall give unto Him 
the throne of His father David ;”*: acknowl- 
edging that He who is the Son of the Highest, 
the same is Himself also the Son of David. And 
David, knowing by the Spirit the dispensation 
of the advent of this Person, by which He is 
supreme over all the living and dead, confessed 
Him as Lord, sitting on the right hand of the 
Most High Father.’ 

4. But Simeon also—he who had received 
an intimation from the Holy Ghost that he 
should not see death, until first he had beheld 
Christ Jesus — taking Him, the first-begotten of 
the Virgin, into his hands, blessed God, and 
said, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant de- 
part in peace, according to Thy word : because 
mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou 
hast prepared before the face of all people ; a 
light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of 
Thy people Israel ;” *3 confessing thus, that the 
infant whom he was holding in his hands, Jesus, 
born of Mary, was Christ Himself, the Son of 
God, the light of all, the glory of Israel itself, 
Ace aaa re eae as Sk Bi ANAS Se 

5 Col. i. 14, 15. 

6 “ Homine.” 

7 Mark i. 1. 

8 Isa, ix. 6 (LXX.). 

9 Luke i. 69. 

Io Ps. lxxviil. 5. 

11 Luke i. 32. 


12 Ps. cx. 1. 
13 Luke ii. a9. 


442 


and the peace and refreshing of those who had 
fallen asleep. For He was already despoiling 
men, by removing their ignorance, conferring 
upon them His own knowledge, and scattering 
abroad those who recognised Him, as Esaias 
says: “Call His name, Quickly spoil, Rapidly 
divide.” Now these are the works of Christ. 
He therefore was Himself Christ, whom Simeon 
carrying [in his arms] blessed the Most High ; 
on beholding whom the shepherds glorified God ; 
whom John, while yet in his mother’s womb, 
and He (Christ) in that of Mary, recognising 
as the Lord, saluted with leaping; whom the 
Magi, when they had seen, adored, and offered 
their gifts [to Him], as I have already stated, 
and prostrated themselves to the eternal King, 
departed by another way, not now returning by 
the way of the Assyrians. “For before the 
child shall have knowledge to cry, Father or 
mother, He shall receive the power of Damas- 
cus, and the spoils of Samaria, against the king 
of the Assyrians ;”’? declaring, in a mysterious 
manner indeed, but emphatically, that the Lord 
did fight with a hidden hand against Amalek. 
For this cause, too, He suddenly removed those 
children belonging to the house of David, whose 
happy lot it was to have been born at that time, 
that He might send them on before into His 
kingdom ; He, since He was Himself an infant, 
so arranging it that human infants should be 
martyrs, slain, according to the Scriptures, for 
the sake of Christ, who was born in Bethlehem 
of Judah, in the city of David.t 

s. Therefore did the Lord also say to His 
disciples after the resurrection, ““O thoughtless 
ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the 
prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to 
have suffered these things, and to enter into His 
glory?’”’5 And again does He say to them: 
“These are the words which I spake unto you 
while I was yet with you, that all things must be 
fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, 
and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concern- 
ing Me. Then opened He their understand- 
ing, that they should understand the Scriptures, 
and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus 
it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise again 
from the dead, and that repentance for the 
remission of sins be preached in His name 
among all nations.”® Now this is He who was 
born of Mary; for He says: “The Son of man 
must suffer many things, and be rejected, and 
crucified, and on the third day rise again.’7 
The Gospel, therefore, knew no other son of 
man but Him who was of Mary, who also suf- 





T Isa. viti. 3. 

2 Isa, viii. 4. 

3 Ex. xvii. 16 (LXX.). 

4 Matt, ii. 16, 

5 Luke xxiv, 25. 

6 Luke xxiv, 44, etc. 

7 Mark viii. 3x and Luke ix. 22. 





IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





fered ; and\no Christ who ‘few away from. Jesus 
before the ier’? but Him who was born it 
knew as Jesus Christ the Son of God, and that 
this same suffered and rose again, as John, the 
disciple of the Lord, verifies, saying : “ But these 
are written, that ye might believe that Jesus 
is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believ- 
ing ye might have eternal life in His name,” * 
— foreseeing these blasphemous systems which 
divide the Lord, as far as lies in their power, 


‘saying that He was formed of two different 


substances. For this reason also he has thus 
testified to us in his Epistle: “ Littte children, 
it is the last time; and as ye have heard that 
Antichrist doth come, now have many antichrists 
appeared ; whereby we know that it is the last 
time. They went out from us, but they were 
not of us; for if they had been of us, they 
would have continued with us: but [they de- 
parted], that they might be made manifest that 
they are not of us. Know ye therefore, that 
every lie is from without, and is not of the 
truth. Who is a liar, but he that denieth that 
Jesus is the Christ? ‘This is Antichrist.” 9 

6. But inasmuch as all those before mentioned, 
although they certainly do with their tongue con- 
fess one Jesus Christ, make fools of themselves, 
thinking one thing and saying another ; *° for their 
hypotheses vary, as I have already shown, al- 
leging, [as they do,] that one Being suffered and 
was born, and that this was Jesus ; but that there 
was another who descended upon Him, and that 
this was Christ, who also ascended again; and 
they argue, that he who proceeded from the 
Demiurge, or he who was dispensational, or he 
who sprang from Joseph, was the Being subject 
to suffering ; but upon the latter there descended 
from the invisible and ineffable [places] the for- 
mer, whom they assert to be incomprehensible, 
invisible, and impassible : they thus wander from 
the truth, because their doctrine departs from 
Him who is truly God, being ignorant that His 
only-begotten Word, who is always present with 
the human race, united to and mingled with His 
own creation, according to the Father’s pleasure, 
and who became flesh, is Himself Jesus Christ 
our Lord, who did also suffer for us, and rose 
again on our behalf, and who will come again in 
the glory of His Father, to raise up all flesh, and 
for the manifestation of salvation, and to apply 
the rule of just judgment to all who were made 
by Him. There is therefore, as I have pointed 
out, one God the Father, and one Christ Jesus, 
who came by means of the whole dispensational 
arrangements [connected with Him], and gath- 

8 John xx. 31. 

9 x John ii. 18, etc., loosely quoted, 

10 The text here followed is that of two Syriac mss., whith prove 
the loss of several consecutive words in the old Latin version, and 
clear up the meaning of a confused sentence, showing that the word 


“autem” is here, as it probably is elsewhere, merely a contraction for 
“aut eum,” 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


e es 


ered together all things in Himself.t But in 
every respect, too, He is man, the formation of 
God ; and thus He took up man into Himself, 
the invisible becoming visible, the incomprehen- 
sible being made comprehensible, the impassible 
becoming capable of suffering, and the Word 
being made man, thus summing up all things in 
Himself: so that as in super-celestial, spiritual, 
and invisible things, the Word of God is supreme, 
so also in things visible and corporeal He might 
possess the supremacy, and, taking to Himself 
the pre-eminence, as well as constituting Him- 
self Head of the Church, He might draw all 
things to Himself at the proper time. 

7. With Him is nothing incomplete or out of 
due season, just as with the Father there is noth- 
ing incongruous. For all these things were fore- 
known by the Father; but the Son works them 
out at the proper time in perfect order and se- 
quence. This was the reason why, when Mary 
was urging [Him] on to [perform] the wonder- 
ful miracle of the wine, and was desirous before 
the time to partake? of the cup of emblematic 
significance, the Lord, checking her untimely 
haste, said, “Woman, what have I to do with 
thee? mine hour is not yet come ” 3— waiting 
for that hour which was foreknown by the Father. 
This is also the reason why, when men were often 
desirous to take Him, it is said, “No man laid 
hands upon Him, for the hour of His being taken 
was not yet come ;”4 nor the time of His pas- 
sion, which had been foreknown by the Father ; 
as also says the prophet Habakkuk, “ By this 
Thou shalt be known when the years have drawn 
nigh; Thou shalt be set forth when the time 
comes ; because my soul is disturbed by anger, 
Thou shalt remember Thy mercy.’’5 Paul also 
says: “But when the fulness of time came, God 
sent forth His Son.” By which is made mani- 
fest, that all things which had been foreknown 
of the Father, our Lord did accomplish in their 
order, season, and hour, foreknown and fitting, 
being indeed one and the same, but rich and 
great. For He fulfils the bountiful and compre- 
hensive will of His Father, inasmuch as He is 
Himself the Saviour of those who are saved, and 
the Lord of those who are under authority, and 
the God of all those things which have been 
formed, the only-begotten of the Father, Christ 
who was announced, and the Word of God, who 
became incarnate when the fulness of time had 
come, at which the Son of God had to become 
the Son of man. 


wo SS eS Sa 


1 Eph. i. 10. P ; 

2 eParticipare compendii poculo,” i.e,, the cup which recapitu- 
lates the suffering of Christ, and which, as Harvey; thinks, refers to 
the symbolical character of the cup of the Eucharist, as setting forth 
the passion of Christ. 

3 John ii. 4. 

4 John vii. 30. 

$ ab. ili. 2. 

6 Gal. iv. 4. 


443 


_ 8. All, therefore, are outside of the [Chris- 
tian] dispensation, who, under pretext of knowl- 
edge, understand that Jesus was one, and Christ 


another, whom these disciples of error allege to 
be a production of those who were made ons 
in a state of degeneracy. Such men are to out- 
ward appearance sheep ; for they appear to be 
like us, by what they say in public, repeating the 
same words as we do; but inwardly they are 
wolves. ‘Their doctrine is homicidal, conjuring 





up, as it does, a number of gods, and simulating 
many Fathers, but lowering and dividing the Son 
of God in many ways. These are they against 
whom the Lord has cautioned us beforehand ; 
and His disciple, in his Epistle already men- 
tioned, commands us to avoid them, when he 
says: “For many deceivers are entered into the 
world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come 
in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an anti- 
christ. Take heed to them, that ye lose not 
what ye have wrought.”7 And again does he 
say in the Epistle: “Many false prophets are 
gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the 
Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that 
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God ; and 
every spirit which separates Jesus Christ is not 
of God, but is of antichrist.”’® These words 
agree with what was said in the Gospel, that 
“the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among 
‘us.’ Wherefore he again exclaims in his Epis- 
tle, “ Every one that believeth that Jesus is the 
Christ, has been born of God ;”?? knowing Jesus 
Christ to be one and the same, to whom the 
gates of heaven were. opened, because of His 
taking upon Him flesh: who shall also come in 
the same flesh in which He suffered, revealing 
the glory of the Father. 

g. Concurring with these statements, Paul, 
speaking to the Romans, declares: “ Much 
more they who receive abundance of grace and 
righteousness for [eternal] life, shall reign by 
one, Christ Jesus.” *° It follows from this, that 
he knew nothing of that Christ who flew away 
from Jésus; nor did he of the Saviour above, 
whom they hold to be impassible. For if, in 





7 2John, 7, 8. Irenzeus seems to have read a’tovs instead of 
éavrovs, as in the received text. $ ; 

8 x Johniv.1,2. This isa material difference from the received 
text of the passage: “ Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus 
Christ is come in the flesh.” ‘The Vulgate translation and Origen 
agree with Irenzus, and Tertullian seems to recognise both readings 
(Adv. Mare., v. 16). i 
sage had been corrupted by those who wished to separate the human- 
ity of Christ from His divinity, and that the old copies read, wav 
mvedua 6 Avet Tov "Incobv amd Tov @cod ovx €or, which exactly agrees 
with Origen’s quotation, and very nearly with that of Irenzus, now 
before us. Polycarp (Zf., c. vii.) seems to allude to the passage as 
we have it now, and so does Ignatius (Zp. Smyr., c. v.) See the 
question discussed by Burton, in his Ante-Nicene Testimontes [40 
the Div. of Christ. Another work of Burton has a similar name. 
See British Critic, vol. ii, (of 1827), p. 265]. 

9 x Johny. 1. 

10 Rem. y. 17. 


Socrates tells us (vii. 32, p. 381) that the pas- _“ 


444 IRENAUS AGAI 





truth, the one suffered, and the other remained 
incapable of suffering, and the one was born, 
but the other descended upon him who was born, 
and left him again, it is not one, but two, that 
are shown forth. But that the apostle did know 
Him as one, both who was born and who suf- 
fered, namely Christ Jesus, he again says in the 
same Epistle: “ Know ye not, that so many of 
us as were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized 
in His death? that like as Christ rose from the 
dead, so should we also walk in newness of life.” 
But again, showing that Christ did suffer, and 
was Himself the Son of God, who died for us, 
and redeemed us with His blood at the time 
appointed beforehand, he says: ‘ For how is it, 
that Christ, when we were yet without strength, 
in due time died for the ungodly? But God 
commendeth His love towards us, in that, while 
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much 
more, then, being now justified by His blood, 
we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For 
if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled 
to God by the death of His Son; much more, 
being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” 2 
He declares in the plainest manner, that the 
same Being who was laid hold of, and underwent 
suffering, and shed His blood for us, was both 
Christ and the Son of God, who did also rise 
again, and was taken up into heaven, as he him- 
_ self [Paul] says: “But at the same time, [it 
is] Christ [that] died, yea rather, that is risen 
again, who is even at the right hand of God.’’3 
And again, “ Knowing that Christ, rising from 
the dead, dieth no more :’’4 for, as himself fore- 
seeing, through the Spirit, the subdivisions of 
evil teachers [with regard to the Lord’s person], 
and being desirous of cutting away from them 
all occasion of cavil, he says what has been al- 
ready stated, [and also declares:] “ But if the 
Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the 
dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from 
the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies.” 5 
This he does not utter to those alone who wish 
to hear: Do not err, [he says to all:] Jesus 
Christ, the Son of God, is one and the same, 
who did by suffering reconcile us to God, and 
rose from the dead ; who is at the right hand of 
the Father, and perfect in all things; “who, 
when He was buffeted, struck not in return; 
who, when He suffered, threatened not ;”® and 
when He underwent tyranny, He prayed His 
Father that He would forgive those who had cru- 
cified Him. For He did Himself truly bring in 
salvation : since He is Himself the Word of God, 








T Rom. vi. 3, 4. 

? Rom, v, 6-10. Irenzsus appears to have read, as does the Vul- 
gate, eis Ti ydp, for ere yap in fext. rec. 

3 Rom, viii. 34. 

4 Rom. vi. 9. 

5 Rom. viii. rz. 

© x Pet. ii, 23. 


NST HERESIES. 





Himself the Only-begotten of the Father, Christ 
Jesus our Lord. 


CHAP. XVII. —THE APOSTLES TEACH THAT IT WAS 
NEITHER CHRIST NOR THE SAVIOUR, BUT THE 
HOLY SPIRIT, WHO DID DESCEND UPON JESUS. 
THE REASON FOR THIS DESCENT. 


1. It certainly was in the power of the apostles 
to declare that Christ descended upon Jesus, or 
that the so-called superior Saviour [came down] 
upon the dispensational one, or he who is from 
the invisible places upon him from the Demi- 
urge; but they neither knew nor said anything 
of the kind: for, had they known it, they would 
have also certainly stated it. But what really 
was the case, that did they record, [namely, ] 
that the Spirit of God as a dove descended upon 
Him ; this Spirit, of whom it was declared by 
Isaiah, “‘ And the Spirit of God shall rest upon 
Him,”7 as I have already said. And again: 
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because 
He hath anointed Me.”* That is the Spirit of 
whom the Lord declares, “ For it is not ye that 
speak, but the Spirit of your Father which 
speaketh in you.”9 And again, giving to the 
disciples the power of regeneration into God,’° 
He said to them, “ Go and teach all nations, bap- 
tizing them in the name of the Father, and of 
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” "" For [God] 
promised, that in the last times He would pour 
Him [the Spirit] upon [His] servants and hand- 
maids, that they might prophesy ; wherefore He 
did also descend upon the Son of God, made 
the Son of man, becoming accustomed in fellow- 
ship with Him to dwell in the human race, to 
rest with human beings, and to dwell in the 
workmanship of God, working the will of the 
Father in them, and renewing them from their 
old habits into the newness of Christ. 

2. This Spirit did David ask for the human 
race, saying, “And stablish me with Thine all- 
governing Spirit;’*? who also, as Luke says, 
descended at the day of Pentecost upon the 
disciples after the Lord’s ascension, having power 
to admit all nations to the entrance of life, 
and to the opening of the new covenant ; from 
whence also, with one accord in all languages, 
they uttered praise to God, the Spirit bringing 
distant tribes to unity, and offering to the Father 
the first-fruits of all nations. Wherefore also the 
Lord promised to send the Comforter,'? who 
should join us to God. For as a compacted 
lump of dough cannot be formed of dry wheat 





7 Isa, xi 2. 

8 Isa, Ixi. 1. 

9 Matt. x. 20. 

10 Harvey remarks on this: “The sacrament of baptism is there- 
hy Sivauis Tis avayervycews eis Gedy.” [Comp. book i. cap 
xxi. 

II Matt. xxviii. 19. 

12 Ps, li, 12. 

13 John xvi. 7. 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


445 





without fluid matter, nor can a loaf possess unity, 
so, in like manner, neither could we, being many, 
be made one in Christ Jesus without the water 


from heaven. And as dry earth does not bring 
forth unless it receive moisture, in like manner 
we also, being originally a dry tree, could never 
have brought forth fruit unto life without the 
voluntary rain from above. For our bodies have 
received unity among themselves by means of 
that laver which leads to incorruption ; but our 
souls, by means of the Spirit. Wherefore both 
are necessary, since both contribute towards the 
life of God, our Lord compassionating that err- 
ing Samaritan woman'—who did not remain 
with one husband, but committed fornication 
by [contracting] many marriages — by pointing 
out, and promising to her living water, so that 
she should thirst no more, nor occupy herself 
in acquiring the refreshing water obtained by 
labour, having in herself water springing up to 
eternal life. The Lord, receiving this as a gift 
from His Father, does Himself also confer it 
upon those who are partakers of Himself, send- 
ing the Holy Spirit upon all the earth. 

3. Gideon,? that Israelite whom God chose, 
that he might save the people of Israel from 
the power of foreigners, foreseeing this gracious 
gift, changed his request, and prophesied that 
there would be dryness upon the fleece of wool 
(a type of the people), on which alone at first 
there had been dew; thus indicating that they 
should no longer have the Holy Spirit from God, 
as saith Esaias, “I will also command the clouds, 
that they rain no rain upon it,’ but that the 
dew, which is the Spirit of God, who descended 
upon the Lord, should be diffused throughout 
all the earth, “ the spirit of wisdom and under- 
standing, the spirit of counsel and might, the 
spirit of knowledge and piety, the spirit of the 
fear of God.”+ This Spirit, again, He did con- 
fer upon the Church, sending throughout all the 
world the Comforter from heaven, from whence 





also the Lord tells us that the devil, like light- 
ning, was cast.down.> Wherefore we have need 
of the dew of ence we be not consumed by 
fire, Hor-be~rendéred unfruitful, and that where 
we have an accuser there we may have also an 
Advocate,® the Lord commending to the Holy 
Spirit His own man,’ who had fallen among 
thieves,® whom He Himself compassionated, and 
bound up his wounds, giving two royal denaria ; 
so that we, receiving by the Spirit the image and 
superscription of the Father and the Son, might 





1 Irenzus refers to this woman as a type of the heathen world: 
for, among the Jews, Samaritan and Idolater were convertible terms. 

2 Judg. vi. 37, etc. 

> Isa. v. 6. 

4 Isa, xi. 2. 

5 Luke x. 18. 

6 x John iit. 

7 “Suum hominem,” i.e., the human race. 

§ Luke x. 35. 


cause the denarium entrusted to us to be fruitful, 
counting out the increase [thereof] to the Lord. 

4. The Spirit, therefore, descending under the 
predestined dispensation, and the Son of God, 
the Only-begotten, who is also the Word of the 
Father, coming in the fulness of time, having 
become incarnate in man for the sake of man, 
and fulfilling all the conditions of human nature, 
our Lord Jesus Christ being one and the same, 
as He Himself the Lord doth testify, as the 
apostles confess, and as the prophets announce, 
—all the doctrines of these men who have in- 
vented ere Nery and Tetrads, and im- 
agined Gubdivisions [of the Lord’s person], have 
been Brae ace sods These *° sual in 
fact, set the Spirit aside altogether ; they under- 
stand that Christ was one and Jesus another ; 
and they teach that there was not one Christ, 
but many. And if they speak of them as united, 
they do again separate them: for they show that 
one did indeed undergo sufferings, but_that_the 
other remained impassible ; that the one truly 
did ascend to the Pleroma, but the other re- 
mained in the intermediate place ; that the one 
does truly feast and revel in places invisible and 
above all name, but that the other is seated with 
the Demiurge, emptying him of power. It will 
therefore be incumbent upon thee, and all others 
who give their attention to this writing, and are 
anxious about their own salvation, not readily to 
express acquiescence when they hear abroad the 
speeches of these men: for, speaking things 
resembling the [doctrine of the] faithful, as I 
have already observed, not only do they hold 
opinions which are different, but absolutely con- 
trary, and in all points full of blasphemies, by 
which they destroy those persons who, by reason 
of the resemblance of the words, imbibe a poison 
which disagrees with their constitution, just as if 
one, giving lime mixed with water for milk, 
should mislead by the similitude of the colour ; 
as a man"! superior to me has said, concerning all 
that in any way corrupt the things of God and 
adulterate the truth, “Lime is wickedly mixed 
with the milk of God.” 


CHAP. XVIII. — CONTINUATION OF THE FOREGOING 
ARGUMENT. PROOFS FROM THE WRITINGS OF 
sT. PAUL, AND FROM THE WORDS OF OUR 
LORD, THAT CHRIST AND JESUS CANNOT BE 
CONSIDERED AS DISTINCT BEINGS ; NEITHER 
CAN IT BE ALLEGED THAT THE SON OF GOD 
BECAME MAN MERELY IN APPEARANCE, BUT 
THAT HE DID SO TRULY AND ACTUALLY. 


1.2 As it has been clearly demonstrated that 
ih Ng SE OE 


9 Matt. xxv. 14. ’ 

10 The following period is translated from a Syriac fragment (see 
Harvey’s /renaus, vol. ii. p. 439), as it supplies some words incon- 
yeniently omitted in the old Latin versiun. 

11 Comp. book i. pref. note 2. “ ' 

12 Again a Syriac fragment supplies som umportant words, Sco 
Harvey, vol. ii. p. 449. 


446 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 








the Word, who existed in the beginning with 
God, by whom all things were made, who was 
also always present with mankind, was in these 
last days, according to the time appointed by the 
Father, united to His own workmanship, inas- 
much as He became a man liable to suffering, 
[it follows] that every objection is set aside of 
those who say, “If our Lord was born at that 
time, Christ had therefore no previous exist- 
ence.” For I have shown that the Son of God 
did not then begin to exist, being with the Father 
from the beginning ; but when He became incar- 
nate, and was made man, He commenced afresh * 
the long line of human beings, and furnished us, 
in a brief, comprehensive manner, with salvation ; 
so that what we had lost in Adam — namely, to 
be according to the image and likeness of God 
— that we might recover in Christ Jesus. 





2. For as it was not possible that the man who 
had once for all been conquered, and who had 
been destroyed through disobedience, could re- 
form himself, and obtain the prize of victory ; 
and as it was also impossible that he could attain 
to salvation who had fallen under the power of 
sin, — the Son effected both these things, being 
the Word of God, descending from the Father, 
becoming incarnate, stooping low, even to death, 
and consummating the arranged plan of our sal- 
vation, upon whom [Paul], exhorting us unhesi- 
tatingly to believe, again says, “‘ Who shall ascend 
into heaven? that is, to bring down Christ; or 
who shall descend into the deep? that is, to lib- 
erate Christ again from the dead.”? Then he 
continues, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth 
the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart 
that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou 
shalt be saved.”3 And he renders the reason 
why the Son of God did these things, saying, 
“ For to this end Christ both lived, and died, and 
revived, that He might rule over the living and 
the dead.’’4+ And again, writing to the Corin- 
thians, he declares, “‘ But we preach Christ Jesus 
crucified ;” 5 and adds, “The cup of blessing 
which we bless, is it not the communion of the 
blood of Christ?” © 

3- But who is it that has had fellowship with 
us in the matter of food? Whether is it he who 
is conceived of by them as the Christ above, 
who extended himself through Horos, and im- 
parted a form to their mother; or is it He who 
is from the Virgin, Emmanuel, who did eat butter 
and honey,? of whom the prophet declared, 
“ He is also a man, and who shall know him?” 8 











t So the Syriac. The Latin has, “in seipso recapitulavit,” He 
summed up in Himself, [As the Second Adam, x Cor, xv. 47.) 

2 Rom, x. 6, 7. 

3 Rom. x. 9. 

4 Rom. xiv. 9. 

5 x Cor. i. 23. 

© x Cor. x, 16. 

7 Isa. viii, 14. 

§ Jer. xvii. 9. 


He was likewise preached by Paul: “ For I de- 
livered,” he says, “unto you first of all, that 
Christ died for our sins, according to the Scrip- 
tures; and that He was buried, and rose again 
the third day, according to the Scriptures.” 9 It 
is plain, then, that Paul knew no other Christ 
besides Him alone, who both suffered, and was 
buried, and rose again, who was also born, and 
whom he speaks of as man. For after remark- 
ing, “But if Christ be preached, that He rose 
from the dead,” '° he continues, rendering the 
reason of His incarnation, “ For since by man 
came death, by man [came] also the resurrec- 
tion of the dead.’’ And everywhere, when [re- 
ferring to] the passion of our Lord, and to His 
human nature, and His subjection to death, he 
employs the name of Christ, as in that passage : 
“Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ 
died.” ** And again: “ But now, in Christ, ye 
who sometimes were far off are made nigh by 
the blood of Christ.”:2 And again: “Christ has 
redeemed us from the curse of the law, being 
made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is 


jevery one that hangeth upon a tree.”*3 And 


again: “And through thy knowledge shall the 
weak brother perish, for whom Christ died ;’’ 
indicating that the impassible Christ did not de- 
scend upon Jesus, but that He Himself, because 
He was Jesus Christ, suffered for us; He, who 
lay in the tomb, and rose again, who descended 
and ascended,—the Son of God having been 
made the Son of man, as the very name itself 
doth declare. For in the name of Christ is im- 
plied, He that anoints, He that is anointed, and 
the unction itself with which He is anointed. 
And it is the Father who anoints, but the Son 
who is anointed by the Spirit, who is the unction, 
as the Word declares by Isaiah, “The Spirit of 
the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed 
me,” 5 — pointing out both the anointing Father, 
the anointed Son, and the unction, which is the 
Spirit. 

4. The Lord Himself, too, makes it evident 
who it was that suffered ; for when He asked the 
disciples, “‘Who-do men say that I, the Son of 
man, am ?’’*® and when Peter had replied, “Thou 
art the Christ, the Son of the living God ;” and 
when he had been commended by Him [in these 
words], “ That flesh and blood had not revealed 
it to him, but the Father who is in heaven,” He 
made it clear that He, the Son of man, is Christ 
the Son of the living God. “ For from that time 
forth,” it is said, “He began to show to. His 
disciples, how that He must go unto Jerusalem, 








9 x Cor. xv. 3, 4. 

© x Cor, xv. 12. 

11 Rom, xiv. 15. 

12 Eph. ii, 13. 

13 Gal. iii. 13; Deut. xxi. 93. 
14 x Cor. viii, 11, 

15 Isa. Ixi, x. 

16 Matt. xvi, 13. 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


~~. 


447 





and suffer many things of the priests, and be 
rejected, and crucified, and rise again the third 
day.’’? He who was acknowledged by Peter as 
Christ, who pronounced him blessed because the 
Father had revealed the Son of the living God 
to him, said that He must Himself suffer many 
things, and be crucified ; and then He rebuked 
Peter, who imagined that He was the Christ as 
the generality of men supposed ? [that the Christ 
should be], and was averse to the idea of His 
suffering, [and] said to the disciples, “If any 
man will come after Me, let him deny himself, 
and take up his cross, and follow Me. For who- 
soever will save his life, shall lose it ; and whoso- 
ever will lose it for My sake shall save it.”3 For 
these things Christ spoke openly, He being Him- 
self the Saviour of those who should be delivered 
over to death for their confession of Him, and 
lose their lives. 

. If, however, He was Himself not to suffer, 
but should fly away from Jesus, why did He ex- 
hort His disciples.to take up the cross and follow 
Him, — tha (cross which these men represent 
Him as not haying taken up, but [speak of Him] 
as having relinquished the dispensation of suffer- 
ing? . For that He did not say this with reference 
to the acknowledging of the Sauros (cross) 
above, as some among them venture to expound, 
but with respect to the suffering which He should 
Himself undergo, and that His disciples should 
endure, He implies when He says, “ For whoso- 
ever will save his life, shall lose it ; and whosoever 
will lose, shall find it. And that His disciples 
must suffer for His sake, He [implied when He] 
said to the Jews, “ Behold, I send you prophets, 
and wise men, and scribes: and some of them 
ye shall kill and crucify.” + And to the disciples 
He was wont to say, “ And ye shall stand before 
governors and kings for My sake ; and they shall 
scourge some of you, and slay you, and persecute 
you from city to city.”5 He knew, therefore, 
both those who should suffer persecution, and He 
knew those who should have to be scourged and 
slain because of Him; and He did not speak of 
any other cross, but of the suffering which He 
should Himself undergo first, and His disciples 
afterwards. For this purpose did He give them 
this exhortation: “ Fear not them which kill the 
body, but are not able to kill the soul ; but rather 
fear Him who is able to send both soul and body 
into hell ;”® [thus exhorting them] to hold fast 
those professions of faith which they had made 
in reference to Him. For He promised to con- 
fess before His Father those who should confess 
His name before men; but declared that He 
ag SE Ea ELL TEN 





i Matt. xvi. 21. : aay : 

2 Literally, ‘‘ supposing Him to be Christ according to the-idea of 
“men.” 

3 Matt. xvi. 24, 25. 

4 Matt. xxiil. 24. 

5 Matt. x. 17,18. 

© Matt. x. 28, 





would deny those who should deny Him, and 
would be ashamed of those who should be 
ashamed to confess Him. And although these 
things are so, some of these men have proceeded 
to such a degree of temerity, that they even pour 
contempt upon the martyrs, and vituperate those 
who are slain on account of the confession of 
the Lord, and who suffer all things predicted by 
the Lord, and who in this respect strive to fol- 
low the footprints of the Lord’s passion, having 
become martyrs of the suffering One; these we 
do also enrol with the martyrs themselves. For, 
when inquisition shall be made for their blood,’ 
and they shall attain to glory, then all shall be 
confounded by Christ, who have cast a slur upon 
their martyrdom. And from this fact, that He 
exclaimed upon the cross, “ Father, forgive them, 
for they know not what they do,” ® the long-suffer- 
ing, patience, compassion, and goodness of Christ 
are exhibited, since He both suffered, and did 
Himself exculpate those who had maltreated 
Him. For the Word of God, who said to us, 
“Tove your enemies, and pray for those that hate 
you,”° Himself did this very thing upon the 
cross ; loving the human race to such a degree, 
that He even prayed for those putting Him to 
death. If, however, any one, going upon the 
supposition that there are two[Christs], forms a 
judgment in regard to them, that [Christ] shall be 
found much the better one, and more patient, 
and the truly good one, who, in the midst of His 
own wounds and stripes, and the other [cruelties ] 
inflicted upon Him, was beneficent, and unmind- 
ful of the wrongs perpetrated upon Him, than he 
who flew away, and sustained neither injury nor 
insult. 

6. This also does likewise meet [the case] of 
those who maintain that He suffered only in ap- 
pearance. For if He did not truly suffer, no 
thanks to Him, since there was no suffering at 
all; and when we shall actually begin to suffer, 
He will seem as leading us astray, exhorting us 
to endure buffeting, and to turn the other*® cheek, 
if He did not Himself before us in reality suffer 
the same; and as He misled them by seeming 
to them what He was not, so does He also mis- 
lead us, by exhorting us to endure what He did 
not endure Himself. [In that case] we shall 
be even above the Master, because we suffer and 
sustain what our Master never bore or endured. 
But as our Lord is alone truly Master, so the 
Son of God is truly good and patient, the Word 
of God the Father having been made the Son 
of man. For He fought and conquered; for 
He was man contending for the fathers,"* and 
OLDE Tae a0 Pk le Si alle RE Sct ES 

7 Ps, ix. 12. 

8 Luke xxiii. 34. 

9 Matt. v. 44. 


10 Matt. v. 39- . 
11 “ Pyro patribus, avti Tov maTpav. The reader will here observe 


_| the clear statement of the doctrine of the atonement, whereby alone 


sin is done away.” — Harvey. 


A48 


through obedience doing away with disobedi- 
ence completely : for He bound the strong man,, 
and set free the weak, and endowed His own 
handiwork with salvation, by destroying sin. 
For He is a most holy and merciful Lord, 
and loves the human race. 

7. Therefore, as I have already said, He caused 
man (human nature) to cleave to and to become 
one with God. For unless man had overcome 
the enemy of man, the enemy would not have 
been legitimately vanquished. And again: un- 
less it had been God who had freely given salva- 
tion, we could never have possessed it securely. 
And unless man had been joined to God, he 
could never have become a partaker of incor- 
ruptibility. For it was incumbent upon the 
Mediator between God and men, by His rela- 
tionship to both, to bring both to friendship and 
concord, and present man to God, while He 
revealed God to man? For, in what way could 
we be partakers of the adoption of sons, unless 
we had received from Him through the Son that 
fellowship which refers to Himself, unless His 
Word, having been made flesh, had entered into 
communion with us? Wherefore also He passed 
through every stage of life, restoring to all com- 
munion with God. Those, therefore, who assert 
that He appeared putatively, and was neither 
born in the flesh nor truly made man, are as yet 
under the old condemnation, holding out patron- 
age to sin; for, by their showing, death has not 
been vanquished, which “ reigned from Adam to 
Moses, even over them that had not sinned after 
the similitude of Adam’s transgression.”’3 But 
the law coming, which was given by Moses, and 
testifying of sin that it is a sinner, did truly 
take away his (death’s) kingdom, showing that 
he was no king, but a robber; and it revealed 
him as a murderer. It laid, however, a weighty 
burden upon man, who had sin in himself, show- 
ing that he was liable to death. For as the law 
was spiritual, it merely made sin to stand out in 
relief, but did not destroy it. For sin had no 
dominion over the spirit, but over man. For it 
behoved Him who was to destroy sin, and re- 
deem man under the power of death, that He 
should Himself be made that very same thing 
which he was, that is, man; who had been 
drawn by sin into bondage, but was held by 
death, so that sin should be destroyed by man, 
and man should go forth from death. For as 
by the disobedience of the one man who was 
originally moulded from virgin soil, the many 
were made sinners,’ and forfeited life ; so was it 
necessary that, by the obedience of one man, 





1 Matt. xii. 29. 

2 The Latin text, “‘ et facere, ut et Deus assumeret hominem, et 
homo se dederet Deo,” here differs widely from the Greek preserved 
by Theodoret. We have followed the latter, which is preferred by all 
the editors. 

3 Rom. v. 14. 

4 Rom. vy. 19. 











{RENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


who was originally born from a virgin, many 
should be justified and receive salvation. ‘Thus, 
then, was the Word of God made man, as also 
Moses says: ‘God, true are His works,”5 But 
if, not having been made flesh, He did appear 
as if flesh, His work was not a true one. But 
what He did appear, that He also was: God 
recapitulated in Himself the ancient formation 
of man, that He might kill sin, deprive death of 
its power, and vivify man; and therefore His 
works are true. 


CHAP. XIX.—JESUS CHRIST WAS NOT A MERE MAN, 
BEGOTTEN FROM JOSEPH IN THE ORDINARY 
COURSE OF NATURE, BUT WAS VERY GOD, BE- 
GOTTEN OF THE FATHER MOST HIGH, AND VERY 
MAN, BORN OF THE VIRGIN. 


_ 1. But again, those who assert that He was 
simply a mere man, begotten by Joseph, remain- 
ing in the bondage of the old disobedience, are 
in a state of death ; having been not as yet joined 
to the Word of God the Father, nor receiving 
liberty through the Son, as He does Himself 
declare: “If the Son shall make you free, ye 
shall be free indeed.” °® But, being ignorant of 
Him who from the Virgin is Emmanuel, they 
are deprived of His gift, which is eternal life ;7 
and not receiving the incorruptible Word, they 
remain in mortal flesh, and are debtors to death, 
not obtaining the antidote of life. To whom the 
Word says, mentioning His own gift of grace: 
“J said, Ye are all the sons of the Highest, and 
gods ; but ye shall die like men.”® He speaks 
undoubtedly these words to those who have not 
received the gift of adoption, but who despise the 
incarnation of the pure generation of the Word 
of God,? defraud human nature of promotion 
into God, and prove themselves ungrateful to 
the Word of God, who became flesh for them. 
For it was for this end that the Word of God 
was made man, and He who was the Son of God 
became the Son of man, that man, having been 
taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, 
might become the son of God. For by no other 
means could we have attained to incorruptibility 
and immortality, unless we had been united to 
incorruptibility and immortality. But how could 
we be joined to incorruptibility and immortality, 
unless, first, incorruptibility and immortality had 

6 a viil. 36. 

7 Rom. vi. 23. 

8 Ps, Ixxxii. 6, 7. 

9 The original Grek is preserved here by Theodoret, differing in 
some respects from the old Latin version: xat amoorepotvras Tov 
avOpwrov THs cis Ocdv avddov Kat axapiorovytas TH Vmép altar 
gapxwbEvre Adyw TOU @eod. Eis todTo yap o Adyos av@pwmos . . . 
iva 6 avOpwros tov Adyov xwpyoas, Kai THY Viobeciay AaBY, Vids 
yévntat @eod. The old Latin runs thus: “ fraudantes hominem ab 
€a ascensione quz est ad Dominum, et ingrate exsistentes Verbo Dei 
qui incarnatus est propter ipsos. Propter hoc enim Verbum Dei 
homo, et qui Filius Dei est, Filius Hominis factus est . . . commixtus 


Verbo Dei, et adoptionem percipiens fiat filius Dei.” [A specimen 


of the liberties taken by the Latin translators with the original of 


us. Others are much less innocent.] 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


449 





become that which we also are, so that the cor- 
ruptible might be swallowed up by incorrupti- 
bility, and the mortal by immortality, that we 
might receive the adoption of sons? 

2. For this reason [it is said], “Who shall 
declare His generation ?’’? since “He is a man, 
and who shall recognise Him?”? But he to 
whom the Father which is in heaven has revealed 
Him,3 knows Him, so that he understands that 
He who “ was not born either by the will of the 
flesh, or by the will of man,’”’4 is the Son of man, 
this is Christ, the Son of the living God. For I 
have shown from the Scriptures,5 that no one of 
the sons of Adam is as to everything, and ab- 

solutely, called God,or named Lord. But that 
- He is Himself in His own right, beyond all men 
who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, 
and the Incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the 
prophets, the apostles, and by the Spirit Him- 
self, may be seen by all who have attained to even 
a small portion of the truth. Now, the Scrip- 
tures would not have testified these things of 
Him, if, like others, He had been a mere man. 
But that He had, beyond_all-others, in Himself 
that pre-eminent birth which is from the Most 
High Father, and also experienced that. pre- 
~ eminent generation which is from the Virgin,° 
the divine Scriptures do in both respects testify 
of Him: also, that He was a man without come- 
liness, and liable to suffering ;7 that He sat upon 
the foal of an ass ;* that He received for drink, 
vinegar and gall ;9 that He was despised among 
the people, and humbled Himself even to death ; 
and that He is the holy Lord, the Wonderful, 
the Counsellor, the Beautiful in appearance, and 
the Mighty God,'° coming on the clouds as the 
Judge of all men; '!—all these things did the 
Scriptures prophesy of Him. 

3. For as He became man in order to under- 
go temptation, so also was He the Word that 
He might be glorified; the Word remaining 
quiescent, that He might be capable of being 
tempted, dishonoured, crucified, and of suffering 
death, but the human nature being swallowed up 
in it (the divine), when it conquered, and en- 
dured [without yielding], and performed acts of 
kindness, and rose again, and was received up 
[into heaven]. He therefore, the Son of God, 
our Lord, being the Word of the Father, and 
the Son of man, since He had a generation as to 
His human nature from Mary—who was de- 
scended from mankind, and who was herself a 
meets ie ds ee ee 

* Isa. li, 8. 

2 Bate ayi'a6: 

4 John i. 13. 

5 See above, iii. 6. 
6 Isa. vii. 14. 

7 Isa liii. 2. 

8 Zech. ix. 9. 

9 Ps, xix. 21. 


10 Isa. ix. 6. 
™ Dan. vii. 13- 


human being — was made the Son of man.” 
Wherefore also the Lord Himself gave us a sign, 
in the depth below, and in the height above, 
which man did not ask for, because he never 
expected that a virgin could conceive, or that it 
was possible that one remaining a virgin could 
bring forth a son, and that what was thus born 
should be “ God with us,” and descend to those 
things which are of the earth beneath, seeking 
the sheep which had perished, which was indeed 
His own peculiar handiwork, and ascend to the 
height above, offering and commending to His 
Father that human nature (hominem) which had 
been found, making in His own person the first- 
fruits of the resurrection of man; that, as the 
Head rose from the dead, so also the remaining 
part of the body — [namely, the body] of every 
man who is found in life — when the time is ful- 
filled of that condemnation which existed by 
reason of disobedience, may arise, blended to- 
gether and strengthened through means of joints 
and bands ‘3 by the increase of God, each of the 
members having its own proper and fit position 
in the body. For there are many mansions in 
the Father’s house,'* inasmuch as there are also 
many members in the body. 


CHAP. XX.— GOD SHOWED HIMSELF, BY THE FALL 
OF MAN, AS PATIENT, BENIGN, MERCIFUL, MIGHTY 
TO SAVE. MAN IS THEREFORE MOST UNGRATE- 
FUL, IF, UNMINDFUL OF HIS OWN LOT, AND OF 
THE BENEFITS HELD OUT TO HIM, HE DO NOT 
ACKNOWLEDGE DIVINE GRACE. 


1. Long-suffering therefore was God, when 
man became a defaulter, as foreseeing that vic- 
tory which should be granted to him through 
the Word. For, when strength was made per- 
fect in weakness,'5 it showed the kindness and 
transcendent power of God. For as He pa- 
tiently suffered Jonah to be swallowed by the 
whale, not that he should be swallowed up and 
perish altogether, but that, having been cast out 
again, he might be the more subject to God, 
and might glorify Him the more who had con- 
ferred upon him such an unhoped-for deliver- 
ance, and might bring the Ninevites to a lasting 
repentance, so that they should be converted to 
the Lord, who would deliver them from death, 
having been struck with awe by that portent 
which had been wrought in Jonah’s case, as the 
Scripture says of them, “And they returned 
each from his evil way, and the unrighteousness 
which was in their hands, saying, Who knoweth 
if God will repent, and turn away His anger 
from us, and we shall not perish?” '°— so also, 
from the beginning, did God permit man to be 
END Oo ak aE SORE ESS aS 


12 Isa, vii. 13 

13 Eph. iv. 16. 
14 John xiv, 2. 
15 2 Cor. xii. 9. 
16 Jonah iii. 8, 9, 


450 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





swallowed up by the great whale, who was the 
author of transgression, not that he should per- 
ish altogether when so engulphed ; but, arran- 
ging and preparing the plan of salvation, which 
was accomplished by the Word, through the 
sign of Jonah, for those who held the same 
opinion as Jonah regarding the Lord, and who 
confessed, and said, “I am a servant of the 
Lord, and I worship the Lord God of heaven, 
who hath made the sea and the dry land.’’! 
[This was done] that man, receiving an un- 
hoped-for salvation from God, might rise from 
the dead, and glorify God, and repeat that word 
which was uttered in prophecy by Jonah: “I 
cried by reason of mine affliction to the Lord 
my God, and He heard me out of the belly of 
hell ;”?? and that he might always continue glo- 
rifying God, and giving thanks without ceasing, 
for that salvation which he has derived from 
Him, “that no flesh should glory in the Lord’s 
presence ;’’3 and that man should never adopt 
an opposite opinion with regard to God, sup- 
posing that the incorruptibility which belongs_to 
him is his own naturally, and by thus not hold- 


ing the truth, should boast with empty super- 
ciliousness, as if he were naturally like to God. 
For he (Satan) thus rendered him (man) more 
ungrateful towards his Creator, obscured the love 
which God had towards man, and blinded his mind 
not to perceive what is worthy of God, comparing 
himself with, and judging himself equal to, God. 

2. This, therefore, was the [object of the] 
long-suffering of God, that man, passing through 
all things, and acquiring the knowledge of moral 
discipline, then attaining to the resurrection 
from the dead, and learning by experience what 
is the source of his deliverance, may always live 
in a state of gratitude to the Lord, having ob- 
tained from Him the gift of incorruptibility, 
that he might love Him the more; for “he to 
whom more is forgiven, loveth more:” 4 and 
that he may know himself, how mortal and weak 
he is ; while he also understands respecting God, 
that He is immortal and powerful to such a 
degree as to confer immortality upon what is 
mortal, and eternity upon what is temporal ; and 
may understand also the other attributes of God 
displayed towards himself, by means of which 
being instructed he may think of God in accord- 
ance with the divine greatness. For the glory 
of man [is] God, but [His] works [are the 
glory] of God; and the receptacle of all His 
wisdom and power [is] man. Just as the physi- 
cian is proved by his patients, so is God also 
revealed through men. And therefore Paul de- 
clares, “ For God hath concluded all in unbelief, 


a ae ee 


t Jonah i. 9, 
2 Jonah ii. 2, 
3 x Cor. i. 29. 
4 Luke vii, 43. 








that He may have mercy upon all ;’’5 not say- 
ing this in reference to spiritual Atons, but to 
man, who had been disobedient to God, and 
being cast off from immortality, then obtained 
mercy, receiving through the Son of God that 
adoption which is [accomplished] by Himself. 
For he who holds, without pride and boasting, 
the true glory (opinion) regarding created things 
and the Creator, who is the Almighty God of 
all, and who has granted existence to all; [such 
an one, | continuing in His love ° and subjection, 
and giving of thanks, shall also receive from Hin 
the greater glory of promotion,” looking forward 
to the time when he shall become like Him who 
died for him, for He, too, “ was made in the 
likeness of sinful flesh,” ® to condemn sin, and to. 
cast it, as now a condemned thing, away beyond 
the flesh, but that He might call man forth into 
His own likeness, assigning him as [His own] 
imitator to God; and imposing on him His 
‘Father’s law, in order that he may see God, and 
granting him power to receive the Father ; [be- 
ing]? the Word of God who dwelt in. man, and 
became the Son of man, that He might accustom 
man to receive God, and God to dwell in man, 
according to the good pleasure of the Father. 
3. On this account, therefore, the Lord Him- 
self,*° who is Emmanuel from the Virgin," is 
the sign of our salvation, since it was the Lord 
Himself who saved them, because they could 
not be saved by their own instrumentality ; and, 
therefore, when Paul sets forth human infirmity, 
he says: “For I know that there dwelleth in 
my flesh no good thing,” ’? showing that the 
“good thing” of our salvation is not from us, 
but from God. And again: “Wretched man 
that I am, who shall deliver me from the body 
of this death?’”’'3 Then he introduces the De- 
liverer, [saying,] “The grace of Jesus Christ our 
Lord.” And Isaiah declares this also, [when he 
says :] “Be ye strengthened, ye hands that hang 
down, and ye feeble knees; be ye encouraged, 
ye feeble-minded ; be comforted, fear not: be- 
hold, our God has given judgment with retribution, 
and shall recompense : He will come Himself, and 
will save us.” *# Here-we see, that not by our- 


selves, but by the help of God, we must be saved. 

4. Agatha anal 1) be a mere man 
who should save us, nor [one] without flesh — 
for the angels are without flesh—[the same 





5 Rom. xi. 32. 

© John xv. 9. a 

7 “ Provectus.” This word has not a little perplexed the editors. 
Grabe regards it as being the participle,’ Massuet the accusative 
Plural of the noun, and Harvey the genztive singular. We have 
doubtfully followed the latter. 

om, vili. 3. 

9 The punctuation and exact meaning are very uncertain. 

10 The construction and sense of this Passage are disputed. 
Grabe, Massuet, and Harvey take different views of it. We have 
followed the rendering proposed by Massuet, 

II Jsa. vii. 4. 

12 Rom, vii. 18, 

13 Rom. vii. 24, 

14 Isa, xxv. 3: 


IRENAZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


451 





prophet] announced, saying : “ Neither an elder," 
nor angel, but the Lord Himself will save them, 
because He loves them, and will spare them: 
He will Himself set them free.”’? And that 
He should Himself_ _man, visible, 
when He should be the Word giving salvation, 
Isaiah again says: ‘ Behold, city of Zion: thine 
eyes shall see our salvation.” 3 And that it was 
not a mere man who died for ny oh says : 
“And the holy Lord remembered His dead 
Israel, who had slept in the land of sepulture ; 
and He came down to preach His salvation to 
them, that He might save them.”+ And Amos 
(Micah) the prophet declares the same: “ He 
will turn again, and will have compassion upon 
us: He will destroy our iniquities, and will cast 
our sins into the depths of the sea.”5 And 
again, specifying the place of His advent, he 
says: “The Lord hath spoken from Zion, and 
He has uttered His voice from Jerusalem.” ° 
And that it is from that region which is towards 
the south of the inheritance of Judah that the 
Son of God shall come, who is God, and who 
was from Bethlehem, where the Lord was born, 
[and] will send out His praise through all the 
earth, thus? says the prophet Habakkuk: “ God 
shall come from the south, and the Holy One 
from Mount Effrem. His power covered the 
heavens over, and the earth is full of His praise. 
Before His face shall go forth the Word, and His 
feet shall advance in the plains.” * Thus he indi- 
cates in clear terms that He is God, and that His 
advent was [to take place] in Bethlehem, and 
from Mount Effrem, which is towards the south 
of the inheritance, and that [He is] man. For 
he says, “ His feet shall advance in the plains: ” 
and this is an indication proper to man.? 


CHAP. XXI.—A VINDICATION OF THE PROPHECY 
IN ISAIAH (VII. 14) AGAINST THE MISINTERPRE- 
TATIONS OF THEODOTION, AQUILA, THE EBIO- 
NITES, AND THE JEWS. AUTHORITY OF THE 
SEPTUAGINT VERSION. ARGUMENTS IN PROOF 
THAT CHRIST WAS BORN OF A VIRGIN. 


1. God, then, was made man, and the Lord 
did Himself save us, giving us the token of the 





I Grabe remarks that the word mpéafvs, here translated “ senior,” 
seems rather to denote a mediator or messenger. 

2 Isa, Ixiii, 9. 

3 Isa, xxxiil. 20. : : 

4 Irenzeus quotes this as from Isaiah on the present occasion; but 
in book iv. 22, 1, we find him referring the same passage to Jere- 
miah, It is somewhat remarkable that it is to be found in neither 

rophet, although Justin Martyr, in his dialogue with Trypho, [chap. 
Pexk. and notes, Dial. with Trypho, in this volume,] brings it for- 
ward as an argument against him, and directly accuses the Jews of 
having fraudulently removed it from the sacred text. It is, however, 
to be found in no ancient version or Jewish Targum, which fact may 
be regarded as a decisive proof of its spuriousness. 

5 Mic. vii. 9. 

6 Joel iii. 16; Amos i. 2. : 

7 As Massuet observes, we must either expunge 
gether, or read “‘ sic” as above. 

"~ 8 Hab, iii. 3, 5. 

9 This quotation from Habakkuk, here commented on by Ire- 
nzus, differs both from the Hebrew and the LXX., and comes nearest 
to the old Italic version of the passage. 


“sicut” alto- 








Virgin. But not as some allege, among those 
now presuming to expound the Scripture, [ thus :] 
“Behold, a young woman shall conceive, and 
bring forth a son,” '° as Theodotion the Ephesian 
has interpreted, and Aquila of Pontus,'' both 
Jewish proselytes. The Ebionites, following 
these, assert that He was begotten by Joseph ; 
thus destroying, as far as in them lies, such a 
marvellous dispensation of God, and setting aside 
the testimony of the prophets which proceeded 
from God. For truly this prediction was uttered 
before the removal of the people to Babylon ; 
that is, anterior to the supremacy acquired by 
the Medes and Persians. But it was interpreted 
into Greek by the Jews themselves, much before 
the period of our Lord’s advent, that there might 
remain no suspicion that perchance the Jews, 
complying with our humour, did put this inter- 
pretation upon these words. They indeed, had 
they been cognizant of our future existence, and 
that we should use these proofs from the Scrip- 
tures, would themselves never have hesitated to 
burn their own Scriptures, which do declare that 
all other nations partake of [eternal] life, and 
show that they who boast themselves as being 
the house of Jacob and the people of Israel, are 
disinherited from the grace of God. 

2. For before the Romans possessed their 
kingdom,” while as yet the Macedonians held 
Asia, Ptolemy the son of Lagus, being anxious to 
adorn the library which he had founded in Alex- 
andria, with a collection of the writings of all 
men, which were [works] of merit, made request 
to the people of Jerusalem, that they should 
have their Scriptures translated into the Greek 
language. And they —for at that time they 
were still subject to the Macedonians — sent to 
Ptolemy seventy of their elders, who were thor- 
oughly skilled in the Scriptures and in both the 
languages, to carry out what he had desired.*3 
But he, wishing to test them individually, and 
fearing lest they might perchance, by taking 
counsel together, conceal the truth in the Scrip- 
tures, by their interpretation, separated them 
from each other, and commanded them all to 
write the same translation. He did this with 
respect to all the books. But when they came 
together in the same place before Ptolemy, and 





To Isa, vil. 14. . 

11 Epiphanius, in his De Mensuris, gives an account of these two 
men. The former published his version of the Old Testament in the 
year 181. The latter put forth his translation half a century earlier, 
about 129 A.D. This reference to the version of Theodotion furnishes 
a note of date as to the time when Irenzus published his work: it 
must have been subsequently to A.D, 181, 

12 The Greek text here is, cpaT0Vat Thy apxyv avTay, translated 
into Latin by ‘‘ possiderent regnum suum,” — words which are some-' 
what ambiguous in both languages. Massuet remarks, that “ regnum 
eorum” would have been a better rendering, referring the words to 
the Fews. . 

13 The Greek text of this narrative has been preserved by Eusebius 
(Hist. Eccl.,v. 8). Grabe considers it to be faulty in this passage; so 
the Latin translation has been adopted here. Eusebius has roujcavtos 
Tod @eod omep eBovdcto — God having accomplished what He 
intended, 


452 






each of them compared his own interpretation 
with that of every other, God was indeed glori- 
fied, and the Scriptures were acknowledged as 
truly divine. For all of them read out the com- 
mon translation [which they had prepared] in 
the very same words and the very same names, 
from beginning to end, so that even the Gentiles 
present perceived that the Scriptures had been 
interpreted by the inspiration of God.' And 
there was nothing astonishing in God having 
done this, — He who, when, during the captivity 
of the people under Nebuchadnezzar, the Scrip- 
tures had been corrupted, and when, after sev- 
enty years, the Jews had returned to their own 
land, then, in the times of Artaxerxes king of the 
Persians, inspired Esdras the priest, of the tribe 
of Levi, to recast? all the words of the former 
prophets, and to re-establish with the people the 
Mosaic legislation. 

3. Since, therefore, the Scriptures have been 
interpreted with such fidelity, and by the grace 
of God, and since from these God has prepared 
and formed again our faith towards His Son, 
and has preserved to us the unadulterated Scrip- 
tures in Egypt, where the house of Jacob flour- 
ished, fleeing from the famine in Canaan ; where 
also our Lord was preserved when He fled from 
the persecution set on foot by Herod ; and [since] 
this interpretation of these Scriptures was made 
prior to our Lord’s descent [to earth], and came 
into being before the Christians appeared — for 
our Lord was born about the forty-first year of 
the reign of Augustus; but Ptolemy was much 
earlier, under whom the Scriptures were inter- 
preted ;— [since these things are so, I say, ] 
truly these men are proved to be impudent and 
presumptuous, who would now show a desire to 
make different translations, when we refute them 
out of these Scriptures, and shut them up toa 
belief in the advent of the Son of God. But 
our faith is stedfast, unfeigned, and the only true 
one, having clear proof from these Scriptures, 
which were interpreted in the way I have related ; 
and the preaching of the Church is without in- 
terpolation. For the apostles, since they are of 
~ more ancient date than all these [heretics], agree 
with this aforesaid translation ; and the transla- 
tion harmonizes with the tradition of the apos- 
tles. For Peter, and John, and Matthew, and 
Paul, and the rest successively, as well as their 
followers, did set forth all prophetical [announce- 
ments], just as3 the interpretation of the elders 
contains them. 





t [See Justin Martyr, To the Greeks, cap. xiii. The testimony 
of Justin naturalized this Jewish legend among Christians. | 

2 The Greek term is avardéac@at, which the Latin renders “‘ re 
memorare,” but Massuet prefers “ digerere.” 

_ 3 This is a very interesting passage, as bearing on the question, 
From what source are the quotations made by the writers of the New 
Testament derived? Massuet, indeed, argues that it is of little or no 
weight in the controversy; but the passage speaks for itself. Comp. 
Dr, Roberts’s Discusstons on the Gospels, part i. ch, iy. and vii, 





IREN/ZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





4. For the one and the same Spirit of God, 
who proclaimed by the prophets what and of 
what sort the advent of the Lord should be, did 
by these elders give a just interpretation of what 
had been truly prophesied ; and He did Himself, 
by the apostles, announce that the fulness of the 
times of the adoption had arrived, that the king- 
dom of heaven had drawn nigh, and that He was 
dwelling within those that believe on Him who 
was born Emmanuel of the Virgin. To this 
effect they testify, [saying,] that before Joseph 
had come together with Mary, while she there- 
fore remained in virginity, “‘she was found with 
child of the Holy Ghost ;” 4 and that the angel 
Gabriel said unto her, “The Holy Ghost shall 
come upon thee, and the power of the Highest 
shall overshadow thee ; therefore also that holy 
thing which shall be born of thee shall be called 
the Son of God;’’5 andt hat the angel said to 
Joseph in a dream, “ Now this was done, that it 
might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the 
prophet, Behold, 4 virgin) shall be with child.” © 
But the elders have interpreted what Esaias 
said : “And the Lord, moreover, said unto Ahaz, 
Ask for thyself a sign from the Lord thy God out 
of the depth below, or from the height above. 
And Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not 
tempt the Lord. And he said, It is not a small 
thing’ for you to weary men ; and how does the 
Lord weary them? Therefore the Lord himself 
shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall con- 
ceive, and bear a son ; and ye shall call His name 
Emmanuel. Butter and honey shall He eat: 
before He knows or chooses out things that are 
evil, He shall exchange them for what is good ; 
for before the child knows good or evil, He shall 
not consent to evil, that He may choose that 
which is good.”® Carefully, then, has the Holy 
Ghost pointed out, by what has been said, His 
birth from a virgin, and His essence, that He is 
God (for the name Emmanuel indicates this). 
And He shows that He is a man, when He says, 
“Butter and honey shall He eat ;” and in that 
He terms Him a child also, [in saying, ] “before 
He knows good and evil ;” for these are all the 
tokens of a human infant. But that He “will 
not consent to evil, that He may choose that 
which is good,” —this is proper to God; that 
by the fact, that He shall eat butter and honey, 
we should not understand that He is a mere 
man only, nor, on the other hand, from the 
name Emmanuel, should suspect Him to be God 
without flesh. 

5. And when He says, “ Hear, O house of 
David,” 9 He performed the part of one indi- 

‘ Nya i, 18. 

7 Mat i 2 aa “non pusillum” for “ sillum,” as i 
texts. Cyprian and Tertullian confirm sbeiienes rending ci aera eg 


8 Isa, vii. 10-17. 
9 Isa. vii. 13. 





IREN/ZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


cating that He whom God promised David that 
He would raise up from the fruit of his belly 
(ventris) an eternal King, is the same who was 
born of the Virgin, herself of the lineage of 
David. For on this account also, He promised 
that the King should be “of the fruit of his 
belly,” which was the appropriate [term to use 
with respect] to a virgin conceiving, and not 
“of the fruit: of his Zozns,” nor “of the fruit of 
his re¢ns,” which expression is appropriate to a 
generating man, and a woman conceiving by a 
man. In this promise, therefore, the Scripture 
excluded all virile influence ; yet it certainly is 
not mentioned that He who was born was not 
from the will of man. But it has fixed and es- 
tablished “the fruit of the de/y,” that it might 
declare the generation of Him who should be 
[born] from the Virgin, as Elisabeth testified 
when filled with the Holy Ghost, saying to Mary, 
“Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is 
the fruit of thy belly ;” * the Holy Ghost point- 
ing out to those willing to hear, that the promise 
which God had made, of raising up a King from 
the fruit of [David’s] belly, was fulfilled in the 
birth from the Virgin, that is, from Mary. Let 
those, therefore, who alter the passage of Isaiah 
thus, “ Behold, a young woman shall conceive,” 
and who will have Him to be Joseph’s son, also 
alter the form of the promise which was given to 
David, when God promised him to raise up, from 
the fruit of his belly, the horn of Christ the 
King. But they did not understand, otherwise 
they would have presumed to alter even this pas- 
sage also. 

6. But what Isaiah said, “From the height 
above, or from the depth beneath,” was meant 
to indicate, that “ He who descended was the 
same also who ascended.”3 But in this that he 
said, “The Lord Himself shall give you a sign,” 
he declared an unlooked-for thing with regard to 
His generation, which could have been accom- 
plished in no other way than by God the Lord 
of all, God Himself giving a sign in the house 
of David. For what great thing or what sign 
should have been in this, that a young woman 
conceiving by a man should bring forth,—a 
thing which happens to all women that produce 
offspring? But since an unlooked-for salvation 
was to be provided for men through the help of 
God, so also was the unlooked-for birth from a 
virgin accomplished ; God giving this sign, but 
man not working it out. i 

7. On this account also, Daniel,4 foreseeing 
His advent, said that a stone, cut out without 
hands, came into this world. For this is what 
“without hands” means, that His coming into 


1 Luke i. 42. 
2 Isa, vii. rr. 
3 Eph. iv. ro. 
+ Dan. ui. 34. 


453 


this world was not by the operation of human 
hands, that is, of those men who are accustomed 
to stone-cutting ; that is, Joseph taking no part 
with regard to it, but Mary alone co-operating 
with the pre-arranged plan. For this stone from 
the earth derives existence from both the power 
and the wisdom of God. Wherefore also Isaiah. 
says: “Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I deposit 
in the foundations of Zion a stone, precious, 
elect, the chief, the corner-one, to be had in 
honour.” 5 So, then, we understand that His 
advent in human nature was not by the will of 
a man, but by the will of God. 

8. Wherefore also Moses giving a type, cast 
his rod upon the earth,° in order that it, by be- 
coming flesh, might expose and swallow up all 
the opposition of the Egyptians, which was lift- 
ing itself up against the pre-arranged plan of 
God ;7 that the Egyptians themselves might 
testify that it is the finger of God which works 
salvation for the people, and not ‘the son .of 





Joseph. For if He were the son of Joseph, how 
could He be greater than Solomon, or greater 
than Jonah,® or greater than David,? when He 
was generated from the same seed, and was a 
descendant of these men? And how was it that 
He also pronounced Peter blessed, because he 
acknowledged Him to be the Son of the living 
God? '° 

g. But besides, if indeed He had been the 
Fi of Joseph, He could not, according to Jere- 
miah, be either king or heir. For Joseph is 
shown to be the son of Joachim and Jechoniah, 
as also Matthew sets forth in his pedigree." But 
Jechoniah, and all his posterity, were disin- 
herited from the kingdom; Jeremiah thus de- 
claring, “As I live, saith the Lord, if Jechoniah 
the son of Joachim king of Judah had been made 
the signet of my right hand, I would pluck him 
thence, and deliver him into the hand of those 
seeking thy life”? And again: “ Jechoniah is 
dishonoured as a useless vessel, for he has been 
cast into a land which he knew not. Earth, 
hear the word of the Lord: Write this man a 
disinherited person ; for none of his seed, sitting 
on the throne of David, shall prosper, or be a 
prince in Judah.” *3_ And again, God speaks of 
Joachim his father: “Thérefore thus saith the 
Lord concerning Joachim his father, king of 
Judea, There shall be from him none sitting upon 
the throne of David: and his dead body shall 
be cast out in the heat of day, and in the frost 
of night. And I will look upon him, and upon 





5 Isa. xxviii. 16. 

6 Ex. vii. 9. 

7 Ex. viii.1g. 

8 Matt. xil. 41, 42. 
9 Matt. xxii. 43. 
10 Matt. xvi.17. 
It Matt. i, 12-16. 
12 Jer. xxii. 24, 25. 
13 Jer. xxii. 28, ete. 


454 
his sons, and will bring upon them, and upon 
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, upon the land of 
Judah, all the evils that I have pronounced 
against them.” ‘Those, therefore, who say that 
He was begotten of Joseph, and that they have 
hope in Him, do cause themselves to be disin- 
herited from the kingdom, falling under the curse 
and rebuke directed against Jechoniah and his 
seed. Because for this reason have these things 
been spoken concerning Jechoniah, the [Holy] 
Spirit foreknowing the doctrines of the evil teach- 
ers; that they may learn that from his seed — 
that is, from Joseph — He was not to be born, 
but that, according to the promise of God, from 
David’s belly the King eternal is raised up, who 
‘sums up all things in Himself, and has gathered 
into Himself the ancient formation [of man]. 

10. For as by one man’s disobedience sin 
entered, and death obtained [a place] through 
sin; so also by the obedience of one man, right- 
eousness having been introduced, shall cause 
life to fructify in those persons who in times past 
were dead.3 And as the protoplast himself, 
Adam, had his substance from untilled and as 
yet virgin soil (“for God had not yet sent rain, 
and man had not tilled the ground’’+), and was 
formed by the hand of God, that is, by the Word 
of God, for “all things were made by Him,’’5 
and the Lord took dust from the earth and 
formed man; so did He who is the Word, re- 
capitulating Adam in Himself, rightly receive a 
birth, enabling Him to gather up Adam [into 
Himself], from Mary, who was as yet a virgin. 
If, then, the first Adam had a man for his father, 
and was born of human seed, it were reasonable 
to say that the second Adam was begotten of 
Joseph. But if the former was taken from the 
dust, and God was his Maker, it was incumbent 
that the latter also, making a recapitulation in 
Himself, should be formed as man by God, to 
have an analogy with the former as respects His 
origin. Why, then, did not God again take dust, 
but wrought so that the formation should be 
made of Mary? It was that there might not be 
another formation called into being, nor any 
other which should [require to] be saved, but 
that the very same formation should be summed 
up [in Christ as had existed in Adam], the anal- 
ogy having been preserved. 











CHAP. XXII.— CHRIST ASSUMED ACTUAL FLESH, 
CONCEIVED AND BORN OF THE VIRGIN. 


1. Those, therefore, who allege that He took 
nothing from the Virgin do greatly err, [since, | 
in order that they may cast away the inheritance 
of the flesh, they also reject the analogy [be- 





I Jer, xxxvi. 


2 Harvey prefixes this last clause to the following section. 
3 Rom. v. 19. 

4 Gen. ii. 5. 

$ Joha i, 3 








IRENAZUS AGAINST. HERESIES. 


tween Him and Adam]. For if the one [who 
sprang] from the earth had indeed formation 
and substance from both the hand and work- 
manship of God, but the other not from the 
hand and workmanship of God, then He who 
was made after the image and likeness of the 
former did not, in that case, preserve the analogy 
of man, and He must seem an inconsistent piece 
of work, not having wherewith He may show 
His wisdom. But this is to say, that He also 
appeared putatively as man when He was not 
man, and that He was made man while taking 
nothing from man. For if He did not receive 
the substance of flesh from a human being, He 
neither was made man nor the Son of man; 
and if He was not made what we were, He did 
no great thing in what He suffered and endured. 
But every one will allow that we are [composed 
of] a body taken from the earth, and a soul 
receiving spirit from God. This, therefore, the 
Word of God was made, recapitulating in Him- 
self His own handiwork ; and on this account 
does He confess Himself the Son of man, and 
blesses “the meek, because they shall inherit 
the earth.””© The Apostle Paul, moreover, in 
the Epistle to the Galatians, declares plainly, 
“ God sent His Son, made of awoman.”7 And 
again, in that to the Romans, he says, “ Con- 
cerning His Son, who was made of the seed of 
David according to the flesh, who was predesti- 
nated as the Son of God with power, according 
to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from 
the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” § 

2.9 Superfluous, too, in that case is His de- 
scent into Mary; for why did He come down 
into her if He were to take nothing of her? 
Still further, if He had taken nothing of Mary, 
He would never have availed Himself of those 
kinds of food which are derived from the earth, 
by which that body which has been taken from 
the earth is nourished; nor would He have 
hungered, fasting those forty days, like Moses 
and Elias, unless His body was craving after its 
own proper nourishment; nor, again, would 
John His disciple have said, when writing of 
Him, “But Jesus, being wearied with the jour- 
ney, was sitting [to rest]; *° nor would David 
have proclaimed of Him beforehand, “They 
have added to the grief of my wounds ;”*" nor 
would He have wept over Lazarus, nor have 
sweated great drops of blood; nor have de- 
clared, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful ;”’ 
nor, when His side was pierced, would there 





6 Matt. v. 5. 

wi. Galviv. 4s 

8 Rom. i. a) 4. 

9 In addition to the Greek text preserved by Theodoret in this 
piece, we have for some way a Syriac translation, differing slightly 
rom both Greek and Latin. It seems, however, to run smoother 
than either, and has therefore been followed by us, 

to John iv. 6. 

11 Ps, Ixix. 27. 

12 Matt. xxvi. 38, 


IRENZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


455 





have come forth blood and water. For all these 
are tokens of the flesh which had been derived 
from the earth, which He had recapitulated in 
Himself, bearing salvation to His own handi- 
work. 

3. Wherefore Luke points out that the pedi- 
gree which traces the generation of our Lord 
back to Adam contains seventy-two generations, 
connecting the end with the beginning, and im- 
plying that it is He who has summed up in 
Himself all nations dispersed from Adam down- 
wards, and all languages and generations of men, 
together with Adam himself. Hence also was 
Adam himself termed by Paul “ the figure of 
Him that was to come,”! because the Word, 
the Maker of all things, had formed beforehand 
for Himself the future dispensation of the human 
race, connected with the Son of God ; God hav- 
ing predestined that the first man should be of 
an animal nature, with this view, that he might 
be saved by the spiritual One. For inasmuch as 
He had a pre-existence as a saving Being, it was 
necessary that what might be saved should also 
be called into existence, in order that the Being 
who saves should not exist in vain. 

4. In accordance with this design, Mary the 
Virgin is found obedient, saying, “Behold the 
handmaid of the Lord ;-be it unto me according 
to thy word.”? But Eve)was disobedient ; for 
she did not obey when~as yet she was a virgin. 
And even as she, having indeed a husband, 
Adam, but being nevertheless as yet a virgin (for 
in Paradise “they were both naked, and were 
not ashamed,” 3 inasmuch as they, having been 
created a short time previously, had no under- 
standing of the procreation of children: for it 
was necessary that they should first come to 
adult age,* and then multiply from that time 
onward), having become disobedient, was made 
the cause of death, both to herself and to the 
entire human race; so also did Mary, having a 
man betrothed [to her], and being nevertheless 
a virgin, by yielding obedience, become the cause 
of salvation, both to herself and the whole human 
race. And on this account does the law term 
a woman betrothed to a man, the wife of him 
who had betrothed her, although she was as yet 
a virgin ; thus indicating the back-reference from 
Mary to Eve, because what is joined together 
could not otherwise be put asunder than by 
inversion of the process by which these bonds 
of union had arisen ;5 so that the former ties be 
cancelled by the latter, that the latter may set 
the former again at liberty. And it has, in fact, 
happened that the first compact looses from the 





T Rom. v. 14, 

2 Luke i. 38. 

3 Gen. ii. 25. ; a 

4 This seems quite a peculiar open of Irenzus, that our first 
parents, when created, were not of the age of maturity. 

5 Literally, ‘‘ unless these bonds of union be turned backwards. 





second tie, but that the second tie takes the 
position of the first which has been cancelled. 
For this reason did the Lord declare that the 
first should in truth be last, and the last first.7 
And the prophet, too, indicates the same, saying, 
“Instead of fathers, children have been born 
unto thee.”* For the Lord, having been born 
“the First-begotten of the dead,” 9 and receiving 
into His bosom the ancient fathers, has regener- 
ated them into the life of God, He having been 
made Himself the beginning of those that live, 
as Adam became the beginning of those who 
die."° Wherefore also Luke, commencing the 
genealogy with the Lord, carried it back to 
Adam, indicating that it was He who regenerated 
them into the Gospel of life, and not they Him. 
And thus also it was that the knot of Eve’s. dis- 
obedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. 
For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through 
unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through 
faith. 


CHAP. XXIII.— ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION TO TA- 
TIAN, SHOWING THAT IT WAS CONSONANT » TO 
DIVINE JUSTICE AND MERCY THAT THE FIRST 
ADAM SHOULD FIRST PARTAKE IN THAT SALVA- 
TION OFFERED TO ALL BY CHRIST. 


1. It was necessary, therefore, that the Lord, 
coming to the lost sheep, and making recapitu- 
lation of so comprehensive a dispensation, and 
seeking after His own handiwork, should save 
that very man who had been created after His 
image and likeness, that is, Adam, filling up the 
times of His condemnation, which had been in- 
curred through disobedience, — [times] ‘“ which 
the Father had placed in His own power.” ™ 
[This was necessary, ] too, inasmuch as the whole 
economy of salvation regarding man came to 
pass according to the good pleasure of the Father, 
in order that God might not be conquered, nor 
His wisdom lessened, [in the estimation of His 
creatures.] For if man, who had been created 
by God that he might live, after losing life, 
through being injured by the serpent that had 
corrupted him, should not any more return to 
life, but should be utterly [and for ever] aban- 
doned to death, God would [in that case] have 
been conquered, and the wickedness of the ser- 
pent would have prevailed over the will of God. 
But inasmuch as God is invincible and _long- 
suffering, He did. indeed show Himself to be 
long-suffering in the matter of the correction of 
man and the probation of all, as I have already 


© It i very difficult to follow the reasoning of Irenzus in this 
passage. Massuet has a long note upon it, in which he sets forth the 
various points of comparison and contrast here indicated between Eve 
and Mary; but he ends with the remark, “ hzec certe et qua: sequuntur, 
paulo subtiliora.” 

att. xix. 30, xx. 16, 

8 Ps. xlv. 17. 

9 Rev. i. 5. 

to Comp. 1 Cor. xv. 20-22. 

1! Acts 1. 7. 


456 


observed ; and by means of the second man did 
He bind the strong man, and spoiled his goods,’ 
and abolished death, vivifying that man who had 
been in a state of death. For at the first Adam 
became a vessel in his (Satan’s) possession, 
whom he did also hold under his power, that is, 
by bringing sin on him iniquitously, and under 
colour of immortality entailing death upon him. 
For, while promising that they should be as 
gods, which was in no way possible for him to 
be, he wrought death in them: wherefore he who 
had led man captive, was justly captured in his 
turn by God; but man, who had been led cap- 
tive, was loosed from the bonds of condemna- 
tion. 

2. But this is Adam, if the truth should be 


told, the first formed man, of whom the Scrip-| 


ture says that the Lord spake, “Let Us make 
man after Our own image and likeness ;”? and 
we are all from him: and as we are from hin, 
therefore have we all inherited his title. But in- 
asmuch as man is saved, it is fitting that he who 
was created the original man should be saved. 
For it is too absurd to maintain, that he who 
was so deeply injured by the enemy, and was the 
first to suffer captivity, was not rescued by Him 
who conquered the enemy, but that his children 
were, — those whom he had begotten in the same 
captivity. Neither would the enemy appear to 
be as yet conquered, if the old spoils remained 
with him. ‘To give an illustration: If a hostile 
force had overcome certain [enemies], had 
bound them, and led them away eee and 
held them for a long time in servitude, so that 
they begat children among them; and some- 
body, compassionating those who had been made 
slaves, should overcome this same hostile force ; 
he certainly would not act equitably, were he to 
liberate the children of those who had been led 
captive, from the sway of those who had en- 
slaved their fathers, but should leave these latter, 
who had suffered the act of capture, subject to 
their enemies, — those, too, on whose very ac- 
count he had proceeded to this retaliation, — 
the children succeeding to liberty through the 
avenging of their fathers’ cause, but not so that 
their fathers, who suffered the act of capture it- 
self, should be left [in bondage]. For God is 
neither devoid of power nor of justice, who has 
afforded help to man, and restored him to His 
own liberty. 

3. It was for this reason, too, that immediately 
after Adam had transgressed, as the Scripture 
relates, He pronounced no curse against Adam 


1 Matt. xii, 29. 

2 Gen. i. 26. 

3 The old Latin translation is: ‘‘ Sed non relictis ipsis patribus.” 
Grabe would cancel on, while Massuet pleads for retaining it. Har- 
vey conjectures that the translator perhaps mistook ovx« avetAnumevwv 
for ovK avadcAetevwv. We have followed Massuet, though we should 
prefer deleting #0”, were it not found in all the mss. 








IRENZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


personally, but against the ground, in reference 
to his works, as a certain person among the an- 
cients has observed: “God did indeed transfer 
the curse to the earth, that it might not remain 
in man.” 4 But man received, as the punish- 
ment of his transgression, the toilsome task of 
tilling the earth, and to eat bread in the sweat 
of his face, and to return to the dust from 
whence he was taken. Similarly also did the 
woman [receive] toil, and labour, and groans, 
and the pangs of parturition, and a state of 
subjection, that is, that she should serve her hus- 
band; so that they should neither perish alto- 
gether when cursed by God, nor, by remaining 
unreprimanded, should be led to despise God. 


But Greg in all its fulness fell upon the _ser- 
pent, which had beguiled them. “ And God,” 


it is declared, “said to the serpent: Because 
thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all 
cattle, and above all the beasts of the earth.” 5 
And this same thing does the Lord also say in 
the Gospel, to those who are found upon the left 
hand: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into ever- 
lasting fire, which my Father hath prepared for 
the devil and his angels ;”’ © indicating that eter- 
nal fire was not originally prepared for man, but 
for him who beguiled man, and caused him to 
offend — for him, I say, who is chief of the 
apostasy, and for those angels who became apos- 
tates along with him ; which [fire], indeed, they 
too shall justly feel, who, like him, persevere in 
works of wickedness, without repentance, and 
without retracing their steps. 

4. [These act] 7 as Cain [did, who], when he 
was counselled by God to keep quiet, because 
he had not made an equitable division of that 
share to which his brother was entitled, but with 
envy and malice thought that he could domineer 
over him, not only did not acquiesce, but even 
added sin to sin, indicating his state of mind by 
his action. For what he had planned, that did 
he also put in practice: he tyrannized over and 
slew him ; God subjecting the just to the unjust, 
that the former might be proved as the just one 
by the things which he suffered, and the latter 
detected as the unjust by those which he perpe- 
trated. And he was not softened even by this, 
nor did he stop short with that evil deed; but 
being asked where his brother was, he said, “I 
know not; am I my brother’s keeper?” extend- 
ing and aggravating [his] wickedness by his an- 
swer. For if it is wicked to slay a brother, much 
worse is it thus insolently and irreverently to 
reply to the omniscient God as if he could baffle 
Him. And for this he did himself bear a curse 
about with him, because he gratuitously brought 


4 Gen. iii. 16, etc. 
- Gen iii, 14. 
att. xxv. 41. This reading of Irenzus agrees with that of the 
Codex Bezz, at Cambridge. 
7 Gen. iv. 7, after LXX. version. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


an offering of sin, having had no reverence for 
God, nor being put to confusion by the act of 
fratricide.: 

5. The case of Adam, however, had no anal- 
ogy with this, but was altogether different. F or, 
having been beguiled by another under the pre- 
text of immortality, he is immediately seized 
with terror, and hides himself; not as if he were 
able to escape from God ; but, in a state of con- 
fusion at having transgressed His command, he 
feels unworthy to appear before and to hold con- 
verse with God. Now, “the fear of the Lord is 
the beginning of wisdom ;”? the sense of sin 
leads to repentance, and God bestows His com- 
passion upon those who are penitent. For 
[Adam] showed his repentance by his conduct, 
through means of the girdle [which he used], 
covering himself with fig-leaves, while there were 
many other leaves, which would have irritated his 
body in a less degree. He, however, adopted a 
dress conformable to his disobedience, being 
awed by the fear of God ; and resisting the err- 
ing, the lustful propensity of his flesh (since he had 
lost his natural disposition and child-like mind, 
and had come to the knowledge of evil things), 
he girded a bridle of continence upon himself 
and his wife, fearing God, and waiting for His 
coming, and indicating, as it were, some such 
thing [as follows]: Inasmuch as, he says, I have 
by disobedience lost that robe of sanctity which 
I had from the Spirit, I do now also acknowledge 
that I am deserving of a covering of this nature, 
which affords no gratification, but which gnaws 
and frets the body. And he would no doubt 
have retained this clothing for ever, thus hum- 
bling himself, if God, who is merciful, had not 
clothed them with tunics of skins instead of fig- 
leaves. For this purpose, too, He interrogates 
them, that the blame might light upon the 
woman; and again, He interrogates her, that 
she might convey the blame to the serpent. For 
she related what had occurred. “The serpent,” 
says she, “beguiled me, and -I-did eat.”3 But 
He put no question to the serpent ; for He knew 
that he had been the prime Mover in the guilty 


deed ; but He pronounced the curse upon him 
in the first instance, that it might fall upon man 
with a mitigated rebuke. For God detested him 
who had led man astray, but by degrees, and 
little by little, He showed compassion to him 
who had been beguiled. 

6. Wherefore also He drove him out of Para- 
dise, and removed him far from the tree of life, 
not because He envied him the tree of life, as 
some venture to assert, but because He pitied 





1 The old Latin reads “ parricidio.” The crime of parricide was 
alone known to the Roman law; but it was a generic term, including 
the murder of all near relations. All the editors have supposed that 
the original word was adeAfoxrovia, which has here been adopted. 

2 Prov. i. 7, ix. 10. 

3 Gen, iii. 13. 





457 


him, [and did not desire] that he should con- 
tinue a sinner for ever, nor that the sin which 
surrounded him should be immortal, and evil 
interminable and irremediable. But He set a 
bound to his [state of] sin, by interposing death, 
and thus causing sin to cease,‘ putting an end 
to it by the dissolution of the flesh, which should 
take place in the earth, so that man, ceasing at 
length to live to sin, and dying to it, might begin 
te live to God. 

7. For this end did He put enmity between 
the serpent and the woman and her seed, they 
keeping it up mutually: He, the sole of whose 
foot should be bitten, having power also to tread 
upon the enemy’s head; but the other biting, 
killing, and impeding the steps of man, until 
the seed did come appointed to tread down his 
head, — which was born of Mary, of whom the 
prophet speaks: “Thou shalt tread upon the 
asp and the basilisk; thou shalt trample down 
the lionand the dragon ;” 5— indicating that 
sin, which was set up and spread out against man, 
and which rendered him subject to death, should 
be deprived of its power, along with death, which 
rules [over men] ; and that the lion, that is, anti- 
christ, rampant against mankind in the latter 
days, should be trampled down by Him; and 
that He should bind “the dragon, that old ser- 
pent,” ° and subject him to the power of man, 
who had been conquered,’ so that all his might 
should be trodden down. Now Adam had been 
conquered, all life having been taken away from 
him: wherefore, when the foe was conquered in 
his turn, Adam received new life; and the last 
enemy, death, is destroyed,’ which at the first 
had taken possession of man. Therefore, when 
man has been liberated, “ what is written shall 
come to pass, Death is swallowed up in victory. 
O death, where is thy victory? O death, where 
is thy sting?”® This could not be said with 
justice, if that man, over whom death did first 
obtain dominion, were not set free. For his 
salvation is death’s destruction. When therefore 
the Lord vivifies man, that is, Adam, death is at 
the same time destroyed. 

8. All therefore speak falsely who disallow his 
(Adam’s) salvation, shutting themselves out from 
life for ever, in that they do not believe that the 
sheep which had perished has been found.'® For 
if it has not been found, the whole human race 
is still held in a state of perdition. False, there- 
fore, is that man who first started this idea, or 
rather, this ignorance and blindness —~ Tatian.'"! 


4 Rom. vi. 7. 

5 Ps, xci. 13. 

© Rey, xx. 2. 

7 Luke x. 19. 

8 x Cor. xv. 26. 

9 x Cor. xv. 54, 55- 

to Luke xv. 4. prey ee bitte 

11 An account of Tatian will be given in a future volume with his 
only extant work. 


458 


As I have already indicated, this man entangled| tion, namely, ‘our faith ; which, having been 
himself with all the heretics." This dogma, how- | received from the Church, we do preserve, and 
ever, has been invented by himself, in order that, | which always, by the Spirit of God, renewing its 
by introducing something new, independently of| youth, as if it were some precious deposit in an 
the rest, and by speaking vanity, he might acquire | excellent vessel, causes the vessel itself contain- 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





for himself hearers void of faith, affecting to be 
esteemed a teacher, and endeavouring from time 
to time to employ sayings of this kind often 
[made use of] by Paul: “ In Adam we all die ;”? 
ignorant, however, that “where sin abounded, 
grace did much more abound.” Since this, 
then, has been clearly shown, let all his disciples 
be put to shame, and let them wrangle+ about 
Adam, as if some great gain were to accrue to 
them if he be not saved ; when they profit noth- 
ing more [by that], even as the serpent also did 
not profit when persuading man [to sin], except 
to this effect, that he proved him a transgressor, 
obtaining man as the first-fruits of his own apos- 
tasy.5 But he did not know God’s power.®. Thus 
also do those who disallow Adam’s salvation gain 
nothing, except this, that they render themselves 
_ heretics and apostates from the truth, and show 
themselves patrons of the serpent and of death. 








CHAP. XXIV. — RECAPITULATION OF THE VARIOUS 
ARGUMENTS ADDUCED AGAINST GNOSTIC IMPIETY 
UNDER ALL ITS ASPECTS. THE HERETICS, TOSSED 
ABOUT BY EVERY BLAST OF DOCTRINE, ARE 
OPPOSED BY THE UNIFORM TEACHING OF THE 
CHURCH, WHICH REMAINS SO ALWAYS, AND IS 
CONSISTENT WITH ITSELF. 





1. Thus, then, have all these men been ex- 
posed, who bring in impious doctrines regarding 
our Maker and Framer, who also formed this 
world, and above whom there is no other God ; 
and those have been overthrown by their own 
arguments who teach falsehoods regarding the 
substance of our Lord, and the dispensation 
which He fulfilled for the sake of His own 
creature man. But [it has, on the other han 
been shown], that the’preaching of the Church 
is everywhere consistent, and continues In an 
even course, and receives testimony from the 
prophets, the apostles, and all the disciples — 





ing it to renew its youth also. For this gift of 
God has been entrusted to the Church, as breath 
was to the first created man,? for this purpose, 
that all the members receiving it may be vivified ; 
and the [means of] communion with Christ has 
been distributed throughout it, that is, the Holy 
Spirit, the earnest of incorruption, the means of 
Contin our faith, and the ladder_of. ascent 
to God. ‘For in the Church,” it is said, “ God 
hath set apostles, prophets, teachers,” ‘° and all 
the other means through which the Spirit works ; 
of which all those are not partakers who do not 
join themselves to the Church, but defraud them- 
selves of life through their perverse opinions and 
infamous behaviour. For where the Church is, 
there is the Spirit of God ; and where the Spirit 
of God is, there is the Church, and every kind 
of grace ; but the Spirit is truth. Those, there- 
fore, who do not partake of Him, are neither 
nourished into life from the mother’s breasts 
nor do they enjoy that most limpid fountain 
which issues from the body of Christ; but they 
dig for themselves broken cisterns" out of earthly 
trenches, and drink putrid water out of the mire, 
fleeing from the faith of the Church lest they be 
convicted ; and rejecting the Spirit, that they 
may not be instructed. 

2. Alienated thus from the truth, they do de- 
servedly wallow in all error, tossed to and fro by 
it, thinking differently in regard to the same 
things at different times, and never attaining to 
a well-grounded knowledge, being more anxious 
to be sophists of words than disciples of the 
truth. For they have not been founded upon 
the one rock, but upon the sand, which has in 
itself a multitude of stones. Wherefore they 
also imagine many gods, and they always have 
the excuse of searching [after truth] (for they 
are blind), but never succeed in finding it. For 
they blaspheme the Creator, Him who is truly 


as I have proved — through [those in] the be-|God, who also furnishes power to find [the 
ginning, the middle, and the end,’ and through| truth]; imagining that they have discovered 
the entire dispensation of God, and that well-| another god beyond God, or another Pleroma, 
grounded system which tends® to man’s salva-|or another dispensation. Wherefore also the 
light which is from God does not illumine them, 
' His heresy being just a mixture of the opinions of the various because they have dishonoured and despised 
Gnostic sects. od, holding Him of small account, because 
1 Cor. xv. 22. 3 5 5 ts 2 
through His love and infinite benignity, He has 

diferent moods of the two verbs, erbescant ant concertand, "| Come within reach of human knowledge (knowl- 


5 “Tnitium ee ae oe yee boner Losshiem ” the edge, however, not with regard to His greatness, 
meaning 1s very obscure, and the editors throw no light upon it. i 7 

; Lherally, ot hut he aid dat cerca” Tir eameeton Eipprend (OY with regard to His essence — for that has no 
to have read oldev, knew, for elSev, saw, 

7 Literally, “through the beginnings, the means, and the end.” 
oad three terms refer to the Prophets, the Apostles, and the Church 

atholic, 

8. The Latin is“ solidam operationem,” which we know not how 

to translate, in accordance with the context, except as above, 





3 Rom. vy, 20. 





9 "This, seein "to. be’ the meaning conveyed by the old Lati 
“‘ quemadmodum aspiratio plastiabionl.” 3 ud Se 

10 x Cor, xii, 28, 

RE Jer, ii. x3, 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


459 


eo a a er ae TS 


man measured or handled — but after this sort: 
that we should know that He who made, and 
formed, and breathed in them the breath of life, 
and nourishes us by means of the creation, es- 
tablishing all things by His Word, and binding 
them together by His Wisdom : — this is He 
who is the only true God) ; but they dream of a 
non-existent being above Him, that they may be 
regarded as having found out the great God, 
whom nobody, [they hold,] can recognise as 
holding communication with the human race, 
or as directing mundane matters: that is to say, 
they find out the god of Epicurus, who does 
nothing either for himself or others ; that is, he 
exercises(no providence at all. 


CHAP. XXV.—THIS WORLD IS RULED BY THE 
PROVIDENCE OF ONE GOD, WHO IS BOTH EN- 
DOWED WITH INFINITE JUSTICE TO PUNISH THE 
WICKED, AND WITH INFINITE GOODNESS TO BLESS 
THE PIOUS, AND IMPART TO THEM SALVATION. 


1. God does, however, exercise a providence 
over all things, and therefore He also gives coun- 
sel ; and when giving counsel, He is present with 
those who attend to moral discipline.?_ It follows 
then of course, that the things which are watched 
over and governed should be acquainted with 
their ruler; which things are not irrational or 
vain, but they have understanding derived from 
the providence of God. And, for this reason, 
certain of the Gentiles, who were less addicted 
to [sensual] allurements and voluptuousness, and 
were not led away to such a degree of supersti- 
tion with regard to idols, being moved, though 
but slightly, by His providence, were neverthe- 
less convinced that they should call the Maker 
of this universe the Father, who exercises a prov- 
idence over all things, and arranges the affairs 
of our world. 

2. Again, that they might remove the rebuk- 
ing and judicial power from the Father, reckon- 
ing that as unworthy of God, and thinking that 
they had found out a God both without anger 
and [merely] good, they have alleged that one 
[God] judges, but that another saves, uncon- 
sciously taking away the intelligence and justice 
of both deities. For if the judicial one is not 
also good, to bestow favours upon the deserving, 
and to direct reproofs against those requiring 
them, he will appear neither a just nor a wise 
judge. On the other hand, the good God, if 
he is merely good, and not one who tests those 
upon whom he shall send his goodness, will be 
out of the range of justice and goodness; and 
his goodness will seem imperfect, as not saving 





I ive., the Spirit. ; i 

2 Literally, ‘‘who have a foresight of morals” — gui morum 
providentiam habent, The meaning is very obscure. [Prov. xxii. 3, 
xxvii. 12.] 


all; [for it should do so,] if it be not accom- 
panied with judgment. 

3. Marcion, therefore, himself, by dividing 
God into two, maintaining one to be good and 
the other judicial, does in fact, on both sides, 
put an end to deity. For he that is the judicial 
one, if he be not good, is not God, because he 
from whom goodness is absent is no God at all ; 
and again, he who is good, if he has no judicial 
power, suffers the same [loss] as the former, by 
being deprived of his character of deity. And 
how can they call the Father of all wise, if they 
do not assign to Him a judicial faculty? For 
if He is wise, He is also one who tests [others] ; 
but the judicial power belongs to him who tests, 
and justice follows the judicial faculty, that it 
may reach a just conclusion ; justice calls forth 
judgment, and judgment, when it is executed 
with justice, will pass on to wisdom. ‘Therefore 
the Father will excel in wisdom all human and 
angelic wisdom, because He is Lord, and Judge, 
and the Just One, and Ruler over all. For He 
is good, and merciful, and patient, and saves 
whom He ought: nor does goodness desert Him 
in the exercise of justice,3 nor is His wisdom 
lessened ; for He saves those whom He should 
save, and judges those worthy of judgment. 
Neither does He show Himself unmercifully 
just ; for His goodness, no doubt, goes on be- 
fore, and takes precedency. 

4. The God, therefore, who does benevolently 
cause His sun to rise upon all,* and sends rain 
upon the just and unjust, shall judge those who, 
enjoying His equally distributed kindness, have 
led lives not corresponding to the dignity of His 
bounty ; but who have spent their days in wan- 
tonness and luxury, in opposition to His benevo- 
lence, and have, moreover, even blasphemed Him 
who has-conferred so great benefits upon them. 

5. Plato is proved to be more religious than 
these men, for he allowed that the same God 
was both just and good, having power over all 
things, and Himself executing judgment, express- 
ing himself thus, “And God indeed, as He is 
also the ancient Word, possessing the beginning, 
the end, and the mean of all existing things, does 
everything rightly, moving round about them 
according to their nature ; but retributive justice 
always follows Him against those who depart 
from the divine law.’’5 Then, again, he points 
out that the Maker and Framer of the universe. 
is good. “And to the good,” he says, “ ao eny 
ever springs up with regard to anything ;”’° thus 
establishing the goodness of God, as the begin- 
ning and the cause of the creation of the world, 
but not ignorance, nor an erring Aton, nor the 





3 The text is here very uncertain, but the above seems the proba- 
ble meaning. 

4 Matt. v. 45. 

5 Plato, de Leg., iv. and p. 715, 16. 

6 In Timea, Vi. p. 29. 





consequence of a defect, nor the Mother weep- 
ing and lamenting, nor another God or Father. 
6. Well may their Mother bewail them, as 
capable of conceiving and inventing such things ; 
for they have worthily uttered this falsehood 
against themselves, that their Mother is beyond 
the Pleroma, that is, beyond the knowledge of 
God, and that their entire multitude became’ a 
shapeless and crude abortion: for it apprehends 
nothing of the truth ; it falls into void and dark- 
ness: for their wisdom (Sophia) was void, and 
wrapped up in darkness ; and Horos did not 
permit her to enter the Pleroma: for the Spirit 
(Achamoth) did not receive them into the place 
of refreshment. For their father, by begetting 
ignorance, wrought in them the sufferings of 
death. We do not misrepresent [their opinions 
on | these points ; but they do themselves confirm, 
they do themselves teach, they do glory in them, 
they imagine a lofty [mystery ] about their Mother, 
whom they represent as having been begotten 
without a father, that is, without God, a female 
from a female,? that is, 








IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES, 





7. We do indeed pray that these men may not 
remain in the pit which they themselves have 
dug, but separate themselves from a Mother of 
this nature, and depart from Bythus, and stand 
away from the void, and relinquish the shadow ; 
and that they, being converted to the Church of 
God, may be lawfully begotten, and that Christ 
may be formed in them, and that they may know 
the Framer and Maker of this universe, the only 
true God and Lord of all. We pray for these 
things on their behalf, loving them better than 
they seem to love themselves. For our love, in- 
asmuch as it is true, is salutary to them, if they 
will but receive it. It may be compared to a 
severe remedy, extirpating the proud and slough- 
ing flesh of a wound ; for it puts an end to their 
pride and haughtiness. Wherefore it shall not 
weary us, to endeavour with all our might to 
stretch out the hand unto them. Over and above 
what has been already stated, I have deferred to 
the following book, to adduce the words of the 
Lord ; if, by conyincing some among them, 
through means of the very instruction of Christ, 
I may succeed in persuading them to abandon 


I The Latin is “ collectio eorum; ” but what col/ectzo here means, 
itis not easy to determine. Grabe, with much probability, deems it the 
representative of svatacts. Harvey prefers évO@vunua: butit is difficult 
to perceive the relevancy of his references to the rhetorical syllogism. 

2 See book i. cap. xvi. note, 


such error, and to cease from blaspheming their 
Creator, who is both God alone, and the Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 


ELUCIDATION. 


THE editor of this American Series confines himself in general to such occasional and very 
brief annotations as may suggest to students and others the practical views which are requisite to 
a clear comprehension of authors who wrote for past ages; for a sort and condition of men 
no longer existing, whose extinction as a class is, indeed, largely due to these writings. But he 
reserved to himself the privilege of correcting palpable mistakes, especially in points which bear 
upon questions of our own times. 

That our learned translators have unaccountably admitted a very inaccurate translation of the 
crucial paragraph in book iii. cap. iii. sect. 2, I have shown in the footnote at that place. It is 
evident, (1) because they themselves are not satisfied with it, and (2) because I have set it side 
by side with the more literal rendering of a writer who would have preferred their reading if it 
could have borne the test of criticism. 

Now, the authors of the Latin translation* may have designed the ambiguity which gives the 
Ultramontane party an apparent advantage ; but it is an advantage which disappears as soon as 
it is examined, and hence I am content to take it as it stands. Various conjectures have been 
made as to the original Greek of Irenzeus.; but the Latin answers every purpose of the author’s 
argument, and is fatal to the claims of the Papacy. Let me recur to the translation given, 7” 
foco, from a Roman Catholic, and this will be seen at once. 

For he thus renders it : — 


1. In this Church, “ever, dy ¢hose who are on every side, has been preserved that tradition 





* One of the Antiochian Canons probably reflects the current language of an earlier antiquity thus: did 7) év TH wnTpordAct mavraxdben 
OVVTPEXELY TavTAs TOUS Ta MpdypLaTA ExovTas; and, if so, this cvytpéxety gives the meaning of convensre. 


ELUCIDATION. 461 
bed UL e222. 2 
which is from apostles.” How would such a proposition have sounded to Pius IX. in the Vatican 


council? The faith is preserved by those who come to Rome, not by the Bishop who presides 
there. 








2. “For to this Church, on account of more potent principality,: it is necessary that every 
Church (that is, those who are, on every side, faithful) resort.” The greatness of Rome, that is, 
as the capital of the Empire, imparts to the local Church a superior dignity, even as compared 
with Lyons, or any other metropolitical Church. Everybody visits Rome: hence you find there 
faithful witnesses from every side (from all the Churches) ; and chetr united testimony it is which 
preserves in Rome the pure apostolic traditions. 

The Latin, thus translated by a candid Roman Catholic, reverses the whole system of the 
Papacy. Pius IX. informed his Bishops, at the late Council, that they were not called to bear 
their testimony, but to hear his infallible decree ; “reducing us,” said the Archbishop of Paris, 
“to a council of sacristans.”’ 

Sustaining these views by a few footnotes, I add (1) a literal rendering of my own, and then 
(2) a metaphrase of the same, bringing out the argument from the crabbed obstructions of the 
Latin text. This, then, is what Irenzeus says: (@) “For it is necessary for every Church (that is to 
say, the faithful from all parts) to meet in this Church, on account of the superior magistracy ; in 
which Church, by those who are from all places, the tradition of the apostles has been preserved.” 
Or, more freely rendered : (4) “On account of the chief magistracy ? [of the empire], the faithful 
from all parts, representing every Church, are obliged to resort to Rome, and there to come 
together ; so that [it is the distinction of this Church that], in it, the tradition of the apostles 
has been preserved by Christians gathered together out of all the Churches.” Taking the entire 

argument of our author with the context, then, it amounts to this: “We must ask, not for local, 
but universal, testimony. Now, in every Church founded by the apostles has been handed down 
their traditions ; but, as it would be a tedious thing to collect them all, let this suffice. Take 
that Church (nearest at hand, and which is the only Apostolic Church of the West), the great 
and glorious Church at Rome, which was there founded by the two apostles Peter and Paul. in 
her have been preserved the traditions of all the Churches, because everybody is forced to go to 
the seat of empire: and therefore, by these representatives of the whole Catholic Church, the 
apostolic traditions have been all collected in Rome:3 and you have a synoptical view of all 
Churches in what is there preserved.” Had the views of the modern Papacy ever entered the 
head of Irenzeus, what an absurdity would be this whole argument. He would have said, “ It is 
no matter what may be gathered elsewhere ; for the Bishop of Rome is the infallible oracle of all 
Catholic truth, and you will always find it by his mouth.” It should be noted that Orthodoxy 
was indeed preserved there, just so long as Rome permitted other Churches to contribute their 
testimony on the principle of Irenzus, and thus to make her the depository of all Catholic 
tradition, as witnessed “by ad, everywhere, and from the beginning.” But all this is turned 
upside down by modern Romanism. No other Church is to be heard or considered ; but Rome 
takes all into her own power, and may dictate to all Churches what they are to believe, however 
novel, or contrary to the torrent of antiquity in the teachings of their own founders and great 
doctors in all past time. 





I “7#s more potent,” etc., is not a strict rendering: “‘¢4e more potent,” rather; which leaves the Jrzxczpalztas to the city, not the 
Church. 

2 Bishop Wordsworth inclines to the idea that the original Greek was ixavwrépay apxatdtyra, thus conceding that Irenzeus was speaking 
of the greater antiquity of Rome as compared with other (Western) Churches. Even so, he shows that the argument of Irenzeus is fatal 
to Roman pretensions, which admit of no such ideas as he advances, and no such freedom as that of his dealings with Rome. 

3 Nobody has more forcibly stated the argument of Irenzeus than the Abbé Guettée, in his exhaustive work on the Papacy. I published 
a translation of this valuable historical epitome in New York (Carleton), 1867; but it is out of print. The original may be had in Paris 
(Fischbacher), No. 33 Rue de Seine. 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


BOOK. IV. 





PREFACE. 


1. By transmitting to thee, my very dear friend, 
this fourth book of the work which is [entitled] 
The Detection and Refutation of False Knowl- 
edge, I shall, as I have promised, add weight, by 
means of the words of the Lord, to what I have 
already advanced; so that thou also, as thou 
hast requested, mayest obtain from me _ the 
means of confuting all the heretics everywhere, 
and not permit them, beaten back at all points, 
to launch out further into the deep of error, nor 
to be drowned in the sea of ignorance ; but that 
thou, turning them into the haven of the truth, 
mayest cause them to attain their salvation. 

2. The man, however, who would undertake 
their conversion, must possess an accurate knowl- 
edge of their systems or schemes of doctrine. 
For it is impossible for any one to heal the sick, 
if he has no knowledge of the disease of the 
patients. This was the reason that my prede- 
cessors — much superior men to myself, too — 
were unable, notwithstanding, to refute the 
Valentinians satisfactorily, because they were 
ignorant of these men’s system ;* which I have 
with all care delivered to theé in the first book, 
in which I have also shown that their doctrine 
is a recapitulation of all the heretics. For which 
reason also, in the second, we have had, as in a 
mirror, a sight of their entire discomfiture. For 
they who oppose these men (the Valentinians) 
by the right method, do [thereby] oppose all 
who are of an evil mind; and they who over- 
throw them, do in fact overthrow every kind of 
heresy. ; 

3. For their system is blasphemous above all 
[others], since they represent that the Maker 
and Framer, who is one God, as I have shown, 
was produced from a defect or apostasy. They 
utter blasphemy, also, against our Lord, by cut- 
ting off and dividing Jesus from Christ, and 





1 (The reader who marvels at the tedious recitals must note this 
(1) as proof of the author's practical wisdom, and (2) as evidence 
of his fidelity in what he exhibits. ] 


462 








Christ from the Saviour, and again the Saviour 
from the Word, and the Word from the Only- 
begotten. And since they allege that the Cre- 
ator originated from a defect or apostasy, so 
have they also taught that Christ and the Holy 
Spirit were emitted on account of this defect, 
and that the Saviour was a product of those 
Eons who were produced from a defect; so 
that there is nothing but blasphemy to be found 
among them. In the preceding book, then, the 
ideas of the apostles as to all these points have 
been set forth, [to the effect] that not only did 
they, “who from the beginning were eye-wit- 
nesses and ministers of the word”? of truth, 
hold no such opinions, but that they did also 
preach to us to shun these doctrines,3 foreseeing 
by the Spirit those weak-minded persons who 
should be led astray.4 

4. For as the serpent beguiled Eve, by prom- 
ising her what he had not himself,5 so also do 
these men, by pretending [to possess] superior 
knowledge, and [to be acquainted with] ineffa- 
ble mysteries; and, by promising that admit- 
tance which they speak of as taking place within 
the Pleroma, plunge those that believe them 
into death, rendering them apostates from Him 
who made them. And at that time, indeed, 
the apostate angel, having effected the disobe- 
dience of mankind by means of the serpent, 
imagined that he escaped the notice of the 
Lord ; wherefore God assigned him the form °® 
and name [of a serpent]. But now, since the 
last times are [come upon us], evil is spread 
abroad among men, which not only renders 
them apostates, but by many machinations does 
[the devil] raise up blasphemers against the 


2 Luke i. 2. 

3 2 Tim. ii. 23. 

4 |The solemnity of the apostolic testimonies against the crop of 

tares that was to spring up receives great illustration from Irenaeus. 
1 John ii. 18.] 
5 ti Pet. ii. 19. ] 
6 [Rev. xii. 9. A little essay, Messtas and Antt-Messias, by 
the Rev. C. I, Black, London (Masters, 1847), is commended to 
those who need light on this very mysterious aableee | 


IRENHZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


463 


i 


Creator, namely, by means of all the heretics 
already mentioned. For all these, although they 
issue forth from diverse regions, and promulgate 
different [opinions], do nevertheless concur in 
the same blasphemous design, wounding [men] 
unto death, by teaching blasphemy against God 
our Maker and Supporter, and derogating from 
the salvation of man. Now man is a mixed 
organization of soul and flesh, who was formed 
after the likeness of God, and moulded by His 
hands, that is, by the Son and Holy Spirit, to 
whom also He said, “Let Us make man.” ! 
This, then, is the aim of him who envies our 
life, to render men disbelievers in their own sal- 
vation, and blasphemous against God the Cre- 
ator. For whatsoever all the heretics may have 
advanced with the utmost solemnity, they come 
to this at last, that they blaspheme the Creator, 
_ and disallow the salvation of God’s workman- 
ship, which the flesh truly is; on behalf of 
which I have proved, in a variety of ways, that 
the Son of God accomplished the whole dispen- 
sation [of mercy], and have shown that there 
is none other called God by the Scriptures ex- 
cept the Father of all, and the Son, and those 
who Possess the adoption. 


CHAP. I.— THE LORD ACKNOWLEDGED BUT ONE 
GOD AND FATHER. 


1. Since, therefore, this is sure and stedfast, 
that no other God or Lord was announced by 
the Spirit, except Him who, as God, rules over 
all, together with His Word, and those who 
receive the Spirit of adoption,? that is, those 
who believe in the one and true God, and in 
Jesus Christ the Son of God ; and likewise that 
the apostles did of themselves term no one else 
as God, or name [no other] as Lord; and, what 
is much more important, [since it is true] that 
our Lord [acted likewise], who did also com- 
mand us to confess no one as Father, except 
' Him who is in the heavens, who is the one God 
and the one Father ; —those things are clearly 
‘shown to be false which these deceivers and 
most perverse sophists advance, maintaining that 
the being whom they have themselves invented 
is by nature both God and Father ; but that the 
Demiurge is naturally neither God nor Father, 
but is so termed merely by courtesy (verbo 
tzenus), because of his ruling the creation, as 
these perverse mythologists state, setting their 
thoughts against God; and, putting aside the 
doctrine of Christ, and of themselves divining 
falsehoods, they dispute against the entire dis- 
- pensation of God. For they maintain that their 
£ons, and gods, and fathers, and lords, are also 
still further termed heavens, together with their 

other, whom they do also call “the Earth,” 











and “ Jerusalem,” while they also style her many 
other names. 

2. Now to whom is it not clear, that if the 
Lord had known many fathers and gods, He 
would not have taught His disciples to know 
[only] one God,’ and to call Him alone Father? 
But He did the rather distinguish those who by 
word merely (verbo ¢enus) are termed gods, 
from Him who is truly God, that they should 
not err as to His doctrine, nor understand one 
[in mistake] for another. And if He did indeed 
teach us to call one Being Father and God, 
while He does from time to time Himself con- 
fess other fathers and gods in the same sense, 
then He will appear to enjoin a different course 
upon His disciples from what He follows Him- 
self. Such conduct, however, does not bespeak 
the good teacher, but a misleading and invidious 
one. The apostles, too, according to these 
men’s showing, are proved to be _ transgressors 
of the commandment, since they confess the 
Creator as God, and Lord, and Father, as I 
have shown—if He is not alone God and 
Father. Jesus, therefore, will be to them the 
author and teacher of such transgression, inas- 
much as He commanded that one Being should 
be called Father,‘ thus imposing upon them the 
necessity of confessing the Creator as their 
Father, as has been pointed out. 


CHAP. II.— PROOFS FROM THE PLAIN TESTIMONY 
OF MOSES, AND OF THE OTHER PROPHETS, 
WHOSE WORDS ARE THE W9UKDS OF CHRIST, 
THAT THERE IS BUT ONF GOD, THE FOUNDFR 
OF THE WORLD, WHOM O'R LORD PRZ-. ‘HED, 
AND WHOM HE CALLED HIS FATHER. 


1. Moses, therefore, making a recapitulation 
of the whole law, which he had received from 
the Creator (Demiurge), thus speaks in Deu- 
teronomy: ‘Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will 
speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my 
mouth.”5 Again, David saying that his help 
came from the Lord, asserts: ‘ My help is from 
the Lorp, who made heaven and earth.” ® And 
Esaias confesses that words were uttered by God 
who made heaven and earth, and governs them. 
He says: “Hear, O heavens; and give ear, O 
earth: for the. Lorp hath spoken.”7 And 
again: ‘‘Thus saith the Lorp God, who made 
the heaven, and stretched it out; who estab- 
lished the earth, and the things in it; and who 
giveth breath to the people upon it, and spirit 
to them who walk therein.’’® 

2. Again, our Lord Jesus Christ confesses this 
same Being as His Father, where He says: “I 





3 ae John xvii. 3.] 
4 Matt. xxiii. 9. 

5 Deut. xxxii. 1. 

6 Ps. cxxiv. 8. 

7 Isa. i. 2. 

8 Isa, xlii. 5. 


464 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


Linn nhac aeemanrrn er 8 


confess to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and 
earth.” * What Father will those men have us 
to understand [by these words], those who are 
most perverse sophists of Pandora? Whether 
shall it be Bythus, whom they have fabled of 
themselves; or their Mother; or the Only- 
begotten? Or shall it be he whom the Marcion- 
ites or the others have invented as god (whom I 
indeed have amply demonstrated to be no god 
at all) ; or shall it be (what is really the case) 
the Maker of heaven and earth, whom also the 
prophets proclaimed, — whom Christ, too, con- 
fesses as His Father, — whom also the law an- 
nounces, saying: “ Hear, O Israel; The Lord 
thy God is one God? ”? 

3. But_since the writings (Are) _o 
are the words of Christ, He does Himself de- 
“Clare to the Jews, as John has recorded in the 
Gospel: “If ye had believed Moses, ye would 
have believed Me: for he wrote of Me. But if 
ye believe not his writings, neither will ye believe 
My words.” 3 He thus indicates in the clearest 
manner that the writings of Moses are His words. 
If, then, [this be the case with regard] to Moses, 
so also, beyond a doubt, the words of the other 
prophets: are His [words], as I have pointed 
out. And again, the Lord Himself exhibits 
Abraham as having said to the rich man, with 
reference to all those who were still alive: “If 
they do not obey Moses and the prophets, neither, 
if any one were to rise from the dead and go to 
them, will they believe him.” ¢ 

4. Now, He has not merely related to us a 
story respecting a poor man and a rich one; but 
He has taught us, in the first place, that no one 
should lead a luxurious life, nor, living in worldly 
pleasures and perpetual feastings, should be the 
slave of his lusts, and forget God. “For there 
was,” He says, “a rich man, who was clothed in 
purple and fine linen, and delighted himself with 
splendid feasts.” 5 

Of such persons, too, the Spirit has spoken 
by Esaias: “They drink wine with [the accom- 
paniment of ] harps, and tablets, and psalteries, 
and flutes; but they regard not the works of 
God, neither do they consider the work of His 
hands.” ® Lest, therefore, we should incur the 
same punishment as these men, the Lord reveals 
[to us] their end; showing at the same time, 
that if they obeyed Moses and the prophets, they 
would believe in Him whom these had preached, 
the Son of God, who rose from the dead, and 
bestows life upon us ; and He shows that all are 
from one essence, that is, Abraham, and Moses, 
and the prophets, and also the Lord Himself, who 


1 Matt. xi. 25; Luke x, ax. 
2 Deut. vi. 4. 
3 John v. 46, 47. 
4 Luke xvi. 3r. 
S Luke xvi. tg. 
Isa. v. 12, 








rose from the dead, in whom many believe who 
are of the circumcision, who do also hear Moses 
and the prophets announcing the coming of the 
Son of God. But those who scoff [at the truth] 
assert that these men were from another essence, 
and they do not know the first-begotten from 
the dead; understanding Christ as a distinct 
being, who continued as if He were impassible, 
and Jesus, who suffered, as being altogether sep- 
arate [from Him]. 

5. For they do not receive from the Father 
the knowledge of the Son; neither do they learn 
who the Father is from the Son, who. teaches 
clearly and without parables Him who truly is 
God. He says: “Swear not at all; neither by 

eaven, for it is God’s throne ; nor by the earth, 
for it is His footstool ; neither by Jerusalem, for 
it is the city of the great King.”? For these words 
are evidently spoken with reference to the Crea- 
tor, as also Esaias says: “‘ Heaven is my throne, 
the earth is my footstool.” ® And besides this 
Being there is no other God; otherwise He 
would not be termed by the Lord either “ God” 
or “the great King ;” for a Being who can be so 
described admits neither of any other being 
compared with nor set above Him. For he who 
has any superior over him, and is under the 
power of another, this being never can be called 
either “God” or “ the great King.” 

6. But neither will these men be able to main- 
tain that such words were uttered in an ironical 
manner, since it is proved to them by the words 
themselves that they were in earnest. For He 
who uttered them was Truth, and did truly vin- 
dicate His own house, by driving out of it the 
changers of money, who were buying and sell- 
ing, saying unto them: “It is written, My house 
shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have 
made it a den of thieves.”° And what reason 
had He for thus doing and saying, and vindi- 
cating His house, if He did preach another 
God? But [He did so], that He might point 
out the transgressors of His Father’s law; for 
neither did He bring any accusation against the 
house, nor did He blame the law, which He had 
come to fulfil; but He reproved those who were 
putting His house to an improper use, and those 
who were transgressing the law. And therefore 
the scribes and Pharisees, too, who from the 
times of the law had begun to despise God, did 
not receive His Word, that is, they did not 
believe on Christ. Of these Esaias says: “Thy 
princes are rebellious, companions of thieves, 
loving gifts, following after rewards, not judging 
the fatherless, and negligent of the cause of the 
widows.” '° And Jeremiah, in like manner : 





7 Matt. v. 34. 

8 Isa. Ixvi. 1. 

9 Matt. xxi. 13. 
to Isa. i. 23. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 
re ee 


“They,” he says, “who rule my people did not 
know me; they are senseless and imprudent 
children ; they are wise to do evil, but to do 
well they have no knowledge.” : 

7. But as many as feared God, and were anx- 
ious about His law, these ran to Christ, and were 
all saved. For He said to His disciples: “Go 
ye to the sheep of the house of Israel,? which 
have perished.” And many more Samaritans, it 
is said, when the Lord had tarried among them 
two days, “believed because of His words, and 
said to the woman, Now we believe, not because 
of thy saying, for we ourselves have heard [Him], 
and know that this man is truly the Saviour of 
the world.” 3 And Paul likewise declares, “ And 
so all Israel shall be saved ;” + but he has also 
said, that the law was our pedagogue [tc bring 
us] to Christ Jesus.5 Let them not therefore 
ascribe to the law the unbelief of certain [among 
them]. For the law never hindered them from 
believing in the Son of God; nay, but it even 
exhorted them ® so to do, saying? that men can 
be saved in no other way from the old wound of 
the serpent than by believing in Him who, in the 
likeness of sinful flesh, is lifted up from the earth 
upon the tree of martyrdom, and draws all things 
to Himself,’ and vivifies the dead. 


CHAP. III.— ANSWER TO THE CAVILS OF THE GNOS- 
TICS. WE ARE NOT TO SUPPOSE THAT THE TRUE 
GOD CAN BE CHANGED, OR COME TO AN END, 
BECAUSE THE HEAVENS, WHICH ARE HIS THRONE, 
AND THE EARTH, HIS FOOTSTOOL, SHALL PASS 
AWAY. 


1. Again, as to their malignantly asserting that 
if heaven is indeed the throne of God, and earth 
His footstool, and if it is declared that the 
heaven and earth shall pass away, then when 
these pass away the God who sitteth above must 
also pass away, and therefore He cannot be the 
God who is over all; in the first place, they are 
ignorant what the expression means, that heaven 
is [His] throne and earth [His] footstool. For 
they do not know what God is, but they imagine 
that He sits after the fashion of a man, and is 
contained within bounds, but does not contain. 
And they are also unacquainted with [the mean- 
ing of] the passing away of the heaven and 
earth ; but Paul was not ignorant of it when he 
declared, “ For the figure of this world passeth 
away.” 9 In the next place, David explains their 
question, for he says that when the fashion of 
this world passes away, not only shall God re- 





I Jer. iv. 22. 

2 Matt. x. 6. 

3 John iv. 41. 

4 Rom. xi. 26, 

5 Gal. ili. 24. 

6 Num, xxi. 8. ide nerf 4 Ps 

7 This passage is quoted by Augustine, in his treatise on original 
sia, written to oppose Pelagius (lib. i. c. ii.), about 400 A.D. 

8 John xii. 32, iii. 14. 

9 x Cor. vii. 31. 





465 





main, but His servants also, expressing himself 
thus in the rorst Psalm: “In the beginning, 
Thou, O Lorp, hast founded the earth, and the 
heavens are the works of Thy hands. They shall 
perish, but Thou shalt endure, and all shall wax 
old as a garment ; and as a vesture Thou shalt 
change them, and they shall be changed: but 
Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail. 
The children of Thy servants shall continue, and 
their seed shall be established for ever ;” *° point- 
ing out plainly what things they are that pass 
away, and who it is that doth endure for ever — 
God, together with His servants. And in like 
manner Esaias says: “ Lift up your eyes to the 
heavens, and look upon the earth beneath ; for 
the heaven has been set together as smoke, and 
the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they 
who dwell therein shall die in like manner. But 
my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteous- 
ness shall not pass away.” ™! 


CHAP. IV. — ANSWER TO ANOTHER OBJECTION, 
SHOWING THAT THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSA- 
LEM, WHICH WAS THE CITY OF THE GREAT 
KING, DIMINISHED NOTHING FROM THE SUPREME 
MAJESTY AND POWER OF GOD, FOR THAT THIS 
DESTRUCTION WAS PUT IN EXECUTION BY THE 
MOST WISE COUNSEL OF THE SAME GOD. 


1. Further, also, concerning Jerusalem and 
the Lord, they venture to assert that, if it had 
been “the city of the great King,” 2 it would 
not have been deserted.'3 This is just as if any 
one should say, that if straw were a creation of 
God, it would never part company with the 
wheat ; and that the vine twigs, if made by God, 
never would be lopped away and deprived of 
the clusters. But as these [vine twigs] have 
not been originally made for their own sake, but 
for that of the fruit growing upon them, which 
being come to maturity and taken away, they 
are left behind, and those which do_not conduce 
to fructification are lopped off altogether ; so also 
[was it with] Jerusalem, which had in herself 
borne the yoke of bondage (under which man 
was reduced, who in former times was not sub- 
ject to God when death was reigning, and being 
subdued, became a fit subject for liberty), when 
the fruit of liberty had come, and reached ma- 
turity, and been reaped and stored in the barn, 
and when those which had the power to produce 
fruit had been carried away from her [i.e., from 
Jerusalem], and scattered throughout all the 
world. Even as Esaias saith, ‘The children of 





10 Ps, cii, 25-28. The cause of the difference in the numbering of 
the Psalms is that the Septuagint embraces in one psalm — the ninth 
—the two which form the ninth and tenth in the Hebrew text. 

TI Tsa. li. 6. 

12 Matt. v. 35. : : 

13 | Jer. vii. 4. One of the most powerful arguments in all Scrip- 
ture is contained in the first twelve verses of this chapter, and it 
rebukes an inveterate superstition of the human heart. Comp. Rev. 
ii, 5, and the message to Rome, Rom. xi. 21.] 


466 


Jaceb shall strike root, and Israel shall flourish, 
and ‘the whole world shall be filled with his 
fruit.” The fruit, therefore, having been sown 
throughout all the world, she (Jerusalem) was 
deservedly forsaken, and those things which had 
formerly brought forth fruit abundantly were 
taken away; for from these, according to the 
flesh, were Christ and the apostles enabled to 
bring forth fruit. But now these are no longer 
useful for bringing forth fruit. For all things 
which have a beginning in time must of course 
have an end in time also. 

2. Since, then, the law originated with Moses, 
it terminated with John as a necessary conse- 
quence. Christ had come to fulfil it: where- 
fore “the law and the prophets were” with 
them “until John.”? And therefore Jerusalem, 
taking its commencement from David,3 and ful- 
filling its own times, must have an end of legis- 
lation* when the new covenant was revealed. 
For God does all things by measure and in 
order; nothing is unmeasured with Him, be- 
cause nothing is out of order. Well spake he, 
who said that the unmeasurable Father was 
Himself subjected to measure in the Son; for 
the Son is the measure of the Father, since He 
also comprehends Him. But that the adminis- 
tration of them (the Jews) was temporary, Esaias 
says: “And the daughter of Zion shall be left 
as a cottage in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a 
garden of cucumbers.”’5 And when shall these 
things be left behind? Is it not when the fruit 
shall be taken away, and the leaves alone shall 
be left, which now have no power of producing 
fruit ? : 

3. But why do we speak of Jerusalem, since, 
indeed, the fashion of the whole world must also 
pass away, when the time of its disappearance 
has come, in order that the fruit indeed may be 
gathered into the garner, but the chaff, left behind, 
may be consumed by fire? “For the day of the 
Lord cometh as a burning furnace, and all sin- 
ners shall be stubble, they who do evil things, 
and the day shall burn them up.”® Now, who 
this Lord is that brings such a day about, John 
the Baptist points out, when he says of Christ, 
“He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and 
with fire, having His fan in His hand to cleanse 
His floor ; and He will gather His fruit into the 
garner, but the chaff He will burn up with un- 
quenchable fire.”’7 For He who makes the chaff 
and He who makes the wheat are not different 
persons, but one and the same, who judges them, 





1 Isa. xxvii. 6. 

2 Luke xvi. 16. 

3 2 Sam. v. 7, where David is described as taking the stronghold 
of Zion from Had blac we 

4 The text fluctuates between “legis dationem” 
dationis.” We have followed the latter. 

5 Isa, i. 8, 

§ Mal. iv. x. 

7 Matt. iii. rt, ete. 


and “legis 





IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


that is, separates them. But the wheat and the 
chaff, being inanimate and irrational, have been 
made such by nature. But man, being endowed 
with reason, and in this respect like to God, 
having been made free in his will, and with power 
over himself, is himself the cause to himself, that 
sometimes he becomes wheat, and sometimes . 
chaff. Wherefore also he shall be justly con- 
demned, because, having been created a rational 
being, he lost the true rationality, and living 
irrationally, opposed the righteousness of God, 
giving himself over to every earthly spirit, and 
serving all lusts; as says the prophet, ‘‘ Man, 
being in honour, did not understand: he was 
assimilated to senseless beasts, and made like to 
them.” 8 : 


CHAP. V.— THE AUTHOR RETURNS TO HIS FORMER 
ARGUMENT, AND SHOWS THAT THERE WAS BUT 
ONE GOD ANNOUNCED BY THE LAW AND PROPHETS, 
WHOM CHRIST CONFESSES AS HIS FATHER, AND 
WHO,. THROUGH HIS WORD, ONE LIVING GOD 
WITH HIM, MADE HIMSELF KNOWN TO MEN IN 
BOTH COVENANTS, 


1. God, therefore, is one and the same, who 
rolls up the heaven as a book, and renews the 
face of the earth ; who made the things of time 
for man, so that coming to maturity in them, he 
may produce the fruit of immortality ; and who, 
through His kindness, also bestows [upon him] 
eternal things, “that in the ages to come He 
may show the exceeding riches of His grace ;”’ 9 
who was announced by the law and the prophets, 
whom Christ confessed as His Father. Now He 
is the Creator, and He it is who is God over all, 
as Esaias says, “I am witness, saith the Lorp 
God, and my servant whom I have chosen, that 
ye may know, and believe, and understand that 
I AM. Before me there was no other God, 
neither shall be after me. I am God, and be- 
sides me there is no Saviour. I have pro- 
claimed, and I have saved.” *° And again: “I 
myself am the first God, and I am above things 
to come.” ** For neither in an ambiguous, nor 
arrogant, nor boastful manner, does He say these 
things ; but since it was impossible, without God, 
to come to a knowledge of God, He teaches men, 
through His Word, to know God. To those, 
therefore, who are ignorant of these matters, and 
on this account imagine that they have dis- 
covered another Father, justly does one say, “Ye 
do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power 
of God.” 

2. For our Lord and Master, in the answer 
which He gave to the Sadducees, who say that 
there is no resurrection, and who do therefore 





8 Ps, xlix. 12. 

9 Eph. ii. 7. 

10 Isa. xliii, ro, etc, 
tt Isa. xii. 4. 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


467 


ee RTS Es a 


dishonour God, and lower the credit of the law, 
did both indicate a resurrection, and reveal God, 
saying to them, “Ye do err, not knowing the 
Scriptures, nor the power of God.” “ For, 
touching the resurrection of the dead,” He says, 
“have ye not read that which was spoken by 
God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, the God 
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?”* And He 
added, “ He is not the God of the dead, but of 
the living ; for all live to Him.” . By these argu- 
ments He unquestionably made it clear, that He 
who spake to Moses out of the bush, and de- 
clared Himself to be the God of the fathers, He 
is the God of the living. For who is the God of 
the living unless He who is God, and above 
whom there is no other God? Whom also 
Daniel the prophet, when Cyrus king of the 
Persians said to him, “ Why dost thou not worship 
Bel?”’? did proclaim, saying, “ Because I do not 
worship idols made with hands, but the living 
God, who established the heaven and the earth, 
and has dominion over all flesh.” Again did he 
say, “I will adore the Lord my God, because 
He is the living God.” He, then, who was 
adored by the prophets as the living God, He is 
the God of the living ; and His Word is He who 
also spake to Moses, who also put the Sadducees 
to silence, who also bestowed the gift of resur- 
rection, thus revealing [both] truths to those who 
are blind, that is, the resurrection and God [in 
His true character]. For if He be not the God 
of the dead, but of the living, yet was called the 
God of the fathers who were sleeping, they do 
indubitably live to God, and have not passed out 
of existence, since they are children of the resur- 
rection. But our Lord is Himself the resurrection, 
as He does Himself declare, “I am the resur- 
rection and the life.”3 But the fathers are His 
children ; for it is said by the prophet: “ Instead 
of thy fathers, thy children have been made to 
thee.” + Christ Himself, therefore, together with 
the Father, is the God of the living, who spake 
to Moses, and who was also manifested to the 
fathers. 

3. And teaching this very thing, He said to 
the Jews: “Your father Abraham rejoiced that 
he should see my day; and he saw it, and was 
glad.”5 What is intended? “Abraham _be- 
lieved God, and it was imputed unto him for 
righteousness.”° In the first place, [he believed ] 
that He was the maker of heaven and. earth, 
the only God; and in the next place, that He 
would make his seed as the stars of heaven. 





I Matt. xxii. 29, etc.; Ex.ili.6. Fs : 

2 In the Septuagint and Vulgate versions, this story constitutes the 
fourteenth chapter of the book of Daniel. It is not extant in Hebrew, 
and has therefore been removed to the Apocrypha, in the Anglican 
canon [the Greek and St. Jerome’s] of Scripture, under the title of 
“ Bel and the Dragon.” 

3 yore xi. 25. 

4 Ps. xlv. 17. 
$ John viii. 56. 

@ Rom. iv. 3. 


This is what is meant by Paul, [when he says,] 
“as lights in the world.”7  Righteously, there- 
fore, having left his earthly kindred, he followed 
the Word of God, walking as a pilgrim with the 
Word, that he might [afterwards ] have his abode 
with the Word. 

4. Righteously also the apostles, being of the 
race of Abraham, left the ship and their father, 
and followed the Word. Righteously also do 
we, possessing the same faith as Abraham, and 
taking up the cross as Isaac did the wood,’ 
follow Him. For in Abraham man had learned 
beforehand, and had been accustomed to follow 
the Word of God. For Abraham, according to 
his faith, followed the command of the Word of 
God, and with a ready mind delivered up, as a 
sacrifice to God, his only-begotten and beloved 
son, in order that God also might be pleased to 
offer up for all his seed His own beloved and 
only-begotten Son, as a sacrifice for our redemp- 
tion. 

5. Since, therefore, Abraham was a prophet, 
and saw in the Spirit the day of the Lord’s com- 
ing, and the dispensation of His suffering, through 
whom both he himself and all who, following the 
example of his faith, trust in God, should be 
saved, he rejoiced exceedingly. The Lord, 
therefore, was not unknown to Abraham, whose 
day he desired to see;9 nor, again, was the 
Lord’s Father, for he had learned from the Word 
of the Lord, and believed Him; wherefore it 
was accounted to him by the Lord for righteous- 
ness. For faith towards God justifies a man; 
and therefore he said, “I will stretch forth my 
hand to the most high God, who made the 
heaven and the earth.” ?° All these truths, how- 
ever, do those holding perverse opinions en- 
deavour to overthrow, because of one passage, 
which they certainly do not understand correctly. 


CHAP. VI.— EXPLANATION OF THE WORDS OF 
CHRIST, “‘NO MAN KNOWETH THE FATHER, BUT 
THE SON,” ETC.; WHICH WORDS THE HERETICS 
MISINTERPRET. PROOF THAT, BY THE FATHER 
REVEALING THE SON, AND BY THE SON BEING 
REVEALED, THE FATHER WAS NEVER UNKNOWN. 


1. For the Lord, revealing Himself to His 
disciples, that He Himself is the Word, who im- 
parts knowledge of the Father, and reproving the 
Jews, who imagined that they had [the knowl- 
edge of] God, while they nevertheless rejected 
His Word, through whom God is made known, 

eclared; 0 man know >but the 
Father ; neither knoweth any man the Father, 
save the Son, and he to whom the Son has willed 
to reveal [Him].”'* Thus hath Matthew set it 
oS SS LE BR Tae iteaee -ale es Sie naea 

7 Phil. ii, 15. 

8 Gen. xxii. 6. 

9 John viii. 56. ~ 


10 Gen. xiv. 22. 
I Matt, xi. 27; Luke x. 22. 


/ 


468 





down, and Luke in like manner, and Mark * the 
very same ; for John omits this passage. They, 
however, who would be wiser than the apostles, 
write [the verse] in the following manner: “ No 
man &new the Father, but the Son; nor the Son, 
but the Father, and he to whom the Son has 
willed to reveal [Him] ;” and they explain it as 
if the true God were known to none prior to our 
Lord’s advent ; and that God who was announced 
by the prophets, they allege not to be the Father 
of Christ. 

2. But if Christ did then [only] begin to have 
existence when He came [into the world] as man, 
and [if] the Father did remember [only] in the 
times of Tiberius Czesar to provide for [the wants 
of] men, and His Word was shown to have not 
always coexisted with His creatures ; [it may be 
remarked that] neither then was it necessary 
that another God should be proclaimed, but 
[rather] that the reasons for so great carelessness 
and neglect on His part should be made the 
subject of investigation. For it is fitting that no 
such question should arise, and gather such 
strength, that it would indeed both change God, 
and destroy our faith in that Creator who sup- 
ports us by means of His creation. For as we 
we possess a firm and immoveable_love—towards 
the Father. In his book against_Marcion} Jus- 
tin? does wel! say: “I would not have believed 
the Lord Himself, if He had announced any other 
than He who is our framer, maker, and nour- 
isher. But because the only-begotten Son came 
to us from the one God, who both made this 
world and formed us, and contains and adminis- 
ters all things, summing up His own handiwork 
in Himself, my faith towards Him is stedfast, and 
my love to the Father immoveable, God bestow- 
ing both upon us.” 

3. For no one can know the Father, unless 
through the Word of God, that is, unless by the 
Son revealing [Him]; neither can he have 
knowledge of the Son, unless through the good 
pleasure of the Father. But the Son performs 
the good pleasure of the Father ; for the Father 
sends, and the Son is sent, and comes. And 
His Word knows that His Father is, as far as 
regards us, invisible and infinite ; and since He 
cannot be declared [by any one else], He does 
Himself declare Him to us; and, on the other 
hand, it is the Father alone who knows His own 
Word. And both these truths has our Lord 
declared. Wherefore the Son reveals the knowl- 
edge of the Father through His own manifesta- 





Not now to be found in Mark’s Gospel. 

? Photius, 125, makes mention of Justin Martyr’s work, Adyou kara 
Mapxiwvos. See also Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History, book iv. 
c, 18, where this passage of Irenzeus is quoted. {The vast importance 
of Justin’s startling remark is that it hinges on the words of Christ 
Himself, concerning His antecedents and notes as set forth in the 
Scriptures, St. John v. 30-39. | 











IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


ee en) 


tion. ‘For the manifestation of the Son is the 
knowledge of the Father; for all things are 
manifested through the Word. In order, there- 
fore, that we might know that the Son who came 
is He who imparts to those believing on Him a 
knowledge of the Father, He said to His disci- 
ples:3 “No man knoweth the Son but the 
Father, nor the Father but the Son, and those 
to whomsoever the Son shall reveal Him ;” thus 
setting Himself forth and the Father as He 
[really] is, that we may not receive any other 
Father, except Him who is revealed by the Son. 

4. But this [Father] is the Maker of heaven 
and earth, as is shown from His words ; and not 
he, the false father, who has been invented by 
Marcion, or by Valentinus, or by-Basilides, or by 
Carpocrates, or by Simon, or by the rest of the 
““Gnostics,”’ falsely so called. For none of these 
was the Son of God ; but Christ Jesus our Lord 
[was], against whom they set their teaching in 
opposition, and have the daring to preach an 
unknown God. But they ought to hear [this] 
against themselves: How is it that He is un- 
known, who is known by them? for, whatever is 
known even by a few, is not unknown. But the 
Lord did not say that both the Father and the 
Son could not be known at all (¢” ‘otum), for 
in that case His advent would have been super- 
fluous. For why did He come hither? Was it 
that He should say to us, “ Never mind seeking 
after God ; for He is unknown, and ye shall not 
find Him ;” as also the disciples of Valentinus 
falsely declare that Christ said to their AZons? 
But this is indeed vain. For the Lord taught us 
that no man is capable of knowing God, unless 
he be taught of God ; that is, that God cannot 
be known without God: but that this is the 
express will of the Father, that God should be 
known. For they shall know+ Him to whomso- 
ever the Son has revealed Him. 

5. And for this purpose did the Father reveal 
the Son, that through His instrumentality He 
might be manifested to all, and might receive 
those righteous ones who believe in Him into 
incorruption and everlasting enjoyment (now, to 
believe in Him is to do His will) ; but He shall 
righteously shut out into the darkness which 
they have chosen fer themselves, those who do 
not believe, and who do consequently avoid His 
light. The Father therefore has revealed Him- 
self to all, by making His Word visible to all; 
and, conversely, the Word has declared to all 
the Father and the Son, since He has become 
visible to all. And therefore the righteous 
judgment of God [shall fall] upon all who, like 








3 [A most emphatic and pregnant text which Irenzeus here ex- 
pounds with great beauty. The reference (St. Matt. xi. 27) seems to 
have been inadvertently omitted in this place where the repetition is 
perce 

_ 4 The ordinary text reads cognoscunt, ie., do know; but Harvey 
thinks it should be the future —cognoscert. : : 


IRENAZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


46g 





others, have seen, but have not, like others, be- 
lieved. 

6. For by means of the creation itself, the 
Word reveals God the Creator; and by means 
of the world [does He declare] the Lord the 
Maker of the world ; and by means of the for- 
mation [of man] the Artificer who formed him ; 
and by the Son that Father who begat the Son: 
and these things do indeed address all men in 
the same manner, but all do not in the same 
way believe them. But by the law and the 
prophets did the Word preach both Himself and 
the Father alike [to all]; and all the people 
heard Him alike, but all did not alike believe. 
And through the Word Himself who had been 
made visible and palpable, was the Father shown 


forth, although all did not equally believe in | 


Him ; but all saw the Father in the Son: for 
the Father is the invisible of the Son, but the 
Son the visible of the Father. And for this 
reason all spake with Christ when He was present 
[upon earth], and they named Him God. Yea, 
even the demons exclaimed, on beholding the 
Son: ‘We know Thee who Thou art, the Holy 
One of God.’* And the devil looking at Him, 
and tempting Him, said: “If Thou art the Son 
of God ;’’ —all thus indeed seeing and speak- 
ing of the Son and the Father, but all not be- 
lieving [in them]. 

7. For it was fitting that the truth should 
receive testimony from all, and should become 
[a means of] judgment for the salvation indeed 
of those who believe, but for the condemnation 
of those who believe not; that all should be 
fairly judged, and that the faith in the Father 
and Son should be approved by all, that is, that 
it should be. established by all [as the one means 
of salvation], receiving testimony from all, both 
from those belonging to it, since they are its 
friends, and by those having no connection with 
it, though they are its enemies. For that evi- 
dence is true, and cannot be gainsaid, which 
elicits even from its adversaries striking testi- 
monies in its behalf; they being convinced with 
respect to the matter in hand by their own plain 
contemplation of it, and bearing testimony to it, 
as well as declaring it. But after a while they 
break forth into enmity, and become accusers 
[of what they had approved], and are desirous 
that their own testimony should not be [regarded 
as] true. He, therefore, who was known, was 
not a different being from Him who declared, 
“No man knoweth the Father,” but one and 
the same, the Father making all things subject 
to Him; while He received testimony from all 


—— 


1 Mark i. 24. 

2 Matt. iv. 3; Luke iv. 3. F 

3 Stngula, which with Massuet we here understand in the sense 
of singularia. : f 4 ; - ! 

4 Some, instead of significantibus, read signantibus, “ stamping 
© as truc.” 











that He was very man, and that He was very 
God, from the Father, from the Spirit, from 
angels, from the creation itself, from men, from 
apostate spirits and demons, from the enemy, 
and last of all, from death itself. But the Son, 
administering all things for the Father, works 
from the beginning even to the end, and without 
Him_no man can attain the knowledge of God. 
For the Son is thé-knowlédge of the Father ; 
but the knowledge of the Son is in the Father, 
and has been revealed through the Son; and 
this was the reason why the Lord declared: 
“No man knoweth the Son, but the Father ; 
nor the Father, save the Son, and those to 
whomsoever the Son shall reveal [Him].’’5 
For “shall reveal’”’ was said not with reference 
to the future alone, as if then [only] the Word 
had begun to manifest the Father when He was 
born of Mary, but it applies indiiferently through- 
out all time. For the Son, being present with 
His own handiwork from the beginning, reveals 
the Father to all; to whom He wills, and when 
He wills, and as the Father wills. Wherefore, 
then, in all things, and through all things, there 
is one God, the Father, and one Word, and one 
Son, and one Spirit, and one salvation to all 
who believe in Him. j 


CHAP. VII. — RECAPITULATION OF THE FOREGOING 
ARGUMENT, SHOWING THAT ABRAHAM, THROUGH 
THE REVELATION OF THE WORD, KNEW THE 
FATHER, AND THE COMING OF THE SON OF 
GOD. FOR THIS CAUSE, HE REJOICED TO SEE 
THE DAY OF CHRIST, WHEN THE PROMISES MADE 
TO HIM SHOULD BE FULFILLED. THE FRUIT 
OF THIS REJOICING HAS FLOWED TO POSTERITY, 
VIZ., TO THOSE WHO ARE PARTAKERS IN THE 
FAITH OF ABRAHAM, BUT NOT TO THE JEWS 
WHO REJECT THE WORD OF GOD. 


1. Therefore Abraham also, knowing the 
Father through the Word, who made heaven and 
earth, confessed Him to be God; and having 
learned, by an announcement [made to him], 
that the Son of God would be a man among 
men, by whose advent his seed should be as the 
stars of heaven, he desired to see that day, so 
that he might himself also embrace Christ ; and, 
seeing it through the spirit of prophecy, he 
rejoiced.© Wherefore Simeon also, one of his 
descendants, carried fully out the rejoicing of 
the patriarch, and said: “ Lord, now lettest Thou 
Thy servant depart in peace. For mine eyes 
have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast pre- 





5 Matt. xi. 27; Luke x. 22. Harvey observes here, that Snlets 
remarkable that this text, having been correctly quoted a short time 
previously in accordance with the received Greek text, @ €av BovAr- 
tas 6 vids amoxadvwat, the translator now not only uses the single 
verb revelaverit, but says pointedly that it was so written by the 
venerable author. It is probable, therefore, that the previous pas- 
sage has been made to harmonize with the received text by a later 
hand; with which, however, the Syriac form agrees. 

© Gen. xvii. 17. 


470 


pared before the face of all people: a light for 
the revelation of the Gentiles,: and the glory of 
the people Israel.”2 And the angels, in like 
manner, announced tidings of great joy to the 
shepherds who were keeping watch by night. 
Moreover, Mary said, “My soul doth magnify 
the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God 
my salvation ;”4— the rejoicing of Abraham 
descending upon those who sprang from him, — 
those, namely, who were watching, and who be- 
held Christ, and believed in Him ; while, on the 
other hand, there was a reciprocal rejoicing which 
passed backwards from the children to Abraham, 
who did also desire to see the day of Christ’s com- 
ing. Rightly, then, did our Lord bear witness 
to him, saying, “ Your father Abraham rejoiced 
to see my day ; and he saw it, and was glad.” 

2. For not alone upon Abraham’s account 
did He say these things, but also that He might 
point out how all who have known God from 
the beginning, and have foretold the advent of 
Christ, have received the revelation from the Son 
Himself; who also in the last times was made 
visible and passable, and spake with the human 
race, that He might from the stones raise up 
children unto Abraham, and fulfil the promise 
which God had given him, and that He might 
make his seed as the stars of heaven,5 as John 
the Baptist says: “ For God is able from these 
stones to raise up children unto Abraham.’’® 
Now, this Jesus did by drawing us off from the 
religion of stones, and bringing us over from 
hard and fruitless cogitations, and establishing 
in us a faith like to Abraham. As Paul does 
also testify, saying that we are children of Abra- 
ham because of the similarity of our faith, and 
the promise of inheritance.’ 

3. He is therefore one and the same God, 
who called Abraham and gave him the promise. 
But He is the Creator, who does also through 
Christ prepare lights in the world, [namely] 
those who believe from among the Gentiles. 
And He says, “ Ye are the light of the world ;”® 
that is, as the stars of heaven. Him, therefore, I 
have rightly shown to be known by no man, unless 
by the Son, and to whomsoever the Son shall 
reveal Him. But the Son reveals the Father to 
allto whom He wills that He should be known ; 
and neither without the goodwill of the Father, 
tiie ee a or ea the Son, can any man 
know God: erefore did the Lord say to His 
disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life : 
and no man cometh unto the Father but by Me. 
If ye had known Me, ye would have known My 





1 The text has oculorum, probably by mistake for Jopulorum. 
2 Luke ii. 29, etc, 

3 Luke ii. 8. 

4 Luke i. 46. 

5 Gen, xv. 5. 

6 Matt. ili. 9. 

7 Rom. iv. 12; Gal. iv. 38 

8 Matt. v. 14. 





IRENAZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


Father also: and from henceforth ye have both 
known Him, and have seen Him.” From these 
words it is evident, that He is known by the 
Son, that is, by the Word. 

4. Therefore have the Jews departed from 
God, in not receiving His Word, but imagining 
that they could know the Father [apart] by 
Himself, without the Word, that is, without the 
Son; they being ignorant of that God who spake 
in human shape to Abraham,’° and again to 
Moses, saying, “I have surely seen the affliction 
of My people in Egypt, and I have come down 
to deliver them.” *! For the Son, who is the 
Word of God, arranged these things beforehand 
from the beginning, the Father being in no want 
of angels, in order that He might call the crea- 
tion into being, and form man, for whom also 
the creation was made; nor, again, standing in 
need of any instrumentality for the framing of 
created things, or for the ordering of those 
things which had reference to man; while, [at 
the same time,] He has a vast and unspeakable 
number of servants. “For His offspring and His 
similitude ** do minister to Him in every respect ; 
that is, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Word 
and Wisdom ; whom all the angels serve, and 
to whom they are subject. Vain, therefore, are 
those who, because of that declaration, “No 
man knoweth the Father, but the Son,” do 
introduce another unknown Father. 


CHAP. VIII.— VAIN ATTEMPTS OF MARCION AND 
HIS FOLLOWERS, WHO EXCLUDE ABRAHAM FROM 
THE SALVATION BESTOWED BY CHRIST, WHO 
LIBERATED NOT ONLY ABRAHAM, BUT THE SEED 
OF ABRAHAM, BY FULFILLING AND NOT DESTROY- — 
ING THE LAW WHEN HE HEALED ON THE SAB- 
BATH-DAY. 


1. Vain, too, is [the effort of ] Marcion and 
his followers when they [seek to] exclude Abra- 
ham from the inheritance, to whom the Spirit 
through many men, and now by Paul, bears wit- 
ness, that “ he believed God, and it was imputed 
unto him for righteousness.” '* And the Lord 
[also bears witness to him,] in the first place, 
indeed, by raising up children to him from the 
stones, and making his seed as the stars of 
heaven, saying, “They shall come from the east 
and from the west, from the north and from the 
south, and shall recline with Abraham, and Isaac, 
and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven ;” '5 and 
then again by saying to the Jews, “When ys 
shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all 
the prophets in the kingdom of heaven, but you 


9 John xiv. 6, 7. 

10 Gen. xviii. My 

es Ne ili. pues 

assuet here observes, that the fathers ‘called the Holy Spiri 

the similitude of the Son. Le yet ie : 

13 Matt. xi. 27; Luke x. e2. ; 

14 Rom. iv. 3. 

15 Matt. viii. x2. 


IREN/ZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


471 





yourselves cast out.”* This, then, is a clear 
point, that those who disallow his salvation, and 
frame the idea of another God besides Him who 
made the promise to Abraham, are outside the 
kingdoim of God, and are disinherited from [the 
gift of ] incorruption, setting at naught and blas- 
pheming God, who introduces, through Jesus 
Christ, Abraham to the kingdom of heaven, and 
his seed, that is, the Church, upon which also 
is conferred the adoption and the inheritance 
promised.to Abraham. 

_ 2. For the Lord vindicated Abraham’s pos- 
terity by loosing them from bondage and calling 
_ them to salvation, as He did in the case of the 
woman whom He healed, saying openly to those 
who had not faith like Abraham, “‘ Ye hypocrites,” 
doth not each one of you on the Sabbath-days 
loose his ox or his ass, and lead him away to 
watering? And ought not this woman, being a 
daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound 
these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond 
on the Sabbath-days?’’3 It is clear, therefore, 
that He loosed and vivified those who believe in 
Him as Abraham did, doing nothing contrary to 
the law when He healed upon the Sabbath-day. 
For the law did not prohibit men from being 
healed upon the Sabbaths ; [on the contrary, | 
it even circumcised them upon that day, and 
gave: command that the offices should be per- 
formed by the priests for the people ; yea, it did 
not disallow the healing even of dumb animals. 
Both at Siloam and on frequent subsequent* oc- 
casions, did He perform cures upon the Sabbath ; 
and for this reason many used to resort to Him 
on the Sabbath-days. For the law commanded 
them to abstain from every servile work, that is, 
from all grasping after wealth which is procured 
by trading and by other worldly business ; but 
it exhorted them to attend to the exercises of 
the soul, which consist in reflection, and to ad- 
dresses of a beneficial kind for their neighbours’ 
benefit. And therefore the Lord reproved those 
who unjustly blamed Him for having healed upon 
the Sabbath-days. For He did not make void, 
Sut fulfilled the law, by performing the offices 
of the high priest, propitiating God for men, and 
cleansing the lepers, healing the sick, and Him- 
self suffering death, that exiled man might go 
forth from condemnation, and might return with- 
out fear to his own inheritance. 

3. And again, the law did not forbid those 
who. were hungry on the Sabbath-days to take 
food lying ready at hand: it did, however, forbid 
them to reap and to gather into the barn. And 
therefore did the Lord say to those who were 
blaming His disciples because they plucked and 





1 Luke xiii. 28. ; 5 ke 
2 Harvey prefers the singular — “‘ hypocrite. 

2 Luke xiii. 15, 16. : : f ' 

4 The text here is rather uncertain. Harvey’s conjectural reading 


vf e/ jam for etiam has been followed. 





ate the ears of corn, rubbing them in their hands, 
“Have ye not read this, what David did, when 
himself was an hungered ; how he went into the 
house of God, and ate the shew-bread, and gave 
to those who were with him; which it is not 
lawful to eat, but for the priests alone?” 5 justify- 
ing His disciples by the words of the law, and 
pointing out that it was lawful for the priests to 
act freely. For David had been appointed a 
priest by God, although Saul persecuted him. 
For all the righteous possess the sacerdotal rank.° 
And all the apostles of the Lord are priests, who 
do inherit here neither lands nor houses, but. 
serve God and the altar continually. Of whom 
Moses also says in Deuteronomy, when blessing 
Levi, “Who said unto his father and to his — 
mother, I have not known thee ; neither did he. 
acknowledge his brethren, and he disinherited 
his own sons: he kept Thy commandments, and 
observed Thy covenant.”7 But who are they 
that have left father and mother, and have said 
adieu to all their neighbours,.on account of the 
word of God and His covenant, unless the dis- 
ciples of the Lord? Of whom again Moses says, 
“They shall have no inheritance, for the Lord 
Himself is their inheritance.” * And again, “The 
priests the Levites shall have no part in the whole _ 
tribe of Levi, nor substance with Israel; their 
substance is the offerings (/ructifications) of the 
Lord: these shall they eat.’’9 Wherefore also | 
Paul says, “I do not seek after a gift, but I seek | 
after fruit.” '° To His disciples He said, who 
had a priesthood of the Lord,': to whom it was 
lawful when hungry to eat the ears of corn,’ “‘ For 
the workman is worthy of his meat.” "3 And the. 
priests in the temple profaned the Sabbath, and _ . 
were blameless. Wherefore, then, were they _ 
blameless? Because when in the temple they 
were not engaged in secular affairs, but in the 
service of the Lord, fulfilling the law, but not 
going beyond it, as that man did, who of his own 
accord carried dry wood inte the camp of God, 
and was justly stonea to death."4 “For every tree 
that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be hewn 
down, and cast into the fire ;”‘5 and “whosoever | 
shall defile the temple of God, him shall God 
defile.”**° 





5 Luke vi. 3, 4. ; ; 

6 This clause 1s differently quoted by Antonius Melissa and’ John 
Damascenus, thus: Tas BactAcis Sixatos teparixny exer Tagiv, ic, 
Every righteous king possesses a priestly order. Comp. x Pet. 
ii. 5, 9. [And with St, Peter's testimony to the priesthood of the 
laity, compare the same under the law. Ex. xix. 6, The Western 
Church has recognised the ‘‘ Episcopate a5 extra” of sovereigns; 
while, in the East, it has grown into Cesaropapism.| f 

7 Deut. xxxiili. 9. 

8 Num. xviii. 20. 

9 Deut. xviii. 1. 

to Phil. iv. 17. Es FA a iis 

11 Literally, ‘‘the Lord’s Levitical substance” — Domins Levit* 
cam substantiam, e ? 

12 Literally, ‘‘ to take food from seeds. 

13 Matt. x. ro. 

14 Num. xv. 32, etc. 

15 Matt. iii. 10. 

16 x Cor. iti. 17. 


472 


CHAP, IX.-——THERE IS BUT ONE AUTHOR, AND ONE 
END TO BOTH COVENANTS. 


1. All things therefore are of one and the 
same substance, that is, from one and the same 
God; as also the Lord says to the disciples: 
“ Therefore every scribe, which is instructed unto 
the kingdom of heaven, is like unto a man that 
is an householder, which bringeth forth out of 
his treasure things new and old.”"* He did not 
each that he who brought forth the old was one, 
and he that brought forth the new, another ; but 
that they were one and the same. For the Lord 
is the good man of the house, who rules the en- 
tire house of His Father; and who delivers a 
law suited both for slaves and those who are as 
yet undisciplined ; and gives fitting precepts to 
those that are free, and have been justified 
by faith, as well as throws His own inheritance 
open to those that are sons. And He called His 
disciples “scribes” and “teachers of the king- 
dom of heaven ;”” of whom also He elsewhere 
says to the Jews: “ Behold, I send unto you wise 
men, and scribes, and teachers; and some of 
them ye shall kill, and persecute from city to 
city.” ? Now, without contradiction, He means 
by those things which are brought forth from the 
treasure new and old, the two covenants; the 
old, that giving of the law which took place 
formerly ; and He points out as the new, that 
manner of life required by the Gospel, of which 
David says, “Sing unto the Lorp a new song ;’$ 
and Esaias, “Sing unto the Lorp a new hymn. 


His beginning (zn/#ivm), His name is glorified ; **' ) 
6 8 ( )s 8 ‘ with us, and who cries, “‘ Abba, Father ;” 3? and 


from the height of the earth: they declare His 
powers in the isles.” # And Jeremiah says : “ Be- 
hold, I will make a new covenant, not as I made 
with your fathers’”5 in Mount Horeb. But 
one and the same householder produced both 
covenants, the Word of God, our Lord Jesus 
Christ, who spake with both Abraham and 
Moses, and who has restored us anew to liberty, 
and has multiplied that grace which is from 
Himself. © 

2. He declares: “For in this place is One 
greater than the temple.”° But [the words] 
greater and less are not applied to those things 
which have nothing in common between them- 
selves, and are of an opposite nature, and mutu- 
ally repugnant ; but are used in the case of those 
of the same substance, and which possess proper- 
ties in common, but merely differ in number and 
size ; such as water from water, and light from 
light, and grace from grace. Greater, therefore, 
is that legislation which has been given in order to 
liberty than that given in order to bondage ; and 





T Matt. xiii. 52. 

2 Matt. xxiii. 34. 

3 Ps, xcvi, 1. 

4 Isa. xlii. 10, quoted from memory. 


S Jer. xxxi. 31. 
© Matt. xii, 6. 








IRENZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


therefore it has also been diffused, not through- 
out one nation [only], but over the whole world. 
For one and the same Lord, who is greater than 
the temple, greater than Solomon, and greater 
than Jonah, confers gifts upon men, that is, His 
own presence, and the resurrection from the dead ; 
but He does not change God, nor proclaim an- 
other Father, but that very same one, who always 
has more to measure out to those of His house- 
hold. And as their love towards God increases, 
He bestows more and greater [gifts]; as also 
the Lord said to His disciples: “Ye shall see 
greater things than these.” 7 And Paul declares : 
“ Not that I have already attained, or that I am 
justified, or already have been made perfect. 
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; 
but when that which is perfect has come, the 
things which are in part shall be done away.” . 
As, therefore, when that which is perfect is come, 
we shall not see another Father, but Him whom 
we now desire to see (for “ blessed are the pure 
in heart: for they shall see God”); neither 
shall we look for another Christ and Son of God, 
but Him who [was born] of the Virgin Mary, 
who also suffered, in whom too we trust, and 
whom we love ; as Esaias says: “And they shall 
say in that day, Behold our Lorp God, in whom 
we have trusted, and-we have rejoiced in our 
salvation ;”??° and ets in his Epistle: 
“ Whom, not seeing, ye love ; in whom, though 
now ye see Him not, ye have believed, ye shall 
rejoice with joy unspeakable ;” '* neither do we 
receive another Holy Spirit, besides Him who is 


we shall make increase in the very same things 
[as now], and shall make progress, so that no 
longer through a glass, or by means of enigmas, 
but face to face, we shall enjoy the gifts of 
God ; —so also now, receiving more than the 
temple, and more than Solomon, that is, the ad- 
vent of the Son of God, we have not been 
taught another God besides the Framer and the 
Maker of all, who has been pointed out to us 
from the beginning ; nor another-Christ, the Son 
of God, besides Him who was foretold by the 
prophets. 

3. For the new covenant having been known 
and preached by the prophets, He who was to 
carry it out according to the good pleasure of 
the Father was also preached, having been re- 
vealed to men as God pleased ; that they might 
always make progress through believing in Him, 
and by means of the [successive] covenants, 


7 John i. 50. 

8 These words of Scripture are quoted by memory from Phil. iii. 
12,1 Cor. iv. 4, and xiii,9, 10. It is remarkable that the second is 
incorporated with the preceding in a similar way, in the ancient Italic 
version known as the Br Germain copy. 

9 Matt. v. 8. 

10 Isa. xxv. 9. 

x2 y Pet. i. 8. 

2 Rom. viii, TS: 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES, 





473 





should gradually attain to perfect salvation. For 
there is one salvation and cne God; but the 
precepts which form the man are numerous, and 
the steps which lead man to God are not a few. 
It is allowable for an earthly and temporal king, 
though he is [but] a man, to grant to his sub- 
sects greater advantages at times: shall not this 
then be lawful for God, since He is [ever] the 
same, and is always willing to confer a greater 
‘degree of] grace upon the human race, and to 
‘ .onour continually with many gifts those who 
lease Him? But if this be to make progress, 

namely,] to find out another Father besides 
Mim who was preached from the beginning ; and 
again, besides him who is imagined to have been 
discovered in the second place, to find out a 
third other, — then the progress of this man will 
consist in his also proceeding from a third to a 
fourth; and from this, again, to another and 
another: and thus he who thinks that he is 
always making progress of such a kind, will 
never rest in one God. For, being driven away 
from Him who truly is [God], and being turned 
backwards, he shall be for ever seeking, yet shall 
never find out God ;? but shall continually swim 
in an abyss without limits, unless, being converted 
by repentance, he return to the place from which 
he had been cast out, confessing one God, the 
Father, the Creator, and believing [in Him] who 
was declared by the law and the prophets, who 
was borne witness to by Christ, as He did Him- 
self declare to those who were accusing His 
disciples of not observing the tradition of the 
elders: ‘ Why do ye make void the law of God 
by reason of your tradition? For God said, 
Honour thy father and mother ; and, Whosoever 
curseth father or mother, let him die the death.’’3 
And again, He says to them a second time: 
“And ye have made void the word of God* by 
reason of your tradition ;”’ Christ confessing in 
the plainest manner Him to be Father and God, 
who said in the law, “Honour thy father and 
mother ; that it may be well with thee.”5 For 
the true God did confess the commandment of 
the law as the word of God, and called no one 
else God besides His own Father. 


CHAP. X.— THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES, AND 
THOSE WRITTEN BY MOSES IN PARTICULAR, DO 
EVERYWHERE MAKE MENTION OF THE SON OF 
GOD, AND FORETELL HIS ADVENT AND PASSION. 


Se ee  yEEaaan 


1 This is in accordance with Harvey’s text —“‘ Maturescere pro- 
fectum salutis.” Grabe, however, reads, “‘ Maturescere prefectum 
salutis;"” making this equivalent to ‘(ad prefectam salutem.” In 
most mss. “ profectum” and “ prefectum” would be written alike. 
The same word (* profectus”) occurs again almost immediately, with 
an evident reference to and comparison with this clause. 

: fi Tim. iii. 7. 

att. xv. ; 

4 Another asin from the textus recedtus borne out by the 
Codex Bezzx; and some ancient versions, 

$ Ex. xx. 12, LXX. 





FROM THIS FACT IT FOLLOWS THAT THEY WERE 
INSPIRED BY ONE AND THE SAME GOD. 


1. Wherefore also John does appropriately 
relate that the Lord said to the Jews: “Ye 
search the Scriptures, in which ye think ye have 
eternal life ; these are they which testify of me. 
And ye are not willing to come unto Me, that ye 
may have life.”® How therefore did the Scrip- 
tures testify of Him, unless they were from one 
and the same Father, instructing men before- 
hand as to the advent of His Son, and foretelling 
the salvation brought in by Him? “For if ye 
had believed Moses, ye would also have believed 
Me; for he wrote of Me;”.7 [saying this, ] no 
doubt, because the Son of God is implanted 
everywhere throughout his writings : at one time, 
indeed, speaking with Abraham, when about to 
eat with him; at another time with Noah, giving 
to him the dimensions [of the ark] ; at another, 
inquiring after Adam ; at another, bringing down 
judgment upon the Sodomites ; and again, when 
He becomes visible,® and directs Jacob on his 
journey, and speaks with Moses from the bush.’ 
And it would be endless to recount [the occa- 
sions] upon which the Son of God is shown forth 
by Moses. Of the day of His passion, too, he 
was not ignorant; but foretold Him, after a 
figurative manner, by the name given to the 
passover ;*° and at that very festival, which had 
been proclaimed such a long time previously by 
Moses, did our Lord suffer, thus fulfilling the 
passover. And he did not describe the day 
only, but the place also, and the time of day at 
which the sufferings ceased," and the sign of the 
setting of the sun, saying: ‘Thou mayest not 
sacrifice the passover within any other of thy 
cities which the Lorp God gives thee; but in 
the place which the Lorp thy God shall choose 
that His name be called on there, thou shalt 


sacrifice the passover at even, towards the setting 


of the sun.’’ 

2, And already he had also declared His 
advenx, saying, “There shall not fail a chief in 
Judah, nor a leader from his loins, until He 
come for whom it is laid up, and He is the hope 
of the nations ; binding His foal to the vine, and 
His ass’s colt to the creeping ivy. He shall 
wash His stole in wine, and His upper garment 


Neen eee eee ee nee TE IERESEIAETNERROINERSETa RG 


6 obs v. 39 40. 
7 John v. 46. 4 : 
8 See Gan xviii. 13 and xxxi, 1x, etc. There is an allusion here 
to a favourite notion among the Fathers, derived from Philo the Jew, 
that the name /svae/ was compounded from the three Hebrew words 
Sy TAN WR, ie, “the man seeing God.” 

2 2 : 

9 Ex. ili. 4, etc. = : 

To Boeadent infers with great probability. from this passage, that 
Irenzus, like Tertullian and others of the Fathers, connected the word 
Pascha with racxewv, tosuffer. [The LXX. constantly giving colour 
to early Christian ideas in this manner, they concluded, perhaps, that 
such coincidences were designed. The L X. were credited with a 
sort of inspiration, as we learn from our author. ] 

11 Latin, “et extremitatem temporum. 

12 Deut. xvi. 5, € 


474 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


in the blood of the grape; His eyes shall be 
more joyous than wine,’ and His teeth whiter 
than milk.’2 For, let those who have the 
reputation of investigating everything, inquire 
‘at what time a prince and leader failed out of 
' Judah, and who is the hope of the nations, who 
also is the vine, what was the ass’s colt [referred 
to as] His, what the clothing, and what the eyes, 
what the teeth, and what the wine, and thus let 
them investigate every one of the points men- 
tioned ; and they shall find that there was none 
other announced than our Lord, Christ Jesus. 
’ Wherefore Moses, when chiding the ingratitude 
of the people, said, “Ye infatuated people, and 
unwise, do ye thus requite the Lorp?”3 And 
again, he indicates that He who from the begin- 
ning founded and created them, the Word, who 
also redeems and vivifies us in the last times, is 
shown as hanging on the tree, and they will not 
believe on Him. For he says, “And thy life 
‘shall be hanging before thine eyes, and thou wilt 
not believe thy life.’4 And again, “Has not 
this same one thy Father owned thee, and made 
' thee, and created thee?” 5 


a CHAP. XI.— THE OLD PROPHETS AND RIGHTEOUS 


MEN KNEW BEFOREHAND OF THE ADVENT OF 
CHRIST, AND EARNESTLY DESIRED TO SEE AND 
HEAR HIM, HE REVEALING HIMSELF IN THE 
SCRIPTURES BY THE HOLY GHOST, AND WITH- 
OUT ANY CHANGE IN HIMSELF, ENRICHING MEN 
DAY BY DAY WITH BENEFITS, BUT CONFERRING 
THEM IN GREATER ABUNDANCE ON LATER THAN 
ON FORMER GENERATIONS. 


1. But that it was not only the prophets and 
many righteous men, who, foreseeing through the 
Holy Spirit His advent, prayed that they might 
attain to that period in which they should see 
their Lord face to face, and hear His words, the 
Lord has made manifest, when He says to His 
disciples, ‘‘ Many prophets and righteous men 
have desired to see those things which ye see, 
and have not seen them ; and to hear those things 
which ye hear, and have not heard them.”® In 
what way, then, did they desire both to hear and 
to see, unless they had foreknowledge of His fu- 
ture advent? But how could they have foreknown 
it, unless they had previously received foreknowl- 
edge from Himself ? And how do the Scriptures 
testify of Him, unless all things had ever been 
revealed and shown to believers by one and the 
same God through the Word; He at one time 





1 The Latin is, “lztifici oculi ejus a vino,” the Hebrew method 
of indicating comparison being evidently imitated. 

2 Gen, xlix. ro-12, LX 

3 Deut. xxxii. 6, 

4 Deut. xxviii. 66. Tertullian, Cyprian, and other early Fathers, 
agree with Irenzus in his exposition of this text. 

5 Deut. xxxii. 6. ‘‘ Owned thee,” i.e., following the meaning of 
the Hebrew, “‘ owned thee by generation.” 

Matt. xiii. 17. 








conferring with His creature, and at another pro- 
pounding His law ; at one time, again, reproving, 
at another exhorting, and then setting free His 
servant, and adopting him as a son(i# jfilium) ; 
and, at the proper time, bestowing an incorrupti- 
ble inheritance, for the purpose of bringing man 
to perfection? For He formed him for growth 
and increase, as the Scripture says: “ Increase 
and multiply.” 7 

2. And in this respect God differs from man, 
that God indeed makes, but man is made ; and 
truly, He who makes is always the same ; but 
that which is made must receive both beginning, 
and middle, and addition, and increase. And 
God does indeed create after a skilful manner, 
while, [as regards] man, he ¢s created skilfully. 
God also is truly perfect in all things, Himself 
equal and similar to Himself, as He is all light, 
and all mind, and all substance, and the fount of 
all good; but man receives advancement and 
increase towards God. For as God is always 
the same, so also man, when found in God, shall 
always go on towards God. For neither does 
God at any time cease to confer benefits upon, 
or to enrich man ; nor does man ever cease from 
receiving the benefits, and being enriched by 
God. For the receptacle of His goodness, and 
the instrument of His glorification, is the man 
who is grateful to Him that made him; and 
again, the receptacle of His just judgment is the 
ungrateful man, who both despises his Maker 
and is not subject to His Word ; who has promised 
that He will give very much to those always 
bringing forth fruit, and more [and more] to 
those who have the Lord’s money. ‘“ Well done,” 
He says, “good and faithful servant: because 
thou hast been faithful in little, I will appoint 
thee over many things ; enter thou into the joy 
of thy Lord.’’® The Lord Himself thus promises 
very much. 

3. As, therefore, He has promised to give very 
much to those who do now bring forth fruit, ac- 
cording to the gift of His grace, but not accord- 
ing to the changeableness of “ knowledge ;’’: for 
the Lord remains the same, and the same Father 
is revealed ; thus, therefore, has the one and the 
same Lord granted, by means of His advent, a 
greater gift of grace to those of a later period, 
than what He had granted to those under the 
Old Testament dispensation. For they indeed 
used to hear, by means of [His] servants, that 
the King would come, and they rejoiced to a 
certain extent, inasmuch as they hoped for His 
coming ; but those who have beheld Him actu- 
ally present, and have obtained liberty, and been 
made partakers of His gifts, do possess a greater 
amount of grace, and a higher degree of exulta- 
tion, rejoicing because of the King’s arrival: as 





7 Gen. i. 28. 
& Matt. xxv. ar, etc. 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


AA, eo, -——— — 


also David says, “My soul shall rejoice in the 
Lorp ; it shall be glad in His salvation.”: And 
for this cause, upon His entrance into Jerusalem, 
all those who were in the way? recognised David 
their king in His sorrow of soul, and spread their 
garments for Him, and ornamented the way with 
green boughs, crying out with great joy and glad- 
ness, “ Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed 
is He that cometh in the name of the Lord: 
hosanna in the highest.’’3 But to the envious 
wicked stewards, who circumvented those under 
them, and ruled over those that had no great in- 
telligence,* and for this reason were unwilling 
that the king should come, and who said to Him, 
“ Hearest thou what these say?” did the Lord 
reply, “ Have ye never read, Out of the mouths 
of babes and sucklings hast Thou perfected 
praise?” 5—thus pointing out that what had 
been declared by David concerning the Son of 
God, was accomplished in His own person ; and 
indicating that they were indeed ignorant of the 
meaning of the Scripture and the dispensation 
of God; but declaring that it was Himself who 
was announced by the prophets as Christ, whose 
name is praised in all the earth, and who perfects 
praise to His Father from the mouth of babes 
and sucklings ; wherefore also His glory has been 
raised above the heavens. 

4. If, therefore, the self-same person is present 
who was announced by the prophets, our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and if His advent has brought in a 
fuller [measure of ] grace and greater gifts to 
those who have received Him, it is plain that 
. the Father also is Himself the same who was 
_ proclaimed by the prophets, and that the Son, 
on His coming, did not spread the knowledge 
of another Father, but of the same who was 
~ preached from the beginning ; from whom also 
He has brought down liberty to those who, in a 
‘Jawful manner, and with a willing mind, and with 
all the heart, do Him service ; whereas to scof- 
fers, and to those not subject to God, but who 
follow outward purifications for the praise of men 
(which observances had been given as a type of 
future things, — the law typifying, as it were, cer- 
tain things in a shadow, and delineating eternal 
things by temporal, celestial by terrestrial), and 
to those who pretend that they do themselves 
‘observe more than what has been prescribed, as 
if preferring their own zeal to God Himself, while 
within they are full of hypocrisy, and covetous- 
ness, and all wickedness, — [to such] has He as- 
signed everlasting perdition by cutting them off 
from life. 


ee 








1 Ps, xxxv. 9. eA ae : 

2 Or, “all those who were in the way of David” —omnes qui 
erant in vid David, in dolore anime cognoverynt suum regem. 

3 Matt. xxi. 8. 4 

4 The Latin text is ambiguous: 
ratio non constabat.” |The rendering may be, “‘ and ruled over those 
things with respect to which it was not right that they should do so. 

5 Matt. xxi. 16; Ps. viil. 3. 


“‘ dominabantur eorum, quibus 





475 


CHAP. XII.—IT CLEARLY APPEARS THAT THERE 
WAS BUT ONE AUTHOR OF BOTH THE OLD AND 
THE NEW LAW, FROM THE FACT THAT CHRIST 
CONDEMNED TRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS REPUG- 
NANT TO THE FORMER, WHILE HE CONFIRMED 
ITS MOST IMPORTANT PRECEPTS, AND TAUGHT 
THAT HE WAS HIMSELF THE END OF THE 
MOSAIC LAW. 


1. For the tradition of the elders themselves, 
which they pretended to observe from the law, 
was contrary to the law given by Moses. Where- 
fore also Esaias declares : “Thy dealers mix the 
wine with water,” © showing that the elders were 
in the habit of mingling a watered tradition with 
the simple command of God; that is, they set 
up a spurious law, and one contrary to the([true ] 
law ; as also the Lord made plain, when He said 
to them, “ Why do ye transgress the command- 
ment of God, for the sake of your tradition? ’”’7 
For not only by actual transgression did they set 
the law of God at nought, mingling the wine with 
water; but they also set up their own law in 
opposition to it, which is termed, even to the 
present day, the pharisaical. In this [law] they 
suppress certain things, add. others, and inter- 
pret others, again, as they think proper, which 
their teachers use, each one in particular ; and 
desiring to uphold these traditions, they were 
unwilling to be subject to the law of God, 
which prepares them for the coming of Christ. 
But they did even blame the Lord for healing 
on the Sabbath-days, which, as I have already 
observed, the law did not prohibit. For they 
did themselves, in one sense, perform acts of 
healing upon the Sabbath-day, when they cir- 
cumcised a man [on that day] ; but they did not 
blame themselves for transgressing the command 
of God through tradition and the aforesaid 
pharisaical law, and for not keeping the com- 
mandment of the law, which is the love of God. 

2. But that this is the first and greatest 
commandment, and that the next [has respect 
to love] towards our neighbour, the Lord has 
taught, when He says that the entire law and 
the prophets hang upon these two command- 
ments. Moreover, He did not Himself bring 
down [from heaven] any other commandment 
greater than this one, but renewed this very 
same one to His disciples, when He enjoined 
them to love God with all their heart, and others 
as themselves. But if He had descended from 
another Father, He never would have made use 
of the first and greatest commandment of the 
law; but He would undoubtedly have endeav- 
oured by all means to bring down a greater one 
than this from the perfect Father, so as not to 
make use of that which had been given by the 


oh Whee Sy ee Se 


~~ 





6 Isa, i, 22. 
7 Matt, xv. 3. 


476 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


(eet ee ee ee eee eee ee SS Ss a 


God of the law. And Paul in like manner de- 
clares, “ Love is the fulfilling of the law:”* and 
[he declares] that when all other things have 
been destroyed, there shall remain “ faith, hope, 
and love ; but the greatest of all is love ;”? and 
that apart from the love of God, neither knowl- 
edge avails anything,’ nor the understanding of 
mysteries, nor faith, nor prophecy, but that with- 
out love all are hollow and vain ; moreover, that 
love makes man perfect ; and that he who loves 
God is perfect, both in this world and in that 
which is to come. For we do never cease from 
loving God ; but in proportion as we continue to 
contemplate Him, so much the more do we love 
Him. 

3. As in the law, therefore, and in the Gospel 
[likewise], the first and greatest commandment 
is, to love the Lord God with the whole heart, 
and then there follows a commandment like to 
it, to love one’s neighbour as one’s self; the 
author of the law and the Gospel is shown to be 
one and the same. For the precepts of an ab- 
solutely perfect life, since they are the same in 
each Testament, have pointed out [to us] the 
same God, who certainly has promulgated par- 
ticular laws adapted for each; but the more 
prominent and the greatest [commandments], 
without which salvation cannot [be attained], He 
has exhorted [us to observe] the same in both. 

4. The Lord, too, does not do away with this 
[God], when He shows that the law was not 
derived from another God, expressing Himself 
as follows to those who were being instructed 
by Him, to the multitude and to His disciples : 
“The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 
All, therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, 
that observe and do; but do not ye after their 
‘works: for they say, and do not. For they 
bind heavy burdens, and lay them upon men’s 
shoulders ; but they themselves will not so much 
as move them with a finger.”4 He therefore 
did not throw blame upon that law which was 
‘given by Moses, when He exhorted it to be ob- 
served, Jerusalem being as yet in safety ; but He 
ad throw blame upon those persons, because 
they repeated indeed the words of the law, yet 
weré without love. And for this reason were 
‘they held asbeing unrighteous as respects God, 
and as respects their neighbours. As also Isaiah 
says: “This people honoureth Me with their 
‘Tips, but their heart is far from Me: howbeit in 
vain’ do they worship Me, teaching the doctrines 
and the commandments of men.”5 He does 
not call the law given by Moses commandments 
of men, but the traditions of the elders them- 
selves which they had invented, and in uphold- 





T Rom. xiii. ro. 
2%x Cor. oui, 3. 

3 x Cor. xiii. 2. 

4 Matt. xxili. 2-4. 
* Tsa. xxix. 13. 














ing which they made the law of God of none 
effect, and were on this account also not subject 
to His Word. For this is what Paul says con- 
cerning these men: “For they, being ignorant of 
God’s righteousness, and going about to establish 
their own righteousness, have not submitted them 
selves to the righteousness of God. For Christ 
is the end of the law for righteousness to every 
one that believeth.”® And how is Christ the 
end of the law, if He be not also the final cause 
of it? For He who has brought in the end has 
Himself also wrought the beginning ; and it is 
He who does Himself say to Moses, “I have 
surely seen the affliction of my people which is 
in Egypt, and I have come down to deliver 
them ;”’7 it being customary from the beginning 
with the Word of God to ascend and descend 
for the purpose of saving those who were in 
affliction. 

5. Now, that the law did beforehand teach 
mankind the necessity of following Christ, He 
does Himself make manifest, when He replied 
as follows to him who asked Him what he should 
do that he might inherit eternal life: “If thou 
wilt enter into life, keep the commandments,” ® 
But upon the other asking “‘ Which?” again the 
Lord replies: “ Do not commit adultery, do not 
kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, hon- 
our father and mother, and thou shalt love thy 
neighbour as thyself,” — setting as an ascending 
series (velut gradus) before those who wished 
to follow Him, the precepts of the law, as the 
entrance into life; and what He then said to 
one He said to all. But when the former said, 
“ All these have I done” (and most likely he 
had not kept them, for in that case the Lord 
would not have said to him, “ Keep the com- 
mandments”’), the Lord, exposing his covetous- 
ness, said to him, “If thou wilt be perfect, go, 
sell all that thou hast, and distribute to the 
poor; and come, follow me;’’ promising to 
those who would act thus, the portion belonging 
to the apostles (apostolorum partem). And 
He did not preach to His followers another God 
he Father, besides Him who was proclaimed 
by the Jaw from the beginning ; nor another Son ; 
nor the Mother, the enthymesis of the AZon, who 
existed in suffering and apostasy; nor the Ple- 
roma of the thirty AXons, which has been proved 
ain, and incapable of being believed in; nor 
that fable invented by the other heretics. But 
He taught that they should obey the command- 
ments which God enjoined from the beginning, 
and do away with their former covetousness by 
good works, 9 and follow after Christ. But that 





6 Rom. x. 3, 4. 
7 Ex. iii. 7, 3! 
8 Matt. xix. 17, 18, etc. : 
9 Harvey here remarks: “ In a theological point of view, it should 
be observed, that no saving merit is ascribed to almsgiving: it is 
spoken of here as the negation of the vice of covetousness, which is 


> 


wholly inconsistent with the state of salvation to which we are called 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


477 





possessions distributed to the poor do annul for- 
mer covetousness, Zaccheus made evident, when 
he said, “ Behold, the half of my goods I give 
to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one, 
T restore fourfold.” ' 


CHAP. XIII. — CHRIST DID NOT ABROGATE THE NATU- 
RAL PRECEPTS OF THE LAW, BUT RATHER FUL- 
FILLED AND EXTENDED THEM. HE REMOVED THE 
YOKE AND BONDAGE OF THE OLD LAW, SO THAT 
MANKIND, BEING NOW SET FREE, MIGHT SERVE 
‘GOD WITH THAT TRUSTFUL PIETY WHICH BECOM- 
ETH SONS. 


1. And that the Lord did not abrogate the 
natural [precepts] of the law, by which man? is 
justified, which also those who were justified by 
faith, and who pleased God, did observe pre- 
vious to the giving of the law, but that He ex- 
tended and fulfilled them, is shown from His 
words. “For,” He remarks, “it has been said 
to them of old time, Do not commit adultery. 
But I say unto you, That every one who hath 
looked upon a woman to lust after her, hath com- 
mitted adultery with her already in his heart.” 3 
And again: “It has been said, Thou shalt not 
kill, But I say unto you, Every one who is an- 
gry with his brother without a cause, shall be 
in danger of the judgment.”4 And, “It hath 
been said, Thou shalt not forswear thyself. But 
I say unto you, Swear not at all; but let your 
conversation be, Yea, yea, and Nay, nay.”5 And 
other statements of a like nature. For all these 
do not contain or imply an opposition to and 


an overturning of the [precepts] of the past, as 
ee followers do strenuously maintain ; but 


eyExhibit] a fulfilling and an extension of 


them, as He does Himself declare: ‘“ Unless 
your righteousness shall exceed that of the 
scribes and Pharisees, ye shal! not enter into the 
kingdom of heaven.” © For what meant the ex- 
cess referred to? In the first place, [we must] 
believe not only in the Father, but also in His 
Son now revealed ; for He it is who leads man 
into fellowship and unity with God. In the next 
place, [we must] not only say, but we must do ; 
for they said, but did not. And [we must] not 
only abstain from evil deeds, but even from the 
desires after them. Now He did not teach us 


these things as being opposed to the law, but_as 


__ fulfilling the law, and implanting in us the varied 
righteousness w. That would have been 


contrary to the law, if He had commanded His 


disciples to do anything which the law had pro- 
hibited. But this which He did command — 
namely, not only to abstain from things forbidden 
Se 


I Luke xix. 8. ‘ ee 

2 That is, as Harvey observes, the natural man, as described in 
Rom. ii. 27. 

3 Matt. v. 27, 28. 

4 Matt. v. 21, 22. 

5 Matt. v. 33, etc. 

6 Matt. v. 20. 








by the law, but even from longing after them — 
is not contrary to [the law], as I have remarked, 
neither is it the utterance of one destroying the 
law, but of one fulfilling, extending, and afford- 
ing greater scope to it. 

2. For the law, since it was laid down for 
those in bondage, used to instruct the soul by 
means of those corporeal objects which were of 
an external nature, drawing it, as by a bond, to 
obey its commandments, that man might learn 
to serve God. But the Word set free the soul, 
and taught that through it the body should be 
willingly purified. Which having been accom- 
plished, it followed as of course, that the bonds 
of slavery should be removed, to which man had 
now become accustomed, and that he should 
follow God without fetters: moreover, that the 
laws of liberty should be extended, and subjec- 
tion to the king increased, so that no one who is 
converted should appear unworthy to Him who 
set him free, but that the piety and obedience 
due to the Master of the household should be 
equally rendered both by servants and children ; 
while the children possess greater confidence 
[than the servants], inasmuch as the working of 
liberty is greater and more glorious than that 
obedience which is rendered in [a state of] 
slavery. 

3. And for this reason did the Lord, instead 
of that [commandment], “Thou shalt not com- 
mit adultery,” forbid even concupiscence ; and 
instead of that which runs thus, “Thou shalt 
not kill,” He prohibited anger; and instead of 
the law enjoining the giving of tithes, [He told 
us] to share 7 all our possessions with the poor ; 
and not to love our neighbours only, but even 
our enemies ; and not merely to be liberal givers 
and bestowers, but even that we should present 
a gratuitous gift to those who take away our 
goods. For “to him that taketh away thy 
coat,” He says, “give to him thy cloak also; 
and from him that taketh away thy goods, ask 
them not again; and as ye would that men 
should do unto you, do ye unto them:”® so 
that we may not grieve as those who are unwill- 
ing to be defrauded, but may rejoice as those 
who have given willingly, and as rather conferring 
a favour upon our neighbours than yielding to 
necessity. “And if any one,” He says, “shall 
compel thee [to go] a mile, go with him twain ; "9 
so that thou mayest not follow him as a slave, 
but may as a free man go before him, showing 
thyself in all things kindly disposed and useful 
to thy neighbour, not regarding their evil inten- 
tions, but performing thy kind offices, assimilat- 
ing thyself to the Father, “who maketh His sun 
to rise upon the evil and the good, and sendeth 
ge ree eens 


7 Matt. xix. 21. 
8 Luke vi. 29-33. 
9 Matt. v. 4%. 


478 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





rain upon the just and unjust.”* Now all these 
[precepts], as I have already observed, were not 
[the injunctions] of one doing away with the 
law, but of one fulfilling, extending, and widen- 
ing it among us ; just as if one should say, that 
the more extensive operation of liberty implies 
that a more complete subjection and affection 
towards our Liberator had been implanted with- 
in us. For He did not set us free for this pur- 
pose, that we should depart from Him (no one, 
indeed, while placed out of reach of the Lord’s 
benefits, has power to procure for himself the 
means of salvation), but that the more we re- 
ceive His grace, the more we should love Him. 
Now the more we have loved Him, the more 
glory shall we receive from Him, when we are 
continually in the presence of the Father. 

4. Inasmuch, then, as all natural precepts are 
common to us and to them (the Jews), they 
had in them indeed the beginning and origin ; 
but in us they have received growth and com- 
pletion. For to yield assent to God, and to 
follow His Word, and to love Him above all, 
and one’s neighbour as one’s self (now man is 
neighbour to man), and to abstain from every 
evil deed, and all other things of a like nature 
which are common {to both [covenants], do 
reveal one and the same God. But this is our 


Lord, the Word of God, who in the first instance’ 


certainly drew slaves to God, but afterwards He 
set those free who were subject to Him, as He 
does Himself declare to His disciples: ‘I will 
not now call you servants, for the servant know- 
eth not what his lord doeth; but I have called 
you friends, for all things which I have heard 
from My Father I have made known.”? For in 
that which He says, “I will not now call you 
servants,’ He indicates in the most marked 
manner that it was Himself who did originally 
appoint for men that bondage with respect to 
God through the law, and then afterwards con- 
ferred upon them freedom. And in that He 
says, “For the servant knoweth not what his 
lord doeth,” He points out, by means of His 
own advent, the ignorance of a people in a 
servile condition. But when He terms His dis- 
ciples “ the friends of God,” He plainly declares 
Himself to be the Word of God, whom Abra- 
ham also followed voluntarily and under no 
compulsion (size vinculis), because of the noble 
nature of his faith, and so became “the friend 
of God.”3 But the Word of God did not 
accept of the friendship of Abraham, as though 
He stood in need of it, for He was perfect from 
the beginning (“ Before Abraham was,” He says, 
“Tam” 4), but that He in His goodness might 





1 Matt. v. 45. 
2 John xv. 15, 
3 Jas. ii, 23. 

4 John viii. 58. 








bestow eternal life upon Abraham himself, inas- 
much as the friendship of God imparts immor- 
tality to those who embrace it. 


CHAP. XIV.—IF GOD DEMANDS OBEDIENCE FROM 
MAN, IF HE FORMED MAN, CALLED HIM» AND 
PLACED HIM UNDER LAWS, IT WAS MERELY FOR 
MAN’S WELFARE ; NOT THAT GOD STOOD IN NEED 
OF MAN, BUT THAT HE GRACIOUSLY CONFERRED 
UPON MAN HIS FAVOURS IN EVERY POSSIBLE 
MANNER. 


1. In the beginning, therefore, did .God form 
Adam, not as if He stood in need of man, but 
that He might have [some one] upon whom to 
confer His benefits. For not alone antecedently 
to Adam, but also before all creation, the Word 
glorified His Father, remaining in Him; and 
was Himself glorified by the Father, as He did 
Himself declare, “ Father, glorify Thou Me with 
the glory which I had with Thee before the 
world was.”5 Nor did He stand in need of 
our service when He ordered us to follow Him ; 
but He thus bestowed salvation upon ourselves. 
For to follow the Saviour is to be a partaker of 
salvation, and to follow light is to receive light. 
But those who are in light do not themselves 
illumine the light, but are illumined and revealed 
by it: they do certainly contribute nothing to it, 
but, receiving the benefit, they are illumined by 
the light. Thus, also, service [rendered] to 
God does indeed profit God nothing, nor has 
God need of human obedience ; but He grants 
to those who foliow and serve Him life and in- 
corruption and eternal glory, bestowing benefit 
upon those who serve [Him], because they do 
serve Him, and on His followers, because they 
do follow Him ; but does not receive any bene- 
fit from them: for He is rich, perfect, and in 
need of nothing. But for this reason does God 
demand service from men, in order that, since 
He is good and merciful, He may benefit those 
who continue in His service. For, as much. as 
God is in want of nothing, so much does man 
stand in need of fellowship with God. For this 
is the glory of man, to continue and remain 
permanently in God’s service. Wherefore also 
did the Lord say to His disciples, “Ye have not 
chosen Me, but I have chosen you ;’’® indicat- 
ing that they did not glorify Him when they 
followed Him ; but that, in following the Son of 
God, they were glorified by Him. And again, 
“T will, that where I am, there they also may 
be, that they may behold My glory ;”’7 not 
vainly boasting because of this, but desiring that 
His disciples should share in His glory: of 
whom Esaias also says, “I will bring thy ‘seed 
from the east, and will gather thee from the 





6 John xv. 16. 


5 John xvii. 5. 
7 John xvii, #4. 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


479 





west ; and I will say to the north, Give up; and 
to the south, Keep not back: bring My sons 
from far, and My daughters from the ends of 
the earth; all, as many as have been called in 

My name: for in My glory I have prepared, 
and formed, and made him.’’? Inasmuch as, 
then, “wheresoever the carcase is, there shall 

also the eagles be gathered together,” ? we do 
participate in the glory of the Lord, who has 
both formed us, and prepared us for this, that, 
when we are with Him, we may partake of His 
glory. 

2. Thus it was, too, that God formed man at 
the first, because of His munificence ; but chose 
the patriarchs for the sake of their salvation ; 
and prepared a people beforehand, teaching the 

. headstrong to follow God ; and raised up proph- 
ets upon earth, accustoming man to bear His 
Spirit [within him], and to hold communion 
with God: He Himself, indeed, having need of 

nothing, but granting communion with Himself 
to those who stood in need of it, and sketching 
out, like an architect, the plan of salvation to 
those that pleased Him. And He did Himself 

- furnish guidance to those who beheld Him not 
in Egypt, while to those who became unruly in 
the desert He promulgated a law very suitable 
[to their condition]. Then, on the people who 

entered into the good land He bestowed a noble 
inheritance ; and. He killed the fatted calf for 
those converted to the Father, and presented 
them with the finest robe.s Thus, in a variety 
of ways, He adjusted the human _race_to_an 

-agresment. with salyation. On this account also 

oes John declare in the Apocalypse, “ And His 
voice as the sound of many waters.”4 For the 
Spirit [of God] is truly [like] many waters, 
since the Father is both rich and great. And 
the Word, passing through all those [men], did 
liberally confer benefits upon His subjects, by 
drawing up in writing a law adapted and appli- 
cable to every class [among them]. 

3. Thus, too, He imposed upon the [Jewish] 

people the construction of the tabernacle, the 
pbuilding of the temple, the election of the Le- 
vites, sacrifices also, and oblations, legal moni- 
tions, and all the other service of the law. He 
does Himself truly want none of these things, 
for He is always full of all good, and had in 
Himself all the odour of kindness, and every 
perfume of sweet-smelling savours, even before 
Moses existed. Moreover, He instructed the 
people, who were prone to turn to idols, instruct- 
ing them by repeated appeals to persevere and 
to serve God, calling them to the things of pri- 
mary importance by means of those which were 


ee  — 


1 Isa. xliii. 5. 

2 Matt. xxiv. 28. 
3 Luke xv. 22, 23. 
4 Rev. i. 15. 








secondary ; that is, to things that are real, by 
means of those that are typical; and by things 
temporal, to eternal; and by the carnal to the 
spiritual ; and by the earthly to the heavenly ; 
as was also said to Moses, “Thou shalt make all 
things after the pattern of those things which 
thou sawest in the mount.”5 For during forty 
days He was learning to keep [in his memory ] 
the words of God, and the celestial patterns, and 
the spiritual images, and the types of things to 
come; as also Paul says: “For they drank of 
the rock which followed them: and the rock 
was Christ.’’® And again, having first mentioned 
what are contained in the law, he goes on to 
say: “ Now all these things happened to them 
in a figure ; but they were written for our admo- 
nition, upon whom the end of the ages is come.” 
For by means of types they learned to fear God, 
and to continue devoted to His service. 


CHAP, XV.— AT FIRST GOD DEEMED IT SUFFICIENT 
TO INSCRIBE THE NATURAL LAW, OR THE DEC- 
ALOGUE, UPON THE HEARTS OF MEN; BUT 
AFTERWARDS HE FOUND IT NECESSARY TO 
BRIDLE, WITH THE YOKE OF THE MOSAIC LAW, 
THE DESIRES OF THE JEWS, WHO WERE ABUS- 
ING THEIR LIBERTY ; AND EVEN TO ADD SOME 
SPECIAL COMMANDS, BECAUSE OF THE HARD- 
“NESS OF THEIR HEARTS. 


1. They (the Jews) had therefore a law, a 
course of discipline, and a prophecy of future 
things. For God at the first, indeed, warning 
them by means of natural precepts, which from 
the beginning He had implanted in mankind, 
that is, by means of the Decalogue (which, if 
any one does not observe, he has no salvation), 
did then demand nothing more of them. As 
Moses says in Deuteronomy, “ These are all the 
words which the Lord spake to the whole as- 
sembly of the sons of Israel on the mount, and 
He added no more ; and He wrote them on two 
tables of stone, and gave them to me.”7 For 
this reason [He did so], that they who are will- 
ing to follow Him might keep these command- 
ments. But when they turned themselves to 
make a calf, and had gone back in their minds 
to Egypt, desiring to be slaves instead of free- 
men, they were placed for the future in a state 
of servitude suited to their wish, — [a slavery ] 
which did not indeed cut them off from God, 
but subjected them to the yoke of bondage ; 
as Ezekiel the prophet, when stating the reasons 
for the giving of such a law, declares: “ And 
their eyes were after the desire of their heart ; 
and I gave them statutes that were not good, 
and judgments in which they shall not live,’’® 


480 









Luke also has recorded that Stephen, who was 
the first elected into the diaconate by the apos- 
tles,t and who was the first slain for the testimo- 
ny of Christ, spoke regarding Moses as follows : 
“This man did indeed receive the command- 
ments of the living God to give to us, whom 
your fathers would not obey, but thrust [Him 
from them], and in their hearts turned back 
again into Egypt, saying unto Aaron, Make us 
gods to go before us; for we do not know 
what has happened to [this] Moses, who led 
us from the land of Egypt. And they made a 
calf in those days, and offered sacrifices to the 
idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their 
own hands. But God turned, and gave them 
up to worship the hosts of heaven; as it is 
written in the book of the prophets:* O ye 
house of Israel, have ye offered to Me sacrifices 
and oblations for forty years in the wilderness? 
And ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and 
the star of the god Remphan,} figures which ye 
made to worship them ;”* pointing out plainly, 
that the law being such, was not given to them 
by another God, but that, adapted to their con- 
dition of servitude, fit originated] from the very 
same [God as we worship]. Wherefore also 
He says to Moses in Exodus: “TI will send forth 
My angel before thee ; for I will not go up with 
thee, because thou art a stiff-necked people.” 5 
2. And not only so, but the Lord also showed 
that certain precepts were enacted for them by 
Moses, on account of their hardness [of heart], 
and because of their unwillingness to be obe- 
dient, when, on their saying to Him, “‘ Why then 
did Moses command to give a writing of divorce- 
ment, and to send away a wife?’ He said to 
them, “ Because of the hardness of your hearts 
he permitted these things to you; but from the 
beginning it was not so;’’® thus exculpating 
Moses as a faithful servant, but acknowledging 
one God, who from the beginning made male 
and female, and reproving them as hard-hearted 
and disobedient. And therefore it was that 
they received from Moses this law of divorce- 
ment, adapted to their hard nature. But why 
say I these things concerning the Old_Testa- 
ment? For in the New also are the apostles 
“found doing this very thing, on the ground 
which has been mentioned, Paul plainly declar- 
ing, But these things I say, not the Lord.” 7 
And again: “But this I speak by permission, 
not by commandment.”® And again: “ Now, 
as concerning virgins, I have no commandment 





T [Acts vi. 3-7. 
apostles ordained. 

2 Amos v. a5, 26. 

3 In accordance with the Codex Bezse. 

4 Acts vii, 38, etc. 

5 Ex, xxxiil. 2, 3. 

6 Matt. xix. 7, 8. 

7 x Cor. vii, 12. 

§ x Cor. vii. 6. 


It is evident that the laity elected, and the 














IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


from the Lord ; yet I give my judgment, as one 
that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be 
faithful.” 9 But further, in another place he 
says: “That Satan tempt you not for your in- 
continence.” © If, therefore, even in the New 
Testament, the apostles are found granting cer- 
tain precepts in consideration of human infirmity, 
because of the incontinence of some, lest such 
persons, having grown obdurate, and despairing 
altogether of their salvation, should become 
apostates from God, —it ought not to be won- 
dered at, if also in the Old Testament the same 
God permitted similar indulgences for the bene- 
fit of His people, drawing them on by means of 
the ordinances already mentioned, so that they 
might obtain the gift of salvation through them, 
while they obeyed the Decalogue, and being 
restrained by Him, should not revert to idolatry, 
nor apostatize from God, but learn to love Him 
with the whole heart. And if certain persons, 
because of the disobedient and ruined Israelites, 
do assert that the giver (doctor) of the law was 
limited in power, they will find in our dispensa- 
tion, that “many are called, but few chosen ; ” *? 
and that there are those who inwardly are wolves, 
yet wear sheep’s clothing in the eyes of the 
world (forts) ; and that God has always pre- 
served freedom, and the power of self-govern- 


| ment in man,’? while at the same time He issued 


His own exhortations, in order that those who 
do not obey Him should be righteously judged 
(condemned) because they have not obeyed 
Him; and that those who have obeyed and 
believed on Him should be honoured with im- 
moriality. 


CHAP. XVI.— PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS WAS CON- 
FERRED NEITHER BY CIRCUMCISION NOR BY ANY 
OTHER LEGAL CEREMONIES. THE DECALOGUE, 
HOWEVER, WAS NOT CANCELLED BY CHRIST, BUT 
IS ALWAYS IN FORCE: MEN WERE NEVER RE- 
LEASED FROM ITS COMMANDMENTS. 


1. Moreover, we learn from the Scripture itself, 
that God gave circumcision, not as the completer 
of righteousness, but as a sign, that the race of 
Abraham might continue recognisable. For it 
declares ; “God said unto Abraham, Every male 
among you shall be circumcised ; and ye shall 
circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, as a token 
of the covenant between Me and you.” 3 This 
same does Ezekiel the prophet say with regard 
to the Sabbaths: “Also I gave them My Sab- 
baths, to be a sign between Me and them, that 
they might know that I am the Lord, that sanc- 
tify them.”'4 And in Exodus, God says to 





9 x Cor. vii. 25. 

10 x Cor. vii. 5. 

1I Matt. xx. 16. 
rg this stout assertion of the freedom of 
M. XVii. Q-11. 

Keek, xx. 12, 


+ human actions.) 
“ 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


481 





Moses: “And ye shall observe My Sabbaths ; 
for it shall be a sign between Me and you for 
your generations.”' These things, then, were 
given for a sign; but the signs were not unsym- 
bolical, that is, neither unmeaning nor to no 
purpose, inasmuch as they were given by a wise 
Artist ; but the circumcision after the flesh typi- 
fied that after the Spirit. For “we,” says the 
apostle, “have been circumcised with the circum- 
cision made without hands.’’?_ And the prophet 
declares, ‘“Circumcise the hardness of your 
heart.’’3 But the Sabbaths taught that we should 
continue day by day in God’s service. “ For 
we have been counted,” says the Apostle Paul, 
“all the day long as sheep for the slaughter ;”’ 5 
that is, consecrated [to God], and ministering 
continually to our faith, and persevering in it, 
and abstaining from all avarice, and not acquiring 
or possessing treasures upon earth.© Moreover, 
the Sabbath of God (rveguietio Det), that is, the 
kingdom, was, as it were, indicated by created 
things ; in which [kingdom], the man who shall 
have persevered in serving God (Deo assistere) 
shall, in a state of rest, partake of God’s table. 
2. And that man was not justified by these 
things, but that they were given as a sign to the 
people, this fact shows, — that Abraham himself, 
without circumcision and without observance of 
Sabbaths, “believed God, and it was imputed 
unto him for righteousness ; and he was called 
the friend of God.” 7 Then, again, Lot, without 
circumcision, was brought out from Sodom, re- 
ceiving salvation from God. So also did Noah, 
pleasing God, although he was uncircumcised, 
receive the dimensions [of the ark},-of the world 
of the second race [of men]. cine, too, pleas- 
ing God, without circumcision, ischarged the 
office of God’s legate to the angels although he 
was a man, and was translated, and is preserved 
until now as a witness of the just judgment of 
God, because the angels when they had trans- 
gressed fell to the earth for judgment, but the 
man who pleased [God] was translated for salva- 
tion.2 Moreover, all the rest of the multitude of 
those righteous men who lived before Abraham, 
and of those patriarchs who preceded Moses, 
were justified independently of the things above 


eS ae 


2 Col. ii. 11. F 

3 Deut. x. 16, LXX. version. ; ‘ 

4 The Latin text here is: ‘‘Sabbata autem perseverantiam tottus 
diei erga Deum deservitionis edocebant;” which might be rendered, 
he Sabbaths taught that we should continue the whole day in the 
service of God;” but Harvey conceives the original Greek to have 
been, Thy Ka@nnepvny Stapovny THs Tept TOV Ocdv AaTpetas. 

5 Rom. viil, 36. 

6 Matt. vi. 19. 

7 Jas. ii./23. 

8 Massuet remarks here ihat tenes wares a_ reference t the 
a hal book of Enoch, in which this history is contained. 
were D pehiet of the later Jews, followed by the Christian fathers, 
that ‘ the sons of God” (Gen. vi. 2) who took wives of the daughters 
of men, were the apostate angels. The LXX. translation of that 

assage accords with this view. See the articles “ Enoch, Enoch, 
k of,” in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible. 


b. i. 323-43t-] 








[See Paradise Lost, 


mentioned, and without the law of Moses. As 
also Moses himself says to the people in Deuter- 
onomy: “The Lorp thy God formed a covenant 
in Horeb. The Lorp formed not this covenant 
with your fathers, but for you.” 9 

3. Why, then, did the Lord not form the cov- 
enant for the fathers? Because “ the law was not 
established for righteous men.” '° But the right- 
eous fathers had the meaning of the Decalogue 
written in their hearts and souls,"' that is, they 
loved the God who made them, and did no 
injury to their neighbour. There was therefore 
no occasion that they should be cautioned by 
prohibitory mandates (correptoriis literis) ,* be- 
cause they had the righteousness of the law in 
themselves. But when this righteousness and 
love to God had passed into oblivion, and be- 
came extinct in Egypt, God did necessarily, 
because of His great goodwill to men, reveal 
Himself by a voice, and led the people with 
power out of Egypt, in order that man might 
again become the disciple and follower of God ; 
and He afflicted those who were disobedient, 
that they should not contemn their Creator ; and 
He fed them with manna, that they might receive 
food for their souls (ué ratonalem acciperent 
escam) ; as also Moses says in Deuteronomy : 
“And fed thee with manna, which thy fathers 
did not know, that thou mightest know that man 
doth not live by bread alone ; but by every word 
of God proceeding out of His mouth doth man 
live.” #3 And it enjoined love to God, and taught 
just dealing towards our neighbour, that we 
should neither be unjust nor unworthy of God, 
who prepares man for His friendship through 
the medium of the Decalogue, and likewise for 
agreement with his neighbour, — matters which 
did certainly profit man himself ; God, however, 
standing in no need of anything from man. 

4. And therefore does the Scripture. say, 
“These words the Lord spake to all the assem- 
bly of the children of Israel in the mount, and 
He added no more ;” * for, as I have already 
observed, He stood in need of nothing from 
them. And again Moses says : “ And now Israel, 
what doth the Lorp thy God require of thee, but 
to fear the Lorp thy God, to walk in all His 
ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lorp 
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
soul?’’5 Now these things did indeed make 
man glorious, by supplying what was wanting to 
him, namely, the friendship of God; but they 
profited God nothing, for God did not at all 


ee ee 


9 Deut. v, 2. 

To ; Tim. i. 9. 

11 [Hearts and souls; i.e., moral and mental natures. For a cor- 
rect view of the patristic conceptions of the Gentiles before the law, 
this is valuable. ] 

12 i.e., the Jeffers of the Decalogue on the two tables of stone. 

13 Deut. viii. 3. 

14 Deut. v. 22. 

15 Deut. x. 12; 


482 


‘IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





stand in need of man’s love. For the glory of 
God was wanting to man, which he could obtain 
in no other way than by serving God. And 
therefore Moses says to them again: ‘Choose 
life, that thou mayest live, and thy seed, to love 
the Lorp thy God, to hear His voice, to cleave 
unto Him ; for this is thy life, and the length of 
thy days.” Preparing man for this life, the 
Lord Himself did speak in His own person to all 
alike the words of the Decalogue ; and therefore, 
in like manner, do they remain permanently with 
us,? receiving by means of His advent in the flesh, 
extension and increase, but not abrogation. 

5. The laws of bondage, however, were one 
by one promulgated to the people by Moses, 
suited for their instruction or for their punish- 
ment, as Moses himself declared: “ And the 
Lorp commanded me at that time to teach you 
statutes and judgments.” 3 These things, there- 
fore, which were given for bondage, and for a 
sign to them, He cancelled by the new covenant 
of liberty. But He has increased and widened 
those laws which are natural, and noble, and 
common to all, granting to men largely and with- 
out grudging, by means of adoption, to know 
God the Father, and to love Him with the whole 
heart, and to follow His word unswervingly, 
while they abstain not only from evil deeds, but 
even from the desire after them. But He has 
also increased the feeling of reverence ; for sons 
should have more veneration than slaves, and 
greater love for their father. And therefore the 
Lord says, “ As to every idle word that men have 
spoken, they shall render an account for it in the 
day of judgment.” + And, “he who has looked 
upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed 
adultery with her already in his heart ;’’5 and, 
“he that is angry with his brother without a 
cause, shall be in danger of the judgment.” © 
[All this is declared, ] that we may know that we 
shall give account to God not of deeds only, as 
slaves, but even of words and thoughts, as those 
who have truly received the power of liberty, in 
which [condition] a man is more severely tested, 
whether he will reverence, and fear, and love the 
Lord. And for this reason Peter says “ that we 
have not liberty as a cloak of maliciousness,” 7 
but as the means of testing and evidencing faith. 


CHAP, XVII.— PROOF THAT GOD DID NOT APPOINT 
THE LEVITICAL DISPENSATION FOR HIS OWN SAKE, 
OR AS REQUIRING SUCH SERVICE ; FOR HE DOES, 
IN FACT, NEED NOTHING FROM MEN. 


1. Moreover, the prophets indicate in the 





1 Deut. xxx 19, 20. 

? [Most noteworthy among primitive testimonies to the catholic 
reception of the Decalogue. ] 

3 Deut. iv. 14. 

4 Matt. xii. 36, 

5 Matt. v, 28. 

© Matt. y. 22. 

7 x Pet, ii. 16. 











fullest manner that God stood in no need of 
their slavish obedience, but that it was upon 
their own account that He enjoined certain ob- 
servances in the law. And again, that God 
needed not their oblation, but [merely demanded 
it], on account of man himself who offers it, the 
Lord taught distinctly, as I have pointed out. 
For when He perceived them neglecting right- 
eousness, and abstaining from the love of God, 
and imagining that God was to be propitiated 
by sacrifices and the other typical observances, 
Samuel did even thus speak to them: “God 
does not desire whole burnt-offerings and sacri- 
fices, but He will have His voice to be hearkened 
to. Behold, a ready obedience is better than 
sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.’’8 
David also says: “Sacrifice and oblation Thou 
didst not desire, but mine ears hast Thou per- 
fected ;9 burnt-offerings also for sin Thou hast 
not required.” '° He thus teaches them that 
God desires obedience, which renders them se- 
cure, rather than sacrifices and holocausts, which 
avail them nothing towards righteousness ; and 
[by this declaration] he prophesies the new 
covenant at the same time. Still clearer, too, — 
does he speak of these things in the fiftieth 

Psalm: “For if Thou hadst desired sacrifice, 

then would I have given it: Thou wilt not de- 
light in burnt-offerings. The sacrifice of God is 

a broken spirit ; a broken and contrite heart the 

Lord will not despise.” *! Because, therefore, 

God stands in need of nothing, He declares in 

the preceding Psalm: “ I will take no calves out 

of thine house, nor he-goats out of thy fold. 

For Mine are all the beasts of the earth, the - 
herds and the oxen on the mountains: I know 

all the fowls of heaven, and the various tribés ” 

of the field are Mine. If I were hungry, I would 

not tell thee: for the world is Mine, and the’ ' 
fulness thereof. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, | 
or drink the blood of goats?” #3 Then, lest it 
might be supposed that He refused these things 
in His anger, He continues, giving him (man) 
counsel: “Offer unto God the sacrifice of praise, 
and pay thy vows to the Most High; and call 
upon Me in the day of thy trouble, and I will 
deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me; ” *4:re- 
jecting, indeed, those things by which sinners 
imagined they could propitiate God, and show- 
ing that He does Himself stand in need of noth- 
ing ; but He exhorts and advises them to those 





8 Sam. xv. 22. 

9 Latin, “‘aures autem perfecisti' mihi; ” a reading agreeable to 
neither the Hebrew nor Septuagint version, as quoted by St. Paul in 
Heb. x. 9, Harvey, however, is of opinion that the text of the old 
Latin translation was originally “ perforasti; ” indicating thus an en. 
tire concurrence with the Hebrew, as now read in this assage. [Both 
readings illustrated by their apparent reference to ie. xxi, 6, com- ©: 
pared with Heb. v. 7, 8, 9.] ‘ bgt ‘ 

10 Ps, xl. 6. 

_ ie hi, ia 

r, “ the 24 ? 
13a oe eauty, species, 

4 Ps. 1. 14, 15. 


IRENZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


483 





things by which man is justified and draws nigh 
to God. This same declaration does Esaias 
make: “To what purpose is the multitude of 
your sacrifices unto Me? saith the Lord. I am 
full.” * And when He had repudiated holocausts, 
and sacrifices, and oblations, as likewise the new 
moons, and the sabbaths, and the festivals, and 
all the rest of the services accompanying these, 
He continues, exhorting them to what pertained 
to salvation : “Wash you, make you clean, take 
away wickedness from your hearts from before 
mine eyes: cease from your evil ways, learn to 
do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, 
‘judge the fatherless, plead for the widow; and 
come, let us reason together, saith the Lorp.” 

2. For it was not because He was angry, like 
a man, as many venture to say, that He rejected 
their sacrifices ; but out of compassion to their 
blindness, and with the view of suggesting to 
them the true sacrifice, by offering which they 
shall appease God, that they may receive life 
from Him. As He elsewhere declares: “The 
sacrifice to God is an afflicted heart: a sweet 
savour to God is a heart glorifying Him who 
formed it.”? For if, when angry, He had repu- 
diated these sacrifices of theirs, as if they were 
persons unworthy to obtain His compassion, 
He would not certainly have urged these same 
things upon them as those by which they might 
be saved. But inasmuch as God is merciful, 
He did not cut them off from good counsel. 
For after He had said by Jeremiah, “To what 
purpose bring ye Me incense from Saba, and 
cinnamon from a far country? Your whole burnt- 
offerings and sacrifices are not acceptable to 
Me ;’?3 He proceeds: “Hear the word of the 
Lord, all Judah. These things saith the Lorp, 
the God of Israel, Make straight your ways and 
your doings, and I will establish you in this place. 
Put not your trust in lying words, for they will not 
at all profit you, saying, The temple of the Lorp, 
The temple of the Lorp, it is [here].” 4 

3. And again, when He points out that it was 
not for this that He led them out of Egypt, that 
they might offer sacrifice to Him, but that, for- 
getting the idolatry of the Egyptians, they should 
be able to hear the voice of the Lord, which was 
to them salvation and glory, He declares by this 
same Jeremiah: “Thus saith the Lorp ; Collect 
together your burnt-offerings with your sacrifices, 
and eat flesh. For I spake not unto your fathers, 
nor commanded them in the day that I brought 
them out of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings 





1 Isa. i, rt. ; 

2 This passage is not now found in holy Scripture, Harve 
jectures that it may haye been taken from the apocryphal Gospel 
according to the tians. It is remarkable that we find the same 
words quoted also be Clement of Alexandria, [But he (possibly with 
this place in view) merely quotes it as a saying, 1n close connection 
with Ps. li. 19, which is here partially cited. See Clement, Pada- 
gogne, db. ili. cap. xii.] 

3 Jer. vi. 20. « 

4 Jer. vil. 2, 3- 


con- 





or sacrifices: but this word I commanded them, 
saying, Hear My voice, and I will be your God, 
and ye shall be My people ; and walk in all My 
ways whatsoever I have commanded you, that it 
may be well with you. But they obeyed not, 
nor hearkened ; but walked in the imaginations 
of their own evil heart, and went backwards, and 
not forwards.”5 And again, when He declares 
by the same man, “ But let him that glorieth, 
glory in this, to understand and know that I am 
the Lorp, who doth exercise loving-kindness, 
and righteousness, and judgment in the earth ;’° 
He adds, “For in these things I delight, says 
the Lorp,” but not in sacrifices, nor in holo- 
causts, nor in oblations. For the people did 
not receive these precepts as of primary impor- 
tance (frincipaliter), but as secondary, and for 
the reason already alleged, as Isaiah again says : 
“Thou hast not [brought to] Me the sheep of 
thy holocaust, nor in thy sacrifices hast thou 
glorified Me: thou hast not served Me in sacri- 
fices, nor in [the matter of] frankincense hast 
thou done anything laboriously; neither hast 
thou bought for Me incense with money, nor 
have I desired the fat of thy sacrifices ; but thou 
hast stood before Me in thy sins and in thine 
iniquities.”? He says, therefore, “Upon this 
man will I look, even upon him that is humble, 
and meek, and who trembles at My words.” ® 
“For the fat and the fat flesh shall not take 
away from thee thine unrighteousness.”9 “This 
is the fast which I have chosen, saith the Lorn. 
Loose every band of wickedness, dissolve the 
connections of violent agreements, give rest to 
those that are shaken, and cancel every unjust 
document. Deal thy bread to the hungry will- 
ingly, and lead into thy house the roofless 
stranger. If thou hast seen the naked, cover 
him, and thou shalt not despise those of thine 
own flesh and blood (domesticos seminis tui). 
Then shall thy morning light break forth, and 
thy health shall spring forth more speedily ; and 
righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory 
of the Lorp shall surround thee : and whilst thou 
art yet speaking, I will say, Behold, here I am.’’?° 
And Zechariah also, among the twelve prophets, 
pointing out to the people the will of God, says : 
“These things does the Lorp Omnipotent de- 
clare: Execute true judgment, and show mercy 
and compassion each one to his brother. And 
oppress not the widow, and the orphan, and the 
proselyte, and the poor; and let none imagine 
evil against your brother in his heart.”"* And 
again, he says: “These are the words which ye 


nr 


5 Jer. vii. 21. 
6 Jer. ix. 24. 
7 Isa. xliii., 23, 24. 
8 Isa. xlvi. 2. 
9 Jer. xi. 15. 
10 Isa. lviii. 6, etc. 
11 Zech. vii. 9, 16. 


484 


shall utter. Speak ye the truth every man to 
his neighbour, and execute peaceful judgment 
in your gates, and let none of you imagine evil 
in his heart against his brother, and ye shall not 
love false swearing: for all these things I hate, 
saith the Lorp Almighty.”! Moreover, David 
also says in like manner: ‘What man is there 
who desireth life, and would fain see good days? 
Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips that 
they speak no guile. Shun evil, and do good : 
seek peace, and pursue it.” ? 

4. From all these it is evident that God did 
not seek sacrifices and holocausts from them, but 
faith, and obedience, and righteousness, because 
of their salvation. As God, when teaching them 
His will in Hosea the prophet, said, “I desire 
mercy rather than sacrifice, and the knowledge of 
God more than burnt-offerings.”3 Besides, our 
Lord also exhorted them to the same effect, when 
He said, “But if ye had known what [this] 
meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye 
would not have condemned the guiltless.” 4 
Thus does He bear witness to the prophets, that 
they preached the truth ; but accuses these men 
(His hearers) of being foolish through their own 
fault. 

5. Again, giving directions to His disciples to 
offer to God the first-fruits 5 of His own created 
things — not as if He stood in need of them, but 
that they might be themselves neither unfruitful 
nor ungrateful — He took that created thing, 
bread, and gave thanks, and said, “This is My 
body.”® And the cup likewise, which is part of 
that creation to which we belong, He confessed 
to be His blood, and taught the new oblation of 
the new covenant ; which the Church receiving 
from the apostles, offers to God throughout all 
the world, to Him who gives us as the means 
of subsistence the first-fruits of His own gifts in 
the New Testament, concerning which Malachi, 
among the twelve prophets, thus spoke before- 
hand: “I have no pleasure in you, saith the 
Lorp Omnipotent, and I will not accept sacrifice 
at your hands. For from the rising of the sun, 
unto the going down [of the same], My name is 
glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place 
incense is offered to My name, and a pure sacri- 
fice ; for great is My name among the Gentiles, 
saith the Lorp Omnipotent ;’’ 7 — indicating in 
the plainest manner, by these words, that the 
former people [the Jews] shall indeed cease to 
make offerings to God, but that in every place 


_ © Zech, viii. 16, 17. 

2 Ps. xxxiv. 13,14. 

3 Hos. vi. 6. 

4 Matt. xii. 7. 

5 Grabe has a long and important note on this passage and what 
follows, which may be seen ta Harvey, zn loc. See, on the other side, 
and in connection with the whole of the following chapter, Massuet’s 
third dissertation on the doctrine of Irenzeus, art. vii., reprinted in 
Migne’s edition. 

Matt. xxvi, 26, etc. 

7 Mal. i. 10, 11. 








IREN/ZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


sacrifice shall be offered to Him, and that a pure 
one; and His name is glorified among the 
Gentiles.® 

6. But what other name is there which is 
glorified among the Gentiles than that of our 
Lord, by whom the Father is glorified, and man 
also? And because itis [the name] of His own 
Son, who was made man by Him, He calls it His 
own. Just as a king, if he himself paints a like- 
ness of his son, is right in calling this likeness 
his own, for both these reasons, because it is [the 
likeness] of his son, and because it is his own 
production ; so also does the Father confess the 
name of Jesus Christ, which is throughout all 
the world glorified in the Church, to be His own, 
both because it is that of His Son, and because 
He who thus describes it gave Him for the salva- 
tion of men. Since, therefore, the name of the 
Son belongs to the Father, and since in the om- 
nipotent God the Church makes offerings through 
Jesus Christ, He says well on both these grounds, 
“ And in every place incense is offered to My 
name, and a pure sacrifice.” Now John, in the 
Apocalypse, declares that the “ incense” is “ the 
prayers of the saints.” 9 


CHAP. XVIII.—CONCERNING SACRIFICES AND OBLA- 
TIONS, AND THOSE WHO TRULY OFFER THEM. 


1. The oblation of the Church, therefore, which 
the Lord gave instructions to be offered through- 
out all the world, is accounted with God a pure 
sacrifice, and is acceptable to Him ; not that He 
stands in need of a sacrifice from us, but that he 
who offers is himself glorified in what he does 
offer, if his gift be accepted. For by the gift 
both honour and affection are shown forth towards 
the King; and the Lord, wishing us to offer it 
in all simplicity and innocence, did express Him- 
self thus: “Therefore, when thou offerest thy 
gift upon the altar, and shalt remember that thy 
brother hath ought against thee, leave thy gift 
before the altar, and go thy way ; first be recon- 
ciled to thy brother, and then return and offer 
thy gift.” *° We are bound, therefore, to offer to 
God the first-fruits of His creation, as Moses also 
says, “‘ Thou shalt not appear in the presence of 
the Lord thy God empty ;”’ "" so that man, being 
accounted as grateful, by those things in whicn 
he has shown his gratitude, may receive tha’ 
honour which flows from Him.” 

2. And the class of oblations in general has 
not been set aside ; for there were both oblations 


8 [One marvels that there should be any critical difficulty here 
as to our author’s teaching. Creatures of bread and wine are the 
body and blood; materially one thing, mystically another.: See cap. 
xviil. 5 below. | : : 

9 Rey. v. 8. [Material incense seems to be always disclaimed by 
the primitive writers. ] 

10 Matt. v.23, 24. 

It Deut. xvi. 16. i 


12 The text of this passage is doubtful in Sev. wards: : 


IREN/EUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


485 





there [among the Jews], and there are oblations| Word, as did also Cain. For [God] said to 
here [among the Christians]. _Sacrifices there | him, “Be at rest ;” but he did not assent. Now 
were among the people; sacrifices there are, | what else is it to “ be at rest’ than to forego pur- 


too, in the Church: but the species alone has 
been changed, inasmuch as the offering is now 
made, not by slaves, but by freemen. For the 
Lord is [ever] one and the same ; but the char- 
acter Of a servile oblation is peculiar [to itself ], 
as is also that of freemen, in order that, by the 
very oblations, the indication of liberty may be 
set forth. For with Him there is nothing pur- 
poseless, nor without signification, nor without 
design. And for this reason they (the Jews) 
had indeed the tithes of their goods consecrated 
to Him, but those who have received liberty set 
aside all their possessions for the Lord’s purposes, 
bestowing joyfully «nd freely not the less valuable 
portions of their property, since they have the 
hope of better things [hereafter]; as that poor 





posed violence? And saying similar things to 
these men, He declares: “Thou blind Pharisee, 
cleanse that which is within the cup, that the 
outside may be clean also.”"5 And they did not 
listen to Him. For Jeremiah says, “ Behold, 
neither thine eyes nor thy heart are. good; but 
[they are turned] to thy covetousness, and to 
shed innocent blood, and for injustice, and for 
man-slaying, that thou mayest do it.”° And 
again Isaiah saith, “Ye have taken counsel, but 
not of Me; and made covenants, [but] not by 
My Spirit.” 7 In order, therefore, that their inner 
wish and thought, being brought to light, may 
show that God is without blame, and worketh no 
evil — that God who reveals what is hidden [in 
the heart], but who worketh not evil — when 


widow acted who cast all her living into the | Cain was by no means at rest, He saith to him: 


treasury of God." 


“To thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule 


3- For at the beginning God had respect to| over him.” 8 Thus did He in like manner speak 
the gifts of Abel, because he offered with single-|to Pilate: “Thou shouldest have no power at 


mindedness and righteousness ; but He had no 
respect unto the offering of Cain, because his 
heart was divided with envy and malice, which 
he cherished against his brother, as God says 
when reproving his hidden [thoughts], “Though 
thou offerest rightly, yet, if thou dost not divide 
rightly, hast thou not sinned? Be at rest;”” 
since God is not appeased by sacrifice. For if 
any one shall endeavour to offer a sacrifice merely 
to outward appearance, unexceptionably, in due 





all against Me, unless it were given thee from 
above ;”9 God always giving up the righteous 
one [in this life to suffering], that he, having 
been tested by what he suffered and endured, 
may [at last] be accepted; but that the evil- 
doer, being judged by the actions he has per- 
formed, may be rejected. Sacrifices, therefore, 
do not sanctify a man, for God stands in no need 
of sacrifice ; but it is the conscience of the offerer 
that sanctifies the sacrifice when it is pure, and 


order, and according to appointment, while in| thus moves God to accept [the offering] as from 


his soul he does not assign to his neighbour that|a friend. 


fellowship with him which is right and proper, 
nor is under the fear of God;—he who thus 
cherishes secret sin does not deceive God by that 
sacrifice which is offered correctly as to outward 
appearance ; nor will such an oblation profit him 
anything, but [only] the giving up of that evil 
which has been conceived within him, so that sin 
‘may not the more, by means of the hypocritical 
action, render him the destroyer of himself 
Wherefore did the Lord also declare: ‘Woe 
unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for 
ye are like whited sepulchres. For the sepulchre 
appears beautiful outside, but within it is full of 
dead men’s bones, and all uncleanness ; even so 
ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but 
within ye are full of wickedness and hypocrisy.” 
For while they were thought to offer correctly 
so far as outward appearance went, they had in 
themselves jealousy like to Cain; therefore they 
slew the Just One, slighting the counsel of the 





t Luke xxi. 4. [The law of tithes abrogated; the law of Acts ii. 
44) 45, morally binding. This seems to be our author's view. ] 

2 Gen. iv. 7, 

3 The Latin text 
autem peccatum, ipsum s 

4 Matt. xxiii. 27, 28. 


is: “ne per assimulatam operationem, magis 
ibi homicidam faciat hominem. 





“But the sinner,’ says He, “who 
kills a calf [in sacrifice] to Me, is as if he slew a 
dog.’ 2° 

7 Inasmuch, then, as the Church offers with 
single-mindedness, her gift is justly reckoned a 
pure sacrifice with God. As Paul also says to 
the Philippians, “I am full, having received from 
Epaphroditus the things that were sent from you, 
the odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice accept- 
able, pleasing to God.” *. For it behoves us to 
make an oblation to God, and in all things to 
be found grateful to God our Maker, in a pure 
mind, and in faith without hypocrisy, in well- 
grounded hope, in fervent love, offering the 
first-fruits of His own created things. And the 
Church alone offers this pure oblation to the Cre- 
ator, offering to Him, with giving of thanks, 
[the things taken] from His creation. But the 
Jews do not offer thus: for their hands are full 
of blood; for they have not received the Word, 


ee eS ee 


5 Matt. xxiii. 26. 
6 Jer. xxii. 17. 

7 Isa. xxx. I. 

8 Gen. iv. 7. 

9 John xix. rr. 
10 Tsa. Ixvi. 3. 

11 Phil, iv. 18. 


486 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 











through whom it is offered to God.:_ Nor, again, 
do any of the conventicles (synagoge) of the 
heretics [offer this]. For some, by maintaining 
that the Father is different from the Creator, do, 
when they offer to Him what belongs to this cre- 
ation of ours, set Him forth as being covetous of 
another’s property, and desirous of what is not 
His own. ‘Those, again, who maintain that the 
things around us originated from apostasy, igno- 
rance, and passion, do, while offering unto Him 
the fruits of ignorance, passion, and apostasy, 
sin against their Father, rather subjecting Him 
to insult than giving Him thanks. But how can 
they be consistent with themselves, [when they 
say] that the bread over which thanks have been 
given is the body of their Lord,? and the cup 








His blood, if they do not call Himself the Son 
of the Creator of the world, that is, His Word, 
through whom the wood fructifies, and the foun- 
tains gush forth, and the earth gives “first the 
blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the 
ear.” 3 . 

5. Then, again, how can they say that the 
flesh, which is nourished with the body of the 
Lord and with His blood, goes to corruption, 
and does not partake of life? Let them, there- 
fore, either alter their opinion, or cease from 
offering the things just mentioned.t But our 
opinion is in accordance with the Eucharist, and 
the Eucharist in turn establishes our opinion. 
For we offer to Him His own, announcing con- 
sistently the fellowship and union of the flesh 
and Spirits For as the bread, which is pro- 
duced from the earth, when it receives the invo- 
cation of God, is no longer common bread,° 
but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, 
earthly and heavenly ; so also our bodies, when 
they receive the Eucharist, are no longer cor- 
ruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to 
eternity. 

6. Now we make offering to Him, not as 
though He stood in need of it, but rendering 





1 The text here fluctuates between guod offertur Deo, and per 

uod offertur Deo. Massuet adopts the former, and Harvey the 
atter. If the first reading be chosen, the translation will be, ‘ the 
Word who is offered to God,” implying, according to Massuet, that 
the body of Christ is really offered as a sacrifice in the Eucharist; 
if the second reading be followed, the translation will be as above, 
[Massuet’s idea is no more to be found, even in his text, than Luther's 
or Calvin’s. The crucial point is, how offered? One may answer 
“figuratively,” “corporally,” ‘‘ mystically,” or otherwise. Irenzeus 
gives Be answer in this place, But see below. ] 

2 Comp. Massuet and Harvey respectively for the meaning to be 
attached to these words. 

3 Mark iv. 28. 

4 “Kither let them acknowledge that ¢he earth zs the Lord's, 
and the fulness thereof, or let them cease to offer to God those 
elements that they deny to be vouchsafed by Him,” — Harvey. 

5 That is, according to Harvey, “‘ while we offer to Him His own 
creatures of bread and wine, we tell forth the fellowship of flesh with 
spirit; i.e., that the flesh of every child of man is receptive of the 
Spirit.” The words, cai 6noAoyobvres . . . Eyepouv, which here occur | 
in the Greek text, are rejected as an interpolation by Grabe and Har- 
vey, but defended as genuine by Massuet. 

& See Harvey's long note on this passage, and what immediately 
follows. [But, note, we are only asking what Irenaeus teaches. Could 
words be plainer, — “‘ ¢wo realities,” — (i.) bread, (ii.) spiritual food ? 
Bread — but not “ common bread; ” matter and grace, flesh and Spirit. 
Te the Eucharist, an earthly and a heavenly part.] rt | 


thanks for His gift,7 and thus sanctifying what 
has been created. For even as God does not 
need our possessions, so do we need to offer 
something to God ; as Solomon says: “ He that 
hath pity upon the poor, lendeth unto the Lord.” ? 
For God, who stands in need of nothing, takes 
our good works to Himself for this purpose, that 
He may grant us a recompense of His own 
good things, as our Lord says: ‘Come, ye 
blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom pre- 
pared for you. For I was an hungered, and ye 
gave Me to eat: I was thirsty, and ye gave Me 
drink: I was a stranger, and ye took Me in: 
naked, and ye clothed Me; sick, and ye visited 
Me; in prison, and ye came to Me.’’9 As, 
therefore, He does not stand in need of these 
[services], yet does desire that we should render 
them for our own benefit, lest we be unfruitful ; 
so did the Word give to the people that very 
precept as to the making of oblations, although 
He stood in no need of them, that they might 
learn to serve God: thus is it, therefure, also 
His will that we, too, should offer a gift at the 
altar, frequently and without intermission. The 
altar, then, is in heaven '° (for towards that place 
are our prayers and oblations directed) ; the 
temple likewise [is there], as John says in the 
Apocalypse, “And the temple of God was 
opened :’’!* the tabernacle also: “For, behold,” 
He says, “the tabernacle of God, in which He 
will dwell with men.” 


CHAP. XIX. —- EARTHLY THINGS MAY BE THE TYPE 
OF HEAVENLY, BUT THE LATTER CANNOT BE 
THE TYPES OF OTHERS STILL SUPERIOR AND 
UNKNOWN ; NOR CAN WE, WITHOUT ABSOLUTE 
MADNESS, MAINTAIN THAT GOD IS KNOWN TO 
US ONLY AS THE TYPE OF A STILL UNKNOWN 
AND SUPERIOR BEING. 


1. Now the gifts, oblations, and all the sacri- 
fices, did the people receive in a figure, as was 
shown to Moses in the mount, from one and the 
same God, whose name is now glorified in. the 
Church among all nations. But it is congruous 
that those earthly things, indeed, which are 
spread all around us, should be types of the 
celestial, being [both], however, created by the 
same God. For in no other way could He 
assimilate an image of spiritual things [to suit 
our comprehension]. But to allege that those 
things which are super-celestial and spiritual, 
and, as far as we are concerned, invisible and 
ineffable, are in their turn the types of celestial 


——— 


7 The text fluctuates between dominationz and donationt. 

8 Prov. xix. 17. 

9 Matt. xxv. 34, etc. 

to (The Suxsumm Corda seems here in: mind. The object of Eu- 
charistic adoration is the Creator, our ‘‘ great High Priest, passed into 
the heavens,” and in bodily substance there cubioaee according ts 
otsriauthor.] (58) yo sen? Cee . j ie 
1 Rev. xi. 19. % 


IREN/EUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


things and of another Pleroma, and [to say] 
that God is the image of afiother Father, is to 
play the part both of wanderers from the truth, 
and of absolutely foolish and stupid persons. 
For, as I have repeatedly shown, such persons 
will. find it necessary to be continually finding 
out types of types, and images of images, and 
will never [be able to] fix their minds on one 
and the true God. For their imaginations range 
beyond God, they having in their hearts sur- 
passed the Master Himself, being indeed in idea 
elated and exalted above [Him], but in reality 
turning away from the true God. 

2. To these persons one may with justice say 
(as Scripture itself suggests), To what distance 
above God do ye lift up your imaginations, O 
ye rashly elated men? Ye have heard “ that 
the heavens are meted out in the palm of 
[ His] hand :” * tell me the measure, and recount 
the endless multitude of cubits, explain to me the 
fulness, the breadth, the length, the height, the be- 
ginning and end of the measurement, — things 
which the heart of man understands not, neither 
does it comprehend them. For the heavenly 
treasuries are indeed great : God cannot be meas- 
ured in the heart, and incomprehensible is He 
in the mind; He who holds the earth in the 
hollow of His hand. Who perceives the measure 
of His right hand? Who knoweth His finger? 
Or who doth understand His hand, — that hand 
which measures immensity ; that hand which, by 
its own measure, spreads out the measure of the 
‘heavens, and which comprises in its hollow the 
earth with the abysses ; which contains in itself 
the breadth, and length, and the deep below, 
and the height above of the whole creation ; 
which is seen, which is heard and understood, 
and which is invisible? And for this reason God 
is “ above all principality, and power, and domin- 
ion, and every name that is named,”? of all 
things which have been created and established. 
He it is who fills the heavens, and views the 
abysses, who is also present with every one of us. 
‘For he says, “Am I a God at hand, and not a 
God afar off ? If any man is hid in secret places, 
shall I not see him?” 3 For His hand lays hold 
of all things, and that it is which illumines the 
heavens, and lightens also the things which are 
under the heavens, and trieth the reins and the 
hearts, is also present in hidden things, and in 
our secret [thoughts], and does openly nourish 
and preserve us. 

3. But if man comprehends not the fulness 
and the greatness of His hand, how shall any 
one be able to understand or know in his heart 
so greata God? Yet, as if they had now meas- 
ured and thoroughly investigated Him, and 
ses ah fa) We ei aes ibe as a Ao 
1 Tsa. xl. 12. ; 


2 Eph. i. 2t. 
3 Jer. xxili. 23. 








487 


explored Him on every side,‘ they feign that 
beyond Him there exists another Pleroma of 
Eons, and another Father ; certainly not looking 
up to celestial things, but truly descending into 
a profound abyss (Bythus) of madness; main- 
taining that their Father extends only to the 
border of those things which are beyond the 
Pleroma, but that, on the other hand, the Demi- 
urge does not reach so far as the Pleroma; and 
thus they represent neither of them as being 
perfect and comprehending all things. For the 
former will be defective in regard to the whole 
world formed outside of the Pleroma, and the 
latter in respect of that [ideal] world which was 
formed within the Pleroma ; and [therefore] nei- 
ther of these can be the God of all. But that no 
one can fully declare the goodness of God from 
the things made by Him, is a point evident to 
all. And that His greatness is not defective, but 
contains all things, and extends even to us, and 
is with us, every one will confess who entertains 
worthy conceptions of God. 


CHAP. XX. — THAT ONE GOD FORMED ALL THINGS 
IN THE WORLD, BY MEANS OF THE WORD AND 
THE HOLY SPIRIT: AND THAT ALTHOUGH HE IS 
TO US IN THIS LIFE INVISIBLE AND INCOMPRE- 
HENSIBLE, NEVERTHELESS HE IS NOT UNKNOWN , 
INASMUCH AS HIS WORKS DO DECLARE HIM, AND 
HIS WORD HAS SHOWN THAT IN MANY MODES 
HE MAY BE SEEN AND KNOWN. 


1. As regards His greatness, therefore, it is 
not possible to know God, for it is impossible 
that the Father can be measured ; but as regards 
His love (for this it is which leads us to God by 
His Word), when we obey Him, we do always 
learn that there is so great a God, and that it is 
He who by Himself has established, and selected, 
and adorned, and contains all things ; and among 
the all things, both ourselves and this our world. 
We also then were made, along with those things 
which are contained by Him. And this is He 
of whom the Scripture says, “And God formed 
man, taking clay of the earth, and breathed into 
his face the breath of life.”5 It was not angels, 
therefore, who made us, nor who formed us, 
neither had angels power to make an image of 
God, nor any one else, except the Word of the 
Lord, nor any Power remotely distant from the 
Father of all things. For God did not stand in 
need of these [beings], in order to the accom- 
plishing of what He had Himself determined 
with Himself beforehand should be done, as if 
He did not possess His own hands. For with 
Him were always present the Word and Wisdom, 
the Son and the Spirit, by whom and in whom, 





4 The Latin is, “et universum eum decurrerint.” Harvey ima- 
gines that this last word corresponds to xatatpéxwot, but it is difficult 
to fit such a meaning into the context. me oe 

S$. Gen. ii. 7. - 


488 


freely and spontaneously, He made all things, to 
whom also He speaks, saying, “ Let Us make 
man after Our image and likeness ;”* He taking 
from Himself the substance of the creatures 
[formed], and the pattern of things made, and 
the type of all the adornments in the world. 

2. Truly, then, the Scripture declared, which 
says, “ First? of all believe that there is one God, 
who has established all things, and completed 
them, and having caused that from what had no 
being, all things should come into existence :” 
He who contains all things, and is Himself 
contained by no one. Rightly also has Malachi 
said,among the prophets: “Is it not one God 
who hath established us? Have we not all one 
Father?’’3 In accordance with this, too, does 
the apostle say, “There is one God, the Father, 
who is above all, andin us all.”4 Likewise does 
the Lord also say: “All things are delivered to 
Me by My Father;”5 manifestly by Him who 
made all things; for He did not deliver to Him 
the things of another, but His own. But in all 
things [it is implied that] nothing has been kept 
back [from Him], and for this reason the same 
person is the Judge of the living and the dead ; 
“having the key of David: He shall open, and 
no man shall shut: He shall shut, and no man 
shall open.”’® For no one was able, either in 
heaven or in earth, or under the earth, to open 
the book of the Father, or to behold Him, with 
the exception of the Lamb who was slain, and 
who redeemed us with His own blood, receiving 
power over all things from the same God who 
made all things by the Word, and adorned them 
by [His] Wisdom, when “the Word was made 
flesh ;” that even as the Word of God had the 
sovereignty in the heavens, so also might He 
have the sovereignty in earth, inasmuch as [He 
was] a righteous man, “who did no sin, neither 
was there found guile in His mouth;”7 and 
that He might have the pre-eminence over those 
things which are under the earth, He Himself 
being made “ the first-begotten of the dead ;’’® 
and that all things, as I have already said, might 
behold their King; and that the paternal light 
might meet with and rest upon the flesh of our 
Lord, and come to us from His resplendent 
flesh, and that thus man might attain to immor- 
eel having been invested with the paternal 
light. 

3. I have also largely demonstrated, that 
the Word, namely the Son, was always with 
the Father; and that Wisdom also, which is the 


T Gen. i. 26, 
_, 2 This quotation is taken from the Shepherd of Hermas, book 
ii. sim. 1. 

3 Mal. ii. 10. 

4 Eph. iv, 6, 

5 Matt. xi. 27. 

6 Rev. iii. 7. 

7 x Pet. ii. 23. 

8 Col. i. 18. 





IRENZZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


Spirit, was present with Him, anterior to all 
creation, He declares by Solomon: “ God by 
Wisdom founded the earth, and by understand- 
ing hath He established the heaven. By His 
knowledge the depths burst forth, and the clouds 
dropped down the dew.”9 And again: “The 
Lord created me the beginning of His ways in 
His work: He set me up from everlasting, in the 
beginning, before He made the earth, before 
He established the depths, and before the foun- 
tains of waters gushed forth; before the moun- 
tains were made strong, and before all the hills, 
He brought me forth.”*° And again: “ When 
He prepared the heaven, I was with Him, and 
when He established the fountains of the deep ; 
when He made the foundations of the earth 
strong, I was with Him preparing [them]. I 
was He in whom He rejoiced, and throughout all 
time I was daily glad before His face, when He 
rejoiced at the completion of the world, and 
was delighted in the sons of men.” ™" 

4. There is therefore one God, who by the 
Word and Wisdom created and arranged all 
things ; but this is the Creator (Demiurge) who 
has granted this world to the human race, and 
who, as regards His greatness, is indeed unknown 
to all who have been made by Him (for no man 
has searched out His height, either among the 
ancients who have gone to their rest, or any of 
those who are now alive) ; but as regards His 
love, He is always known through Him by 
whose means He ordained all things. Now this 
is His Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, who in the 
last times was made a man among men, that He 
might join the end to the beginning, that is, man 
to God. Wherefore the prophets, receiving the 
prophetic gift from the same Word, announced - 
His advent according to the flesh, by which the 
blending and communion of God and man took 
place according to the good pleasure of the 
Father, the Word of God foretelling from the 
beginning that God should be seen by men, and 
hold converse with them upon earth, should 
confer with them, and should be present with 
His own creation, saving it, and becoming capa- 
ble of being perceived by it, and freeing us from 
the hands of all that hate us, that is, from every 
spirit of wickedness; and causing us to serve 
Him in holiness and righteousness all our days,’ 
in order that man, having embraced the Spirit 
of God, might pass into the glory of the Father. 

5. These things did the prophets set forth in 
a prophetical manner ; but they did not, as some 
allege, [proclaim] that He who was seen by the 
prophets was a different [God], the Father of 





9 Prov. iii, 19, 20. 
_ 10 Prov. vill. 22~25. [This is one of the favourite Messianic quota- 
tions of the Fathers, and is considered as the base of the first chapter 
of St. John’s Gospel. ] 

Il Prov. viii. 27-31. 

12 Luke i. 71, 75. 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


all being invisible. Yet this is what those [here- 
tics] declare, who are altogether ignorant of the 
nature of prophecy. For prophecy is a predic- 
tion of things future, that is, a setting forth 
beforehand of those things which shall be after- 
wards. ‘The prophets, then, indicated before- 
hand that God should be seen by men; as the 
Lord also says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, 
for they shall see God.” But in respect to 
His greatness, and His wonderful glory, “no 
man shall see God and live,’’? for the Father is 
incomprehensible ; but in regard to His love, 
and kindness, and as to His infinite power, even 
this He grants to those who love Him, that is, 
to see God, which thing the prophets did also 
predict. “ For those things that are impossible 
with-men, are possible with God.”’3 For man 
does not see God by his own powers ; but when 
He pleases He is seen by men, by whom He 
wills, and when He wills, and as He wills. For 
God is powerful in all things, having been seen 
at that time indeed, prophetically through the 
Spirit, and seen, too, adoptively through the 
Son; and He shall also be seen paternally in 
the kingdom of heaven, the Spirit truly prepar- 
ing man in the Son‘ of God, and the Son lead- 
ing him to the Father, while the Father, too, 
confers [upon him] incorruption for eternal life, 
which comes to every one from the fact of his 
seeing God. For as those who see the light are 
within the light, and partake of its brilliancy ; 
even so, those who see God are in God, and 
receive of His splendour. But [His] splendour 
vivifies them ; those, therefore, who see God, do 
receive life. And for this reason, He, [although] 
beyond comprehension, and boundless and in- 
visible, rendered Himself visible, and compre- 
hensible, and within the capacity of those who 
believe, that He might vivify those who receive 
and behold Him through faith.s For as His 
greatness is past finding out, so also His good- 
ness is beyond expression ; by which having been 
seen, He bestows life upon those who see Him. 
It is not possible to live apart from life, and the 
means of life is found in fellowship with God ; 
but fellowship with God is to know God, and to 
enjoy His goodness. 

6. Men therefore shall see God, that they 
may live, being made immortal by that sight, 
and attaining even unto God ; which, as I have 
already said, was declared figuratively by the 
prophets, that God should be seen by men who 
bear His Spirit [in them], and do always wait 
patiently for His coming. As also Moses says 
in Deuteronomy, “We shall see in that day that 


oo — 


t Matt. v. 8. 

2 Ex. xxxill, 20. 

3 Luke xviii. 27. Sabet 

4 Some read “‘ fe filium” instead of “‘ in filio,” as above. 
5 A part of the original Greek text 1s preserved here, 


and has 
been ioliowed, as it makes the better sense, . 








489 


God will talk to man, and he shall live.”® For 
certain of these men used to see the prophetic 
Spirit and His active influences poured forth for 
all kinds of gifts; others, again, [beheld] the 
advent of the Lord, and that dispensation which 
obtained from the beginning, by which He ac- 
complished the will of the Father with regard 
to things both celestial and terrestrial; and 
others [beheld] paternal glories adapted to the 
times, and to those who saw and who heard them 
then, and to all who were subsequently to hear 
them. Thus, therefore, was God revealed ; for 
God the Father is shown forth through all these 
[operations], the Spirit indeed working, and the 
Son ministering, while the Father was approving, 
and man’s salvation being accomplished. As 
He also declares through Hosea the prophet: 
“TJ,” He says, “have multiplied visions, and 
have used similitudes by the ministry (¢” mant- 
bus) of the prophets.”? But the apostle ex- 
pounded this very passage, when he said, ‘‘ Now 
there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit ; 
and there are differences of ministrations, but 
the same Lord; and there are diversities of 
operations, but it is the same God which work- 
eth all in all. But the manifestation of the 
Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” ® 
But as He who worketh all things in all is God, 
[as to the points] of what nature and how great 
He is, [God] is invisible and indescribable to 
all things which have been made by Him, but 
He is by no means unknown: for all things 
learn through His Word that there is one God 
the Father, who contains all things, and who 
grants existence to all, as is written in the Gos- 
pel: “No man hath seen God at any time, 
except the only-begotten Son, who is in the 
bosom of the Father ; He has declared [Him.]”” 
7. Therefore the Son of the Father declares 
Him] from the beginning, inasmuch as He was 
with the Father from the beginning, who did also 
show to the human race prophetic visions, and 
diversities of gifts, and His own ministrations, 
and the glory of the Father, in regular order and 
connection, at the fitting time for the benefit 
[of mankind]. For where there is a regular 
succession, there is also fixedness; and where 
fixedness, there suitability to the period; and 
where suitability, there also utility. And for this 
reason did the Word become the dispenser of 
the paternal grace for the benefit of men, for 
whom He made such great dispensations, reveal- 
ing God indeed to men, but presenting man to 
God, and preserving at the same time the invisi- 
bility of the Father, lest man should at any time 
become a despiser of God, and that he shouid 


ae eee ee 







6 Deut. v. 24. 

7 Hos, xti.r0;° 
8 x Cor. xii. 4-7. 
9 John i, 18, 


490 
always possess something towards which he 
might advance ; but, on the other hand, reveal- 
ing God to men through many dispensations, lest 
man, falling away from God altogether, should 
cease to exist. For the glory of God is a living 
man ; and the life of man consists in beholding 
God. For if the manifestation of God which is 
made by means of the creation, affords life to all 
living in the earth, much more does that revela- 
tion of the Father which comes through the 
Word, give life to those who see God. 

8. Inasmuch, then, as the Spirit of God 
pointed out by the prophets things to come, 
forming and adapting us beforehand for the pur- 
pose of our being made subject to God, but it 
was still a future thing that man, through the 
good pleasure of the Holy Spirit, should see 
[God], it necessarily behoved those through 
whose instrumentality future things were an- 
nounced, to see God, whom they intimated as 
to be seen by men; in order that God, and the 
Son of God, and the Son, and the Father, should 
not only be prophetically announced, but that 
He should also be seen by all His members who 
are sanctified and instructed in the things of 
God, that man might be disciplined beforehand 
and previously exercised for a reception into that 
glory which shall afterwards be revealed in those 
who love God. For the prophets used not to 
prophesy in word alone, but in visions also, and 
in their mode of life, and in the actions which 
they performed, according to the suggestions of 
the Spirit. After this invisible manner, therefore, 
did they see God, as also Esaias says, “I have 
seen with mine eyes the King, the Lorp of 
hosts,” * pointing out that man should behold 
God with his eyes, and hear His voice. In this 
manner, therefore, did they also see the Son of 
God as a man conversant with men, while they 
prophesied what was to happen, saying that He 
who was not come as yet was present ; proclaim- 
ing also the impassible as subject to suffering, 
and declaring that He who was then in heaven 
had descended into the dust of death.2 More- 
over, [with regard to] the other arrangements 
concerning the summing up that He should 
make, some of these they beheld through visions, 
others they proclaimed by word, while others 
they indicated typically by means of [outward] 
action, seeing visibly those things which were to 
be seen; heralding by word of mouth those 
which should be heard; and performing by 
actual operation what should take place by ac- 
tion; but [at the same time] announcing all 
prophetically. Wherefore also Moses declared 
that God was indeed a consuming fire3 (7eneum) 
to the people that transgressed the law, and 





1 Isa, vi. 5. 
2 Ps, xxii. rg. 
3 Deut. iv. a4. 





IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


threatened that God would bring upon them a 
day of fire; but to those who had the fear of 
God he said, “The Lorp God is merciful and 
gracious, and long-suffering, and of great com- 
miseration, and true, and keeps justice and 
mercy for thousands, forgiving unrighteousness, 
and transgressions, and sins.” 4 

g. And the Word spake to Moses, appearing 
before him, “just as any one might speak to his 
friend.” 5 But Moses desired to see Him openly 
who was speaking with him, and was thus ad- 
dressed : “Stand in the deep place of the rock, 
and with My hand I will cover thee. But when 
My splendour shall pass by, then thou shalt see 
My back parts, but My face thou shalt not see: 
for no man sees My face, and shall live.”° Two 
facts are thus signified: that it is impossible for 
man to see God ; and that, through the wisdom 
of God, man shall see Him in the last times, in 
the depth of a rock, that is, in His coming as a 
man. And for this reason did He [the Lord] 
confer with him face to face on the top of a 
mountain, Elias being also present, as the Gospel 
relates,7 He thus making good in the end the 
ancient promise. 

10. The prophets, therefore, did not openly 
behold the actual face of God, but [they saw] 
the dispensations and the mysteries through 
which man should afterwards see God. As was 
also said to Elias: “Thou shalt go forth to- 
morrow, and stand in the presence of the Lorn ; 
and, behold, a wind great and strong, which 
shall rend the mountains, and break the rocks 
in pieces before the Lorp. And the Lorp [was] 
not in the wind; and after the wind an earth- 
quake, but the Lorp [was] not in the earth- 
quake ; and after the earthquake a fire, but the 
Lord [was] not in the fire; and after the fire a 
scarcely audible voice” (vox aure fenuis).® 
For by such means was the prophet — very in- 
dignant, because of the transgression of the 
people and the slaughter of the prophets — both 
taught to act in a more gentle manner; and the 
Lord’s advent as a man was pointed out, that it 
should be subsequent to that law which was given 
by Moses, mild and tranquil, in which He would 
neither break the bruised reed, nor quench the 
smoking flax.2 The mild and peaceful repose 
of His kingdom was indicated likewise. For, 
after the wind which rends the mountains, and 
after the earthquake, and after the fire, come the 
tranquil and peaceful times of His kingdom, in 
which the Spirit of God does, in the most gentle 
manner, vivify and increase mankind. This, too, 
was made still clearer by Ezekiel, that the proph- 





4 Ex, xxxiv. 6, 7. 
5 Num. xii. 8. 
Ex. xxxiil, 20-22, 
7 Matt. xvii. 3, etc. 
8 x Kings xix. 12, t2, 
9 Isa. xlii. 3. 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


491 





ets saw the dispensations of God in part, but not 
actually God Himself. For when this man had 
seen the vision: of God, and the cherubim, and 
their wheels, and when he had recounted the 
mystery of the whole of that progression, and 
had beheld the likeness of a throne above them, 
and upon the throne a likeness as of the figure 
of a man, and the things which were upon his 
loins as the figure of amber, and what was below 
like the sight of fire, and when he set forth all 
the rest of the vision of the thrones, lest any one 
might happen to think that in those [visions] he 
had actually seen God, he added: “This was the 
appearance of the likeness of the glory of God.”? 

11. If, then, neither Moses, nor Elias, nor 
Ezekiel, who had all many celestial visions, did 
see God ; but if what they did see were simili- 
tudes of the splendour of the Lord, and prophe- 
cies of things to come; it is manifest that the 
Father is indeed invisible, of whom also the Lord 
said, “No man hath seen God at any time.’’3 
But His Word, as He Himself willed it, and for 
the benefit of those who beheld, did show the 
Father’s brightness, and explained His purposes 
(as also the Lord said: “The only-begotten 
God,‘ which is in the bosom of the Father, He 
hath declared [Him] ;” and He does Himself 
also interpret the Word of the Father as being 
tich and great) ; not in one figure, nor in one 
character, did He appear to those seeing Him, 
but according to the reasons and effects aimed 
at in His dispensations, as it is written in Daniel. 
For at one time He was seen with those who 
were around Ananias, Azarias, Misael, as present 
with them in the furnace of fire, in the burning, 
and preserving them from [the effects of ] fire: 
“ And the appearance of the fourth,” it is said, 
“was like to the Son of God.”5 At another 
time [He is represented as] “a stone cut out of 
the mountain without hands,”® and as smiting 
all temporal kingdoms, and as blowing them 
away (ventilans ea), and as Himself filling all 
the earth. Then, too, is this same individual 
beheld as the Son of man coming in the clouds 
of heaven, and drawing near to the Ancient of 
Days, and receiving from Him all power and 
glory, and a kingdom. “ His dominion,”’ it is 
said, “is an everlasting dominion, and His king- 
dom shall not perish.”7 John also, the Lord’s 
disciple, when beholding the sacerdotal and 
glorious advent of His kingdom, says in the 
Apocalypse: “I turned to see the voice that 
Lp hese RALLIES. 


1 Ezek. i, 1. 

2 Ezek, ii, 1. 

3 John i, 18. } : st ¥: , 

4 This text, as quoted a short time ago, indicated ‘the only- 
begotten Son;’ but the agreement of the Syriac version induces the 
belief that the present reading was that expressed by Irenzus, and 
that the previous quotation has been corrected to suit the Vulgate. 
The former reading, however, occurs in book iii, c. xi. 5.” — HARVEY. 

5 Dan. iii. 26. 

© Dan. vii. 13, 14. 

7 Dan. vii. 4. 





spake with me. And, being turned, I saw seven 
golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the 
candlesticks One like unto the Son of man, 
clothed with a garment reaching to the feet, and 
girt about the paps with a golden girdle; and 
His head and His hairs were white, as white as 
wool, and as snow; and His eyes were as a 
flame of fire ; and His feet like unto fine brass, 
as if He burned in a furnace. And His voice 
[was] as the voice of waters; and He had in 
His right hand seven stars; and out of His 
mouth went a sharp two-edged sword ; and 
His countenance was as the sun shining in his 
strength.” * For in these words He sets forth 
something of the glory [which He has received] 
from His Father, as [where He makes mention 
of ] the head; something in reference to the 
priestly office also, as in the case of the long 
garment reaching to the feet. And this was the 
reason why Moses vested the high priest after 
this fashion. Something also alludes to the end 
[of all things], as [where He speaks of ] the 
fine brass burning in the fire, which denotes 
the power of faith, and the continuing instant 
in prayer, because of the consuming fire which 
is to come at the end of time. But when John 
could not endure the sight (for he says, “I fell 
at his feet as dead;”9 that what was written 
might come to pass: “ No man sees God, and 
shall live’ ?°), and the Word reviving him, and 
reminding him that it was He upon whose bosom 
he had leaned at supper, when he put the ques- 
tion as to who should betray Him, declared: “I 
am the first and the last, and He who liveth, and 
was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, 
and have the keys of death and of hell.” And 
after these things, seeing the same Lord in a 
second vision, he says: “ For I saw in the midst 
of the throne, and of the four living creatures, 
and in the midst of the elders, a Lamb standing 
as it had been slain, having seven horns, and 
seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, 
sent forth into all the earth.”"" And again, he 
says, speaking of this very same Lamb: “ And 
behold a white horse; and He that sat upon 
him was called Faithful and True ; and in right- 
eousness doth He judge and make war. And 
His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His 
head were many crowns ; having a name written, 
that no man knoweth but Himself: and He was 
girded around with a vesture sprinkled with 
blood: and His name is called The Word of 
God. And the armies of heaven followed Him 
upon white horses, clothed in pure white linen. 
And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that 
with it He may smite the nations ; and He shall 
LO! ES EEE EES EE SS 
8 Rev. i. 12. 
9 Rev. i. 17. 


to Ex, xxxill. 20. 
It Rey, v. 6. 


492 





rule (fasce/) them with a rod of iron: and He 
treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness of the 
wrath of God Almighty. And He hath upon 
His vesture and upon His thigh a name written, 
KING OF KINGS AND LorD OF Lorps.”' Thus 
does the Word of God always preserve the out- 
lines, as it were, of things to come, and points 
out to men the various forms (sfecies), as it 
were, of the dispensations of the Father, teach- 
ing us the things pertaining to God. 

12. However, it was not by means of visions 
alone which were seen, and words which were 
proclaimed, but also in actual works, that He 
was beheld by the prophets, in order that through 
them He might prefigure and show forth future 
events beforehand. For this reason did Hosea 
the prophet take “a wife of whoredoms,” prophe- 
sying by means of the action, “that in commit- 
ting fornication the earth should fornicate from 
the Lorp,”? that is, the men who are upon the 
earth; and from men of this stamp it will be 
God’s good pleasure to take out’ a Church 
which shall be sanctified by fellowship with His 
Son, just as that woman was sanctified by inter- 
course with the prophet. And for this reason, 
Paul declares that the “ unbelieving wife is sanc- 
tified by the believing husband.”4+ Then again, 
the prophet names his children, “ Not having 
obtained mercy,” and “ Not a people,” 5 in order 
that, as says the apostle, “ what was not a people 
may become a people; and she who did not 
obtain mercy may obtain mercy. And it shall 
come to pass, that in the place where it was 
said, This is not a people, there shall they be 
called the children of the living God.”® That 
which had been done typically through his ac- 
tions by the prophet, the apostle proves to have 
been done truly by Christ in the Church. Thus, 
too, did Moses also take to wife an Ethiopian 
woman, whom he thus made an Israelitish one, 
showing by anticipation that the wild olive tree 
is grafted into the cultivated olive, and made to 
partake of its fatness. For as He who was born 
Christ according to the flesh, had indeed to be 
sought after by the people in order to be slain, 
but was to be set free in Egypt, that is, among 
the Gentiles, to sanctify those who were there in 
a state of infancy, from whom also He perfected 
His Church in that place (for Egypt was Gentile 
from the beginning, as was Ethiopia also) ; for 
this reason, by means of the marriage of Moses, 
was shown forth the marriage of the Word ;7 





I Rey. xix. 11-17. 

2 Hos, i. 2, 3. 

3 Acts xv. 14. 

4 Cor. vii. 14. [But Hosea himself says (xii. 10), “I have 
used similitudes; ” and this history may be fairly referred to prophetic 
vision. Dr, Pusey, in his Minor Prophets, tn loc., argues against 
this view, however; and his reasons deserve consideration. ] 

5 Hos, i. 6-9. 

6 Rom. ix. 25, 26. 

7 The text is here uncertain; and while the general meaning of 
the sentence is plain, its syntax is confused and obscure, 





IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


and by means of the Ethiopian bride, the Church 
taken from among the Gentiles was made mani- . 
fest; and those who do detract from, accuse, 
and deride it, shall not be pure. For they shall 
be full of leprosy, and expelled from the camp 
of the righteous. Thus also did Rahab the har-. 
lot, while condemning herself, inasmuch as she 
was a Gentile, guilty of all sins, nevertheless 
receive the three spies,® who were spying out all 
the land, and hid them at her home; [which 
three were] doubtless [a type of] the Father 
and the Son, together with the Holy Spirit. 
And when the entire city in which she lived 
fell to ruins at the sounding of the seven trum- 
pets, Rahab the harlot was preserved, when all 
was over [iu ultimis], together with all her 
house, through faith of the scarlet sign; as the 
Lord also declared to those who did not receive 
His advent,—the Pharisees, no doubt, nullify 
the sign of the scarlet thread, which meant the 
passover, and the redemption and exodus of 
the people from Egypt, — when He said, “The 
publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom 
of heaven before you.” 9 


CHAP. XXI.—ABRAHAM’S FAITH WAS IDENTICAL 
WITH OURS; THIS FAITH WAS PREFIGURED BY 
THE WORDS AND ACTIONS OF THE OLD PATRI- 
ARCHS. 


1. But that our faith was also prefigured in 
Abraham, and that he was the patriarch of our 
faith, and, as it were, the prophet of it, the apostle 
has very fully taught, when he says in the Epistle 
to the Galatians: “He therefore that ministereth 
to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among 
you, [doeth he it] by the works of the law, or by 
the hearing of faith? Even as Abraham believed 
God, and it was accounted unto him for righteous- 
ness. Know ye therefore, that they which are 
of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. 
But the Scripture, foreseeing that God would 
justify the heathen through faith, announced be- 
forehand unto Abraham, that in him all nations 
should be blessed. So then they which be of 
faith shall be’ blessed with faithful Abraham.” ?° 
For which [reasons the apostle] declared that 
this man was not only the prophet of faith, but 
also the father of those who from among the 
Gentiles believe in Jesus Christ, because his faith 
and ours are one and the same: for he believed 
in things future, as if they were already accom- 
plished, because of the promise of God; and in 
like manner do we also, because of the promise 
of God, behold through faith that inheritance 
[laid up for us] in the [future] kingdom. 

2. The history of Isaac, too, is not without a 


8 Trenzus seems here to have written “ three” for “two” from a 
lapse of memory. 

9 Matt. xxi. 31, 

10 Gal, iti, 5-9; Gen. xii. 3. 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


493 





symbolical character. For in the Epistle to the 
Romans, the apostle declares: ‘ Moreover, when 
Rebecca had conceived by one, even by our 
father Isaac,” she received answer' from the 
Word, “that the purpose of God according to 
election might stand, not of works, but of Him 
that calleth, it was said unto her, Two nations 
are in thy womb, and two manner of people are 
in thy body; and the one people shall over- 
come the other, and the elder shall serve the 
younger.” 2 From which it is evident, that not 
only [were there] prophecies of the patriarchs, 
but also that the children brought forth by Re- 
becca were a prediction of the two nations ; and 
that the one should be indeed the greater, but 
the other the less ; that the one also should be 
under bondage, but the other free; but [that 
both should be] of one and the same father. 
Our God, one and the same, is also their God, 
who knows hidden things, who knoweth all things 
before they can come to pass; and for this 
reason has He said, “Jacob have I loved, but 
Esau have I hated.” 3 

3. If any one, again, will look into Jacob’s 
actions, he shall find them not destitute of mean- 
ing, but full of import with regard to the dis- 
pensations. Thus, in the first place, at his birth, 
since he laid hold on his brother’s heel,4 he was 
called Jacob, that is, she supplanter — one who 
holds, but is not held ; binding the feet, but not 
being bound ; striving and conquering ; grasping 
in his hand his adversary’s heel, that is, victory. 
For to this end was the Lord born, the type of 
whose birth he set forth beforehand, of whom 
also John says in the Apocalypse: ‘“ He went 
forth conquering, that He should conquer.” 5 In 
the next place, [Jacob] received the rights of the 
first-born, when his brother looked on them with 
contempt ; even as also the younger nation re- 
ceived Him, Christ, the first-begotten, when the 
elder nation rejected Him, saying, “ We have no 
king but Czsar.”° But in Christ every blessing 
[is summed up], and therefore the latter people 
has snatched away the blessings of the former 
from the Father, just as Jacob took away the 
blessing of this Esau. For which cause his 
brother suffered the plots and persecutions of a 
brother, just as the Church suffers this self-same 
thing from the Jews. Ina foreign country were 
the twelve tribes born, the race of Israel, inas- 
much as Christ was also, in a strange country, to 
generate the twelve-pillared foundation of the 
Church. Various coloured sheep were allotted to 
this Jacob as his wages ; and the wages of Christ 
are human beings, who from various and diverse 
nn nine sa 

I Massuet would cancel these words. j 

2 Rom. ix. 10-13; Gen. xxv. 23. 

3 Rom. ix. 13; Mal. i. 2. 

4 Gen. xxv. 26. 


5 Rey. vi. 2. 
© John xix. 15. 








nations come together into one cohort of faith, 
as the Father promised Him, saying, “ Ask of 
Me, and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine 
inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for 
Thy possession.”7 And as from the multitude 
of his sons the prophets of the Lord [afterwards | 
arose, there was every necessity that Jacob should 
beget sons from the two sisters, even as Christ did 
from the two laws of one and the same Father ; 
and in like manner also from the handmaids, in- 
dicating that Christ should raise up sons of God, 
both from freemen and from slaves after the flesh, 
bestowing upon all, in the same manner, the gift 
of the Spirit, who vivifies us. But he (Jacob) 
did all things for the sake of the younger, she who 
had the handsome eyes,? Rachel, who prefigured_ 
the Church, for which Christ endured patiently ; 


who at that time, indéed, by means of His patri- 
archs and prophets, was prefiguring and declaring 
beforehand future things, fulfilling His -part by 
anticipation in the dispensations of God, and 
accustoming His inheritance to obey God, and to 
pass through the world as ina state of pilgrimage, 
to follow His word, and to indicate beforehand 
things tocome. For with God there is nothing 
without purpose or due signification. 


CHAP, XXII. — CHRIST DID NOT COME FOR THE SAKE 
OF THE MEN OF ONE AGE ONLY, BUT FOR ALL 
WHO, LIVING RIGHTEOUSLY AND PIOUSLY, HAD 
BELIEVED UPON HIM; AND FOR THOSE, TOO, 
WHO SHALL BELIEVE. 


1. Now in the last days, when the fulness of 
the time of liberty had arrived, the Word Him- 
self did by Himself “ wash away the filth of the 
daughters of Zion,” * when He washed the dis- 
ciples’ feet with His own hands." For this is 
the end of the human race inheriting God ; that 
as in the beginning, by means of our first [par- 
ents], we were all brought into bondage, by 
being made subject to death; so at last, by 
means of the New Man, all who from the begin- 
ning [were His] disciples, having been cleansed 
and washed from things pertaining to death. 
should come to the life of God. For He whe 
washed the feet of the disciples sanctified the 
entire body, and rendered it clean. For this 
reason, too, He administered food to them in a 
recumbent posture, indicating that those who 
were lying in the earth were they to whom He 
came to impart life. As Jeremiah declares, 
“The holy Lord remembered His dead Israel, 
who slept in the land of sepulture ; and He 
descended to them to make known to them His 


ae Se SS 


7 Ps, ii. 8. t 5 F 

8 ‘The text of this sentence is in great confusion, ana we can give 
only a doubtful translation. : 

5 {Leah’s eyes were weak, according to the LXX.; and Irenzus 
infers that Rachel’s were “ beautiful exceedingly.” Canticles, i. 15.] 

10 Tsa. iv. 4. 


11 John xiil. 5. 


494 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 








salvation, that they might be saved.”' For this 
reason also were the eyes of the disciples 
weighed down when Christ’s passion was ap- 
proaching ; and when, in the first instance, the 
Lord found them sleeping, He let it pass, — 
thus indicating the patience of God in regard 
to the state of slumber in which men lay; but 
coming the second time, He aroused them, and 
made them stand up, in token that His passion 
/ is the arousing of His sleeping disciples, on 
| whose account “He also descended into the 
‘lower parts of the earth,” to behold with His 
| eyes the state of those who were resting from 
\ their labours,3 in reference to whom He did also 
\ declare to the disciples: “ Many prophets and 
\righteous men have desired to see and hear 
what ye do see and hear.’’4 
2. For it was not merely for those who be- 
lieved on Him in the time of Tiberius Cesar 
that Christ came, nor did the Father exercise 
His providence for the men only who are now 
alive, but for all men altogether, who from the 
beginning, according to their capacity, in their 
generation have both feared and loved God, and 
practised justice and piety towards their neigh- 
bours, and have earnestly desired to see Christ, 
and to hear His voice. Wherefore He shall, at 
His second coming, first rouse from their sleep 
all persons of this description, and shall raise 
them up, as well as the rest who shall be judged, 
and give them a place in His kingdom. For it 
3 truly “one God who” directed the patriarchs 
towards His dispensations, and “has justified 
the circumcision by faith, and the uncircum- 
cision through faith.”5 For as in the first we 
were prefigured, so, on the other hand, are they 
represented in us, that is, in the Church, and 
receive the recompense for those things which 
they accomplished. 


CHAP. XXIII.—THE PATRIARCHS AND PROPHETS, 
BY POINTING OUT THE ADVENT OF CHRIST, FORTI- 
FIED THEREBY, AS IT WERE, THE WAY OF POS- 
TERITY TO THE FAITH OF CHRIST ; AND SO THE 
LABOURS OF THE APOSTLES WERE LESSENED, 
INASMUCH AS THEY GATHERED IN THE FRUITS 
OF THE LABOURS OF OTHERS. 


1. For which reason the Lord declared to the 
disciples : “ Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your 
eyes, and look upon the districts (vegiones), for 
they are white [already] to harvest. For the 
harvest-man receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit 

-unto life eternal, that both he that soweth and 
he that reapeth may rejoice together. For in 
this is the saying true, that one soweth and an- 





., 7 This spurious quotation has been irtroduced before, See book 
tii, 20, 4. 

2 Eph. iv. 9. 
. 3 So Harvey understands the obscure Latin text, “id quod erat 
inoperatum conditionis.” 

4 Matt. xiii. 17. 

5 Rom. iii. 30, 











other réapeth. For I have sent you forward to 
reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour ; other 
men have laboured, and ye have entered into 
their labours.” © Who, then, are they that have 
laboured, and have helped forward the dispensa- 
tions of God? It is clear that they are the patri- 


archs and prophets, who even prefigured our faith, 
and disseminated through the earth the advent 
of the Son of God, who and what He should be 
so that posterity, possessing the fear of God, 
might easily accept the advent of Christ, having 
been instructed by the prophets. And for this 
reason it was, that when Joseph became aware 
that Mary was with child, and was minded to put 
her away privily, the angel said to him in sleep: 
“ Fear not to take to thee Mary thy wife ; for that 
which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. 
For she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call 
His name Jesus; for He shall save His people 
from their sins.”7 And exhorting him [to this], 
he added: ‘“ Now all this has been done, that it 
might be fulfilled which was spoken from the 
Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin 
shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, 
and His name shall be called Emmanuel ;”’ thus 
influencing him by the words of the prophet, 
and warding off blame from Mary, pointing out 
that it was she who was the virgin mentioned 
by Isaiah beforehand, who should give birth to 
Emmanuel. Wherefore, when Joseph was con- 
vinced beyond all doubt, he both did take Mary, 
and joyfully yielded obedience in regard to all 
the rest of the education of Christ, undertaking 
a journey into Egypt and back again, and then a 
removal to Nazareth. [For this reason,] those 
who knew not the Scriptures nor the promise of 
God, nor the dispensation of Christ, at last called 
him the father of the child. For this reason, 
too, did the Lord Himself read at Capernaum 
the prophecies of Isaiah: * “The Spirit of the 
Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed 
Me; to preach the Gospel to the poor hath He 
sent Me, to heal the broken-hearted, to preach 
deliverance to the captives, and sight to the 
blind.” 9 At the sarne time, showing that it was 
He Himself who had been foretold by Esaias the 
prophet, He said to them: “This day is this 
Scripture fulfilled yn your ears.” 

2. For this reason, also, Philip, when he had 
discovered the evnuch of the Ethiopians’ queen 
reading these words which had been written : 
“He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and 
as a lamb is dumb before the shearer, so He 
opened not His; mouth: in His humiliation His 
judgment was taken away ;’’ and all the rest 
which the prophet proceeded to relate in regard 





© John iv. 35, er: 

7 Matt. i. 20, ef. 

8 Luke iv. 18 

9 Isa. Ixi. x. 

10 Acts viii. 27. (sa. liii, 7, 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


495 





to His passion and His coming in the flesh, and 
how He was dishonoured by those who did not 
believe Him; easily persuaded him to believe 
on Him, that He was Christ Jesus, who was cruci- 
fied under Pontius Pilate, and suffered whatsoever 
the prophet had predicted, and that He was 
the Son of God, who gives eternal life to men. 
And immediately when [Philip] had baptized 
him, he departed from him. For nothing else 
[but baptism] was wanting to him who had been 
already instructed by the prophets: he was not 
ignorant of God the Father, nor of the rules as 
to the [proper] manner of life, but was merely 
ignorant of the advent of the Son of God, which, 
when he had become acquainted with, in a short 
space of time, he went on his way rejoicing, 
to be the herald in Ethiopia_of Christ’s advent. 
Therefore Philip had no great labour to go 
through with regard to this man, because he was 
already prepared in the fear of God by the 
prophets. For this reason, too, did the apostles, 
collecting the sheep which had perished of the 
house of Israel, and discoursing to them from the 
Scriptures, prove that this crucified Jesus was 
the Christ, the Son of the living God; and they 
persuaded a great multitude, who, however, 
[already] possessed the fear of God. And there 
were, in one day, baptized three, and four, and 
five thousand men. 


CHAP. XXIV. — THE CONVERSION OF THE GENTILES 
WAS MORE DIFFICULT THAN THAT OF THE JEWS ; 
THE LABOURS OF THOSE APOSTLES, THEREFORE, 
WHO ENGAGED IN THE FORMER TASK, WERE 
GREATER THAN THOSE WHO UNDERTOOK THE 
LATTER. 


1. Wherefore also Paul, since he was the apos- 
tle of the Gentiles, says, “‘I laboured more than 
they all.” For the instruction of the former, 
iviz., the Jews,] was an easy task, because they 
could allege proofs from the Scriptures, and be- 
cause they, who were in the habit of hearing 
Moses and the prophets, did also readily receive 
the First-begotten of the dead, and the Prince 
of the life of God, — Him who, by the spreading 
forth of hands, did destroy Amalek, and vivify 
man from the wound of the serpent, by means 
of faith which was [exercised] towards Him. 
As I have pointed out in the preceding book, the 
apostle did, in the first place, instruct the Gen- 
tiles to depart from the superstition of idols, and 
to worship one God, the Creator of heaven and 
earth, and the Framer of the whole creation ; 
and that His Son was His Word, by whom He 
founded all things ; and that He, in the last times, 
was made a man among men ; that He re-formed 
the human race, but destroyed and conquered 
the enemy of man, and gave to His handiwork 


(i) eee eee 
I Acts ii. 41, iv. 4. 
2 x Cor, xv. 10. 











victory against the adversary. But although they 
who were of the circumcision still did not obey 
the words of God, for they were despisers, yet 
they were previously instructed not to commit 
adultery, nor fornication, nor theft, nor fraud; 
and that whatsoever things are done to our neigh- 
bours’ prejudice, were evil, and detested by God. 
Wherefore also they did readily agree to abstain 
from these things, because they had been thus 
instructed. 

2. But they were bound to teach the Gentiles 
also this very thing, that works of such a nature 
were wicked, prejudicial, and useless, and de- 
structive to those who engaged in them. Where- 
fore he who had received the apostolate to 
the Gentiles, did labour more than those who 
preached the Son of God among them of the 
circumcision. For they were assisted by the 
Scriptures, which the Lord confirmed and ful- 
filled, in coming such as He had been announced ; 
but here, [in the case of the Gentiles, ] there was 
a certain foreign erudition, and a new doctrine 
[to be received, namely], that the gods of the 
nations not only were no gods at all, but even 
the idols of demons ; and that there is one God, 
who is “above all principality, and dominion, 
and power, and every name which is named ;”’¢ 
and that His Word, invisible by nature, was 
made palpable and visible among men, and 
did descend “to death, even the death of the 
cross ;’’ 5 also, that they who believe in Him shall 
be incorruptible and not subject to suffering, and 
shall receive the kingdom of heaven. ‘These 
things, too, were preached to the Gentiles by 
word, without [the aid of ] the Scriptures : where- 
fore, also, they who preached among the Gen- 
tiles underwent greater labour. But, on the 
other hand, the faith of the Gentiles is proveé 
to be of a more noble description, since they 
followed the word of God without the instruction 
[derived] from the [sacred] writings (szme zn- 
structione literarum). 


CHAP, XXV.— BOTH COVENANTS WERE PREFIGURED 
IN ABRAHAM, AND IN THE LABOUR OF TAMAR ; 
THERE WAS, HOWEVER, BUT ONE AND THE 
SAME GOD TO EACH COVENANT. 


1. For thus it had behoved the sons of Abra- 
ham [to be], whom God has raised up to him 
from the stones,° and caused to take a place 
beside him who was made the chief and the 
forerunner of our faith (who did also receive the 
covenant of circumcision, after that justification 
by faith which had pertained to him, when he 
was yet in uncircumcision, so that in him both 
covenants might be prefigured, that he might be 





3 [A clear note of recognition on the part of our author, that St. 
Paul’s mission was world-wide, while St. Peter's was limited.] 


4 Eph. i. 21. 
5 Phil. ii, 8. 
& Matt. iii. 9. 


496 


the father of all who follow the Word of God, 
and who sustain a life of pilgrimage in this world, 
that is, of those who from among the circumcis- 
ion and of those from among the uncircumcision 
are faithful, even as also “Christ! is the chief 
corner-stone,” sustaining all things) ; and He 
gathered into the one faith of Abraham those 
who, from either covenant, are eligible for God’s 
building. But this faith which is in uncircum- 
cision, as connecting the end with the beginning, 
has been made [both] the first and the last. 
For, as I have shown, it existed in Abraham 
antecedently to circumcision, as it also did in the 
rest of the righteous who pleased God: and in 
these last times, it again sprang up among man- 
kind through the coming of the Lord. But cir- 
cumcision and the law of works occupied the 
intervening period.? 

2. This fact is indeed set forth by many other 
[occurrences], but typically by [the history of ] 
Thamar, Judah’s daughter-in-law. For when 
she had conceived twins, one of them put forth 
his hand first ; and as the midwife supposed that 
he was the first-born, she bound a scarlet token 
on his hand. But after this had been done, and 
he had drawn back his hand, his brother Phares 
came forth the first ; then, after him, Zara, upon 
whom was the scarlet line, [was born] the. 
second : the Scripture clearly pointing out that 
people which possessed the scarlet sign, that is, 
faith in a state of circumcision, which was shown 
beforehand, indeed, in the patriarchs first ; but 
after that withdrawn, that his brother might be 
born ; and also, in like manner, him who was the 
elder, as being born in the second place, [him] 
who was distinguished by the scarlet token, 
which was [fastened] on him, that is, the passion 
of the Just One, which was prefigured from the 
beginning in Abel, and described by the proph- 
ets, but perfected in the last times in the Son of 
God. 

3. For it was requisite that certain facts should 
be announced beforehand by the fathers in a 
paternal manner, and others prefigured by the 
prophets in a legal one, but others, described 
after the form of Christ, by those who have re- 
ceived the adoption ; while in one God are all 
things shown forth. For although Abraham was 
one, he did in himself prefigure the two cov- 
enants, in which some indeed have sown, while 
others have reaped ; for it is said; “ In this is the 
saying true, that it is one ‘ people’ who sows, but 
xaother who shall reap;”4 but it is one God 





I Eph. ii. 20. 
_ 2 [Note, the Gentile Church was the old religion and was Catholic; 
in Christ it became Catholic again: the Mosaic system was a paren- 
thetical thing of fifteen hundred years only. Such is the /wmznous 
and clarifying scheme of Irenzeus, expounding St. Paul (Gal. iii. 14-20). 
Inferences: (1) They who speak as if the Mosaic system covered the 
whole Old Testament darken the divine counsels, (2) The God of 
Scripture was never the God of the Jews only.] 

3 Gen. xxxviii. 28, etc. 

4 John iv. 37. 





IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


a ee 


who bestows, things suitable upon both — seed 
to the sower, but bread for the reaper to eat. 
Just as it is one that planteth, and another who 
watereth, but one God who giveth the increase.‘ 
For the patriarchs and prophets sowed the word 
[concerning] Christ, but the Church reaped, 
that is, received the fruit. For this reason, too, 
do these very men (the prophets) also pray to 
have a dwelling-place in it, as Jeremiah says, 
“Who will give me in the desert the last dwell- 
ing-place?”’® in order that both the sower and 
the reaper may rejoice together in the kingdom 
of Christ, who is present with all those who 
were from the beginning approved by God, who 
granted them His Word to be present with them.’ 


CHAP. XXVI.— THE TREASURE HID IN THE SCRIP- 
TURES IS CHRIST ; THE TRUE EXPOSITION OF THE 
‘SCRIPTURES IS TO BE FOUND IN THE CHURCH 
ALONE. ¢ 


1. If any one, therefore, reads the Scriptures 
with attention, he will find in them an account 
of Christ, and a foreshadowing of the new call- 
ing (vocationis). For Christ is the treasure 
which was hid in the field,® that is, in this world 
(for “the field is the world”) ; but the treasure | 
hid in the Scriptures is Christ, since He was 
pointed out by means of types and parables. 
Hence His human nature could not '° be under- 
stood, prior to the consummation of those things 
which had been predicted, that is, the advent of 
Christ. And therefore it was said to Daniel the 
prophet: “Shut up the words, and seal the 
book even to the time of consummation, until 
many learn, and knowledge be completed. For 
at that time, when the dispersion shall be ac- 
complished, they shall know all these things.” 1 
But Jeremiah also says, “ In the last days they 
shall understand these things.”'? For every 
prophecy, before its fulfilment, is to men [full 
of ] enigmas and ambiguities. But when the 
time has arrived, and the prediction has come 
to pass, then the prophecies have a clear and 
certain exposition. And for this reason, indeed, 
when at this present time the law is read to the 
Jews, it is like a fable ; for they do not possess 
the explanation of all things pertaining to the 
advent of the Son of God, which took place in 
human nature ; but when it is read by the Chris- 
tians, it is a treasure, hid indeed in a field, but 
brought to light by the cross of Christ, and 





5 x Cor, iii, 7. 

6 Jer. ix, 2. [A ‘‘ remote dwelling-place” rather (cra@pov 
€oxarov according to LXX.) to square with the argument. | 
.. 7 [The touching words which conclude the former paragraph are 
illustrated by the noble sentence which begins this paragraph, The 
childlike spirit of these Fathers recognises Christ everywhere, in the 
Old Testament, prefigured by countless images and tokens in Jater- 
nal and legal (ceremonial) forms.] 

8 Matt. xiil. 44. 

9 Matt. xiii. 38, 

10 Harvey cancels ‘‘ non,” and reads the sentence interrogatively 

11 Dan. xii. 4, 7. 

12 Jer. xxiii. 20. 


IRENA/ZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


497 





explained, both enriching the understanding of 
men, and showing forth the wisdom of God, 
and declaring His dispensations with regard to 
man, and forming the kingdom of Christ before- 
hand, and preaching by anticipation the inher- 
itance of the holy Jerusalem, and proclaiming 
beforehand that the man who loves God shall 
arrive at such excellency as even to see God, 
and hear His word, and from the hearing of His 
discourse be glorified to such an extent, that 
others cannot behold the glory of his counte- 
nance, as was said by Daniel: “Those who do 
understand, shall shine as the brightness of the 
firmament, and many of the righteous’ as the 
stars for ever and ever.’’? Thus, then, I have 
shown it to be,3 if any one read the Scriptures. 
For thus it was that the Lord discoursed with 
the disciples after His resurrection from the 
dead, proving to them from the Scriptures them- 
selves “that Christ must suffer, and enter into 
His glory, and that remission of sins should be 
preached in His name throughout all the world.’”’4 
And the disciple will be perfected, and [ren- 
dered] like the householder, “who bringeth 
forth from his treasure things new and old.’ 5 
2. Wherefore it is incumbent to obey the 
res Qo are i e Church, — those who, 
as I have shown, possess the succession fr 
apostles ; those who, together with the succession 
Of the episcopate, have received the certain gift 
of truth, according to the good pleasure of the 
_Father. But [it is also incumbent] to hold in 
suspicion others who depart from the primitive 
succession, and assemble themselves together in 
any place whatsoever, [looking upon them] 
either as heretics of perverse minds, or as schis- 
matics puffed up and self-pleasing, or again as 
hypocrites, acting thus for the sake of lucre and 
vainglory. For all thesehave failen from the 
‘truth. And the (heretics) indeed, who bring 
strange fire to the al Sr-ef-God — namely, strange 
2 apa be burned up by the fire from 
heaven, as were Nadab and Abiud.® But such 
as rise up in opposition to the truth, and exhort 
others against the Church of God, [shall] re- 
main among those in hell (apud inferos), being 
swallowed up by an earthquake, even as those 
who were with Chore, Dathan, and Abiron.’ 





I The Latin is ‘a multis justis,” corresponding to the Greek 
version of the Hebrew text. If the translation be supposed as corre- 
sponding to the Hebrew comparative, the English equivalent will be, 
“and above (more than) many righteous.” 

2 Dan. xil. 3. : é 

3 The text and punctuation are here in great uncertainty, and 
very different views of both are taken by the editors. B 

4 Luke xxiv. 26, 47. [The walk to Emmaus is the fountain-head 
-° Scriptural exposition, and the forty days (Acts i. 3) is the river 
that came forth like that which went out of Eden, Ecclesiasticus 
lv. 31. bs q : 
3 Matt. xiii. 52. [I must express my delight in the great principle 
of exposition here unfolded. The Old Scriptures are a night-bound 
wilderness, till Christ rises and illuminates them, glorifying alike hill 
and dale, and, as this author supposes, every shrub an flower, also, 
making the smallest leaf with its dewdrops glitter like the rainbow. ] 

6 Lev..x. I, 2. 

7 Num, xvi. 33. ~ 








But those who cleave asunder, and separate the 
unity of the Church, [shall] receive from God 
the same punishment as Jeroboam did.° 

3. Those, however, who are believed to be 
presbyters by many, but serve their own lusts, 
and do not place the fear of God supreme in 
their hearts, but conduct themselves with con- 
tempt towards others, and are puffed up with 
the pride of holding the chief seat, and work 
evil deeds in secret, saying, “ No man sees us,” 
shall be convicted by the Word, who does not 
judge after outward appearance (secundum glo- 
riam), nor looks upon the countenance, but the 
heart ; and they shall hear those words, to be 
found in Daniel the prophet: “O thou seed of 
Canaan, and not of ludah, beauty hath deceived 
thee, and lust perverted thy heart.2 Thou that 
art waxen old in wicked days, now thy sins 
which thou hast committed aforetime are come 
to light; for thou hast pronounced false judg- 
ments, and hast been accustomed to condemn 
the innocent, and to let the guilty go free, albeit 
the Lord saith, The innocent and the righteous 
shalt thou not slay.”*° Of whom also did the 
Lord say: “‘ But if the evil servant shall say in 
his heart, My lord delayeth his coming, and shall 
begin to smite the man-servants and maidens, 
and to eat and drink and be drunken; the lord 
of that servant shall come in a day that he 
looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is 
not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and ap- 
point him his portion with the unbelievers.” ' 

4. From all such persons, therefore, it be- 
hoves us to keep aloof, but to adhere to those 
who, as I have already observed, do hold the 
doctrine of the apostles, and who, together with 
the order of priesthood (presbytertt ordine), 
display sound speech and-blameless conduct for 
the confirmation and correction-of others.’* In 
this way, Moses, to whom such a leadership was 
entrusted, relying on a good conscience, cleared 
himself before God, saying, “I have not in cov- 
etousness taken anything belonging to one of 
these men, nor have I done evil to one of them.” "3 
In this way, too, Samuel, who judged the people 
so many years, and bore rule over Israel without 
any pride, in the end cleared himself, saying, “I 
have walked before you from my childhood even 
unto this day: answer me in the sight of God, 
and before His anointed (Christi cjus} ; whose 
ox or whose ass of yours have I taken, or over 
whom have I tyrannized, or whom have I op- 
pressed ? or if I have received from the hand of 
any a bribe or [so much as] a shoe, speak out 


8 1 Kings xiv. 10. | 

9 Hist. Sus. ver. 56. 

10 /bid, ver. 52, etc.; Ex. xxiii, 7. 

II Matt. xxiv. 48, etc.; Luke xil. 45. ; 

12 [Contrast this spirit of a primitive Father, with the state of 
things which Wiclif rose up to purify, five hundred years ago. ] 

13 Num. xvi. 15. 


498 
against me, and I will restore it to you.”* And 
when the people had said to him, “Thou hast 
not tyrannized, neither hast thou oppressed us, 
neither hast thou taken ought of any man’s hand,” 
he called the Lord to witness, saying, “‘ The Lorp 
is witness, and His Anointed is witness this day, 
that ye have not found ought in my hand. And 
they said to him, He is witness.” In this strain 
also the Apostle Paul, inasmuch as he had a 
good conscience, said to the Corinthians: “ For 
we are not as many, who corrupt the Word of 
God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the 
sight of God speak we in Christ ;’”’? “ We have 
injured no man, corrupted no man, circumvented 
no man.” 3 

5. Such presbyters-does the Church nourish, 
of whom also the prophet says: “I will give thy 
rulers in peace, and thy bishops in righteous- 
ness.’ + Of whom also did the Lord declare, 
“Who then shall be a faithful steward (actor), 
good and wise, whom the Lord sets over His 
household, to give them their meat in due sea- 
son? Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, 
when He cometh, shall find so doing.” 5 Paul 
then, teaching us where one may find such, says, 
“God hath placed in the Church, first, apostles ; 
secondly, prophets ; thirdly, teachers.””© Where, 
therefore, the gifts of the Lord have been placed, 
there it behoves us to learn the truth, [namely, ] 
from those who possess that succession of the 
Church which is from the apostles,?7 and among 
whom exists that which is sound and blameless 
in conduct, as well as that which is unadulterated 
and incorrupt in speech. For these also pre- 
serve this faith of ours in one God who created 
all things; and they increase that love [which 
we have] for the Son of God, who accomplished 
such marvellous dispensations for our sake: and 
they expound the Scriptures to us without dan- 
ger, neither blaspheming God, nor dishonouring 
the patriarchs, nor despising the prophets. 


CHAP. XXVII.—THE SINS OF THE MEN OF OLD 
TIME, WHICH INCURRED THE DISPLEASURE OF 
GOD, WERE, BY HIS PROVIDENCE, COMMITTED 
TO WRITING, THAT WE MIGHT DERIVE INSTRUC- 
TION THEREBY, AND NOT BE FILLED WITH PRIDE. 
WE MUST NOT, THEREFORE, INFER THAT THERE 
WAS ANOTHER GOD THAN HE WHOM CHRIST 
PREACHED; WE SHOULD RATHER FEAR, LEST 
THE ONE AND THE SAME GOD WHO INFLICTED 
PUNISHMENT ON THE ANCIENTS, SHOULD BRING 
DOWN HEAVIER UPON US. ‘ 


1. As I have heard from a certain Presby} 


1 y Sam. xii. 3. 

2 2 Cor. it. 17. 

3 2 Cor. vii. 2. 

4 Isa, lx. 17. 

5 Matt. xxiv. 45, 46. 

© 1 Cor. xii. 28. 

7 [Note the limitation; not the succession only, but with it (r) 
pure morality and-holiness and (2) unadulterated testimony. No 
catholicity apart from these. | ak 








IRENEZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


———— 


ter, who had heard it from those who had seen 
the apostles, and from those who had been their 
disciples, the punishment [declared ] in Seripture 
was sufficient for the ancients in regard to what 
they did without the Spirit’s guidance. For as 
God is no respecter of persons, He inflicted a 
proper punishment on deeds displeasing to Him. 
As in the case of David,? when he suffered per- 
secution from Saul for righteousness’ sake, and 
fled from King Saul, and would not avenge 
himself of his enemy, he both sung the advent 
of Christ, and instructed the nations in wisdom, 
and did everything after the Spirit’s guidance, 
and pleased God. But when his lust prompted 
him to take Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, the 
Scripture said concerning him, “ Now, the thing 
(sermo) which David had done appeared wicked 
in the eyes of the Lorp;”'° and Nathan the 
prophet is sent to him, pointing out to him his 
crime, in order that he, passing sentence upon 
and condemning himself, might obtain mercy and 
forgiveness from Christ: “And [Nathan] said 
to him, There were two men in one city; the 
one rich, and the other poor. The rich man 
had exceeding many flocks and herds; but the 
poor man had nothing, save one little ewe-lamb, 
which he possessed, and nourished up; and it 
had been with him and with his children to- 
gether: it did eat of his own bread, and drank 
of his cup, and was to him as a daughter. And 
there came a guest unto the rich man; and he 
spared to take of the flock of his own ewe-lambs, 
and from the herds of his own oxen, to entertain 
the guest ; but he took the ewe-lamb of the poor 
man, and set it before the man that had come 
unto him. And David’s anger was greatly kin- 
dled against the man; and he said to Nathan, 
As the Lorp liveth, the man that hath done this 
thing shall surely die (jus mortis est) : and he 
shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he hath 
done this thing, and because he had no pity for 
the poor man. And Nathan said unto him, Thou ~ 
art the man who hast done this.”' And then 
he proceeds with the rest [of the narrative], 
upbraiding him, and recounting God’s benefits 
towards him, and [showing him] how much his 
conduct had displeased the Lord. For [he de- 
clared] that works of this nature were not pleas- 
ing to God, but that great wrath was suspended 
over his house. David, however, was struck with 
remorse on hearing this, and exclaimed, “I have 
sinned against the Lorp ;” and he sung a peni- 
tential psalm, waiting for the coming of the Lord, 
who washes and makes clean the man who had 





8 Polycarp, Papias, Pothinus, and others, have been suggested as 
robably here referred to, but the point is involved in utter uncertainty. 

[sutely this testimony is a precious intimation of the apostle’s mean- 
ing (Rom. ii, 12-16), and the whole chapter is radiant with the pus 
of the Gospel. | ; 

-9-1 Sam, xviii. 

to 2 Sam. xi, 27. 

II 2 Sam, xii. 1, ete 


IREN/ZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


499 





‘been fast bound with [the chain of] sin. In like 
manner it was with regard to Solomon, while he 
continued to judge uprightly, and to declare the 
wisdom of God, and built the temple as the type 
of truth, and set forth the glories of God, and 
announced the peace about to come upon the 
nations, and prefigured the kingdom of Christ, 
and spake three thousand parables about the 
Lord’s advent, and five thousand songs, singing 
praise to God, and expounded the wisdom of 
God in creation, [discoursing] as to the nature 
of every tree, every herb, and of all fowls, quad- 
rupeds, and fishes; and he said, “ Will God, 
‘whom the heavens cannot contain, really dwell 
with men upon the earth?”* And he pleased 
God, and was the admiration of all ; and all kings 
of the earth sought an interview with him (gve- 
rebant faciem ejus) that they might hear the 
wisdom which God had conferred upon him.? 
The queen of the south, too, came to him from 
the ends of the earth, to ascertain the wisdom 
that was in him:3 she whom the Lord also re- 
ferred to as one who should rise up in the judg- 
ment with the nations of those men who do hear 
His words, and do not believe in Him, and 
should condemn them, inasmuch as she submitted 
herself to the wisdom announced by the servant 
of God, while these men despised that wisdom 
which proceeded directly from the Son of God. 
For Solomon was a servant, but Christ is indeed 
the Son of God, and the Lord of Solomon. 
While, therefore, he served God without blame, 
-and ministered to His dispensations, then was 
he glorified: but when he took wives from all 
nations, and permitted them to set up idols in 
Israel, the Scripture spake thus concerning him: 
- And King Solomon was a lover of women, and 











dispensations, the righteous men, the prophets, 
and the patriarchs, to whom He remitted sins in 
the same way as He did to us, which sins we 
should not lay to their charge, if we would not 
despise the grace of God. For as these men 
did not impute unto us (the Gentiles) our trans- 
gressions, which we wrought before Christ was 
manifested among us, so also it is not right that 
we should lay blame upon those who sinned be- 
fore Christ’s coming. For “all men come short 
of the glory of God,” ° and are not justified of 
themselves, but by the advent of the Lord, — 
they who earnestly direct their eyes towards His 
light. And it is for our instruction that their 
actions have been committed to writing, that we 
might know, in the first place, that our God and 
theirs is one, and that sins do not please Him 
although committed by men of renown ; and in 
the second place, that we should keep from 
wickedness. For if these men of old time, who 
preceded us in the gifts [bestowed upon them], 
and for whom the Son of God had not yet suf- 
fered, when they committed any sin and served 
fleshly lusts, were rendered objects of such dis- 
grace, what shall the men of the present day 
suffer, who have despised the Lord’s coming, 
and become the slaves of their own lusts? And 
truly the death of the Lord became [the means 
of ] healing and remission of sins to the former, 
but Christ shall not die again in behalf of those 
who now commit sin, for death shall no more 
have dominion over Him; but the Son shall 
come in the glory of the Father, requiring from 
His stewards and dispensers the money which 
He had entrusted to them, with usury ; and from 
those to whom He had given most shall He 
demand most. We ought not, therefore, as that 


‘he took to himself foreign women ; and it came/| presbyter remarks, to be puffed up,.nor.be severe 


to pass, when Solomon was old, his heart was not 
perfect with the Lorp his God. And the foreign 
women turned away his heart after strange gods. 
And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lorp: 
he did not walk after the Lorn, as did David his 
father. And the Lorp was angry with Solomon ; 
for his heart was not perfect with the Lorp, as 
was the heart of David his father.”’* The Scrip- 
ture has thus sufficiently reproved him, as the 
presbyter remarked, in order that no flesh may 
glory in the sight of the Lord. 

2. It was for this reason, too, that the Lord 
/ descended into the regions beneath the earth, 
preaching His advent there also, and [declaring ] 
the remission of sins received by those who be- 
lieve in Him.S Now all those believed in Him 
who had hope towards Him, that is, those who 
proclaimed His advent, and submitted to His 
SS SS 


1 x Kings viii. 27. 
2; Kings iv. 34- 

2 y Kings x. 1. 

4 Kings xi. 1. 

5 [x Pet. iii. 19, 20] 





upon those of old time, but ought ourselves to 
fear, lest perchance, after [we have come to] the 
knowledge of Christ, if we do things displeasing 
to God, we obtain no further forgiveness of sins, 
but be shut out from His kingdom.® And there- 
fore it was that Paul said, “ For if [God] spared 
not the natural branches, [take heed] lest He 
also spare not thee, who, when thou wert a wild 
olive tree, wert grafted into the fatness of the 
olive tree, and wert made a partaker of its fat 
ness.”’ 7 

3. Thou wilt notice, too, that the transgres- 
sions of the common people have been described 
in like manner, not for the sake of those who did 
then transgress, but as a means of instruction 
unto us, and that we should understand that it 
is one and the same God against whom these 
a opie te ba Sone pe alee a ae 8 BS 


6 Rom. iii. 23. [Another testimony to the mercy of God in the 
judgment of the unevangelized. There must have been some reason 
for the secrecy with which “ that presbyter’s ” name is guarded. Ire- 
nzeus may have scrupled to draw the wrath of the Gnostics upon any 
name but his own.] 

7 Rom, xi. 21, 17. 


500 





men sinned, and against whom certain persons 
do now transgress from among those who profess 
to have believed in Him. But this also, [as the 
presbyter states, | has Paul declared most plainly 
in the Epistle to the Corinthians, when he says, 
“ Brethren, I would not that ye should be igno- 
rant, how that all our fathers were under the 
cloud, and were all baptized unto Moses in the sea, 
and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did 
all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank 
of that spiritual rock that followed them; and 
the rock was Christ. But with many of them God 
was not well pleased, for they were overthrown 
in the wilderness. These things were for our 
example (in figuram nostri), to the intent that 
we should not lust after evil things, as they also 
lusted ; neither be ye idolaters, as were some of 
them, as it is written: ' The people sat down to 
eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let 
us commit fornication, as some of them also did, 
and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. 
Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them 
also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. 
Neither murmur ye, as some of them murmured, 
and were destroyed of the destroyer. But all 
these things happened to them in a figure, and 
were written for our admonition, upon whom the 
end of the world (seculorum) is come. Where- 
fore let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed 
teste walle? 

4. Since therefore, beyond all doubt and con- 
tradiction, the apostle shows that there is one 
_and_ the same.God, who did both enter into 
judgment with these former things, and who 
does inquire into those of the present time, and 
points out why these things have been com- 
mitted to writing ; all these men are found to 
be unlearned and presumptuous, nay, even des- 
titute of common sense, who, because of the 
transgressions of them of old time, and because 
of the disobedience of a vast number of them, 


do allege that there was indeed one God of| them speedily.’’ 1 


these men, and that He was the maker of the 
world, and existed in a state of degeneracy ; 
but that there was another Father declared by 
Christ, and that this Being is He who has been 
conceived by the mind of each of them; not 
understanding that as, in the former case, God 
showed Himself not well pleased in many in- 
stances towards those who sinned, so also in the 
latter, ‘‘ many are called, but few are chosen.’’ 3 
As then the unrighteous, the idolaters, and for- 
nicators perished, so also is it now: for both 
the Lord declares, that such persons are sent 
into eternal fire; 4 and the apostle says, ‘« Know 
ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the 





1 Ex. xxxii. 6. 
2: Cor. x. 1, etc. 
8 Matt. xx. 16. 

4 Matt. xxv. 41. 








IRENAZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither 
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor 
effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with man- 
kind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, 
nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the 
kingdom of God.’’5 And as it was not to those 
who are without that he said these things, but 
to us, lest we should be cast forth from the king- 
dom of God, by doing any such thing, he pro- 
ceeds to say, “And such indeed were ye; but 
ye are washed, but ye are sanctified in the name 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of 
our God.” And just as then, those who led 
vicious lives, and put other people astray, were 
condemned and cast out, so also even now the 
offending eye is plucked out, and the foot and 
the hand, lest the rest of the body perish in like 
manner.° And we have the precept: “If any 
man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or 
cavetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunk- 
ard, or an extortioner, with such an one no not 
to eat.”7 And again does the apostle say, “ Let 
nu man deceive you with vain words ; for because 
of these things cometh the wrath of God upon 
the sons of mistrust. Be not ye therefore par- 
takers with them.”® And as then the condemna- 
tion of sinners extended to others who approved 
of them, and joined in their society; so also 
is it the case at present, that “a little leaven 
leaveneth the whole lump.”9 And as the wrath 
of God did then descend upon the unrighteous, 
here also does the apostle likewise say: “ For 
the wrath of God shall be revealed from heaven 
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of 
those men who hold back the truth in unright- 
eousness,”’ © And as, in those times, vengeance 
came from God upon the Egyptians who were 
subjecting Israel to unjust punishment, so is it 
now, the Lord truly declaring, ‘* And shall not 
God avenge His own elect, which cry day and 
night unto Him ? J tell you, that He will avenge 
So says the apostle, in like 
manner, in the Epistle to the Thessalonians: 
‘Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to rec- 
ompense tribulation to them that trouble you ; 
and to you who are troubled rest with us, at the 
revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ from heaven 
with His mighty angels, and in a flame of fire, 
to take vengeance upon those who know not 
God, and upon those that obey not the Gospel 
of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall also be 
punished with everlasting destruction from the 
presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His 
power ; when He shall come to be glorified in 





5 x Cor. vi. 9, 10. 
6 Matt. xviil. 8, 9. 
7 y Cor, v. 11. 

8 Eph. v. 6, 7. 

°1 Cer. v. 6. 

10 Rom. i. 18, 
31 Luke xviii. 7, 8 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


Sol 





His saints, and to be admired in all them who 
have believed in Him.” ? 


CHAP. XXVIII.— THOSE PERSONS PROVE THEM- 
SELVES SENSELESS WHO EXAGGERATE THE MERCY 
OF CHRIST, BUT: ARE SILENT AS TO THE JUDG- 
MENT, AND LOOK ONLY AT THE MORE ABUN- 
DANT GRACE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT; BUT, 
FORGETFUL OF THE GREATER DEGREE OF PER- 
FECTION WHICH IT DEMANDS FROM US, THEY 
ENDEAVOUR TO SHOW THAT THERE IS ANOTHER 
GOD BEYOND HIM WHO CREATED THE WORLD. 


1. Inasmuch, then, as in both Testaments 
there is the same righteousness of God [dis- 
played] when God takes vengeance, in the one 
case indeed typically, temporarily, and more 
moderately ; but in the other, really, enduringly, 
and more rigidly: for the fire is eternal, and 
the wrath of God which shall be revealed from 
heaven from the face of our Lord (as David 
also says, “‘ But the face of the Lord is against 
them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance 
of them from the earth”’?), entails a heavier 
punishment on those who incur it, — the elders 
pointed out that those men are devoid of sense, 
who, [arguing] from what happened to those 
who formerly did not obey God, do endeavour 
to bring in another Father, setting over against 
[these punishments] what great things the Lord 

‘had done at His coming to save those who 
received Him, taking compassion upon them ; 
while they keep silence with regard to His judg- 
ment, and all those things which shall come 
upon such as have heard His words, but done 
them not, and that it were better for them if 
they had not been born,3 and that it shall be 
more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the 
judgment than for that city which did not receive 
the word of His disciples.+ 

2. For as, in the New Testament, that faith 
of men [to be placed] in God has been in- 
creased, receiving in addition [to what was 
already revealed] the Son of God, that man too 
might be a partaker of God; so is also our 
walk in life required to be more circumspect, 
when we are directed not merely to abstain from 
evil actions, but even from evil thoughts, and 
from idle words, and empty talk, and scurrilous 
language :5 thus also the punishment of those 
who do not believe the Word of God, and 
despise His advent, and are turned away back- 
wards, is increased ; being not merely temporal, 
but rendered also eternal. For to whomsoever 





1 2 Thess, i. 6-10, 

2 Ps. xxxiv. 16. 

3 Matt. xxvi. 24. 

4 Matt. x. 15. ; ‘ ‘ to 

5 [Eph. v. 4. Even from the évtpameAta which might signify a 
bon-mot, literally, and which certainly is not scurrility,” unless the 
apostle was ironical, reflecting on jokes which heathen considered 

ge ” 

















the Lord shall say, “‘ Depart from me, ye cursed, 
into everlasting fire,” ° these shall be damned for 
ever ; and to whomsoever He shall say, “ Come, 
ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom 
prepared for you for eternity,”’” these do receive 
the kingdom for ever, and make constant ad- 
vance in it; since there is one and the same 
God the Father, and His Word, who has been 
always present with the human race, by means 
indeed of various dispensations, and has wrought 
out many things, and saved from the beginning 
those who are saved, (for these are they wha 
love God, and follow the Word of God accord- 
ing to the class to which they belong,) and has 
judged those who are judged, that is, those who 
forget God, and are blasphemous, and trans- 
gressors of His word. ——~ 

3. For the sesame heretics already mentioned 
by us have fallen away from themselves, by 
accusing the Lord, in whom they say that they 
believe. For those points to which they call 
attention with regard to the God who then 
awarded temporal punishments to the unbeliev- 
ing, and smote the Egyptians, while He saved 
those that were obedient ; these same [facts, I 
say, ] shall nevertheless repeat themselves in the 
Lord, who judges for eternity those whom He 
doth judge, and lets go free for eternity those 
whom He does let go free: and He shall [thus] 
be discovered, according to the language used 
by these men, as having been the cause of their 
most heinous sin to those wno laid hands upon 
Him, and pierced Him. For if He had not so 
come, it follows that these men could not have 
become the slayers of their Lord; and if He 
had not sent prophets to them, they certainly 
could not have killed them, nor the apostles 
either. To those, therefore, who assail us, and 
say, If the Egyptians had not been afflicted 
with plagues, and, when pursuing after Israel, 
been choked in the sea, God could not have 
saved His people, this answer may be given ; — 
Unless, then, the Jews had become the siayers 
of the Lord (which did, indeed, take eternal 
life away from them), and, by killing the apos- 
tles and persecuting the Church, had fallen into 
an abyss of wrath, we could not have been 
saved. For as they were saved by means of the 
blindness of the Egyptians, so are we, too, by 
that of the Jews; if, indeed, the death of the 
Lord is the condemnation of those who fastened 
Him to the cross, and who did not believe His 
advent, but the salvation of those who believe 
in Him. For the apostle does also say in the 
Second [Epistle] to the Corinthians: “ For we 
are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them 
which are saved, and in them which perish: to 
the one indeed the savour of death unto death, 





6 Matt. xxv. 41. 
7 Matt. xxv. 34. 


502 


IRENAZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 








My 


but to the other the savour of life unto life. 
To whom, then, is there the savour of death 
unto death, unless to those who believe not, 
neither are subject to the Word of God? And 
who are they that did even then give themselves 
over to death? Those men, doubtless, who do 
not believe, nor submit themselves to God. 
And again, who are they that have been saved, 
and received the inheritance? ‘Those, doubtless, 
who do believe God, and who have continued 
in His love; as did Caleb [the son] of Jephun- 
neh and Joshua [the son] of Nun, and innocent 
children,3 who have had no sense of evil. But 
who are they that are saved now, and receive 
life eternal? Is it not those who love God, and 
who believe His promises, and who “in malice 
have become as little children?” 4 


CHAP. XXIX. — REFUTATION OF THE ARGUMENTS OF 
THE MARCIONITES, WHO ATTEMPTED TO SHOW 
THAT GOD WAS THE AUTHOR OF SIN, BECAUSE 
HE BLINDED PHARAOH AND HIS SERVANTS. 


1. “ But,” say they, “ God hardened the heart 
of Pharaoh and of his servants.”5 Those, then, 
who allege such difficulties, do not read in the 
Gospel that passage where the Lord replied to 
the disciples, when they asked Him, ‘“ Why 
speakest Thou unto them in parables?” — “Be- 
cause it is given unto you to know the mystery 
of the kingdom of heaven ; but to them I speak 
‘in parables, that seeing they may not see, and 
hearing they may not hear, understanding they 
may not understand ; in order that the prophecy 
of Isaiah regarding them may be fulfilled, say- 
ing, Make the heart of this people gross, and 
make their ears dull, and blind their eyes. But 
blessed are your eyes, which see the things that 
ye see; and your ears, which hear what ye do 
hear.’® For one and the same God [that 
blesses others] inflicts blindness upon those who 
do not believe, but who set Him at naught ; just 
as the sun, which is a creature of His, [acts 
with regard] to those who, by reason of any 
weakness of the eyes, cannot behold his light ; 
but to those who believe in Him and follow 
Him, He grants a fuller and greater illumination 
of mind. In accordance with this word, there- 
fore, does the apostle say, in the Second [ Epis- 
tle] to the Corinthians: “In whom the god of 
this world hath blinded the minds of them that 
believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel 
of Christ should shine [unto them].”7 And 
again, in that to the Romans: “And as they 
did not think fit to have God in their knowl- 


1 2 Cor. ii, 15, 16. 

2 Num, xiv. 30. 
_ 3 [Jonah iv. 1x. The tenderness of our author constantly asserts 
itself, as in this reference to children. ] 

4 x Cor. xiv. 20, 

5 Ex. ix. 35. 

6 Matt. xii. 11-16; Isa. vi. ro, 

7 2 Cor. iv. 4. 











edge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, 
to do those things that are not convenient.” * 
Speaking of antichrist, too, he says clearly in 
the Second to the Thessalonians: “And for this 
cause God shall send them the working of error, 
that they should believe a lie; that they all 
might be judged'who believed not the truth, but 
consented to iniquity.” 9 

2. If, therefore, in the present time also, God, 
knowing the number of those who will not be- 
lieve, since He foreknows all things, has given 
them over to unbelief, and turned away His face 
from men of this stamp, leaving them in the 
darkness which they have themselves chosen for 
themselves, what is there wonderful if He did 
also at that time give over to their unbelief, 
Pharaoh, who never would have believed, along 
with those who were with him? As the Word 
spake to Moses from the bush: “And I am sure 
that the king of Egypt will not let you go, unless 
by a mighty hand.” © And for the reason that 
the Lord spake in parables, and brought blind- 
ness upon Israel, that seeing they might not see, 
since He knew the [spirit of ] unbelief in them, 
for the same reason did He harden Pharaoh’s 
heart ; in order that, while seeing that it was the 
finger of God which led forth the people, he 
might not believe, but be precipitated into a sea 
of unbelief, resting in the notion that the exit of 
these [Israelites] was accomplished by magical 
power, and that it was not by the operation of 
God that the Red Sea afforded a passage to the 
people, but that this occurred by merely natural 
causes (sed naturaliter sic se habere). 


CHAP. XXX.— REFUTATION OF ANOTHER ARGU- 
MENT ADDUCED BY THE MARCIONITES, THAT 
GOD DIRECTED THE HEBREWS TO SPOIL THE 
EGYPTIANS. 


1. Those, again, who cavil and find fault 
because the people did, by God’s command, 
upon the eve of their departure, take vessels of 
all kinds and raiment from the Egyptians,'' and 
so went away, from which [spoils], too, the tab- 
ernacle was constructed in the wilderness, prove 
themselves ignorant of the righteous dealings of 
God, and of His dispensations; as also the 
presbyter remarked: For if God had not ac- 
corded this in the typical exodus, no one could 
now be saved in our true exodus ; that is, in the 
faith in which we have been established, and by 
which we have been brought forth from among 
the number of the Gentiles. For in some cases 
there follows us a small, and in others a large 





8 Rom. i. 28. 

9 2 Thess. ii. rr. 

10 Ex. iii, 19. : 

11 Ex, iii, 22, xi, 2. (Our English translation “borrow” is a 
aia injury to the _ As “ King of kings” the Lord enjoins 
a just tax, which any earthly sovereign might have imposed uprightly. 
Our author argues well.] i a +5 ‘er 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





amount of property, which we have acquired 
from the mammon of unrighteousness. For 
from what source do we derive the houses in 
which we dwell, the garments in which we are 
clothed, the vessels which we use, and every- 
thing else ministering to our every-day life, unless 
it be from those things which, when we were 
Gentiles, we acquired by avarice, or received 
them from our heathen parents, relations, or 
friends who unrighteously obtained them? — not 
to mention that even now we acquire such things 
when we are in the faith. For who is there that 
sells, and does not wish to make a profit from 
him who buys? Or who purchases anything, 
and does not wish to obtain good value from the 
seller? Or who is there that carries on a trade, 
and does not do so that he may obtain a liveli- 
hood thereby? And as to those believing ones 
who are in the royal palace, do they not derive 
the utensils they employ from the property which 
belongs to Czesar; and to those who have not, 
“ aoes not each one of these [Christians] give 
according to his ability? The Egyptians were 
debtors to the [Jewish] people, not alone as to 
property, but as to their very lives, because of 
the kindness of the patriarch Joseph in former 
times ; but in what way are the heathen debtors 
to us, from whom we receive both gain and 
profit? Whatsoever they amass with labour, 
these things do we make use of without labour, 
although we are in the faith. 

2. Up to that time the people served the 
Egyptians in the most abject slavery, as saith 
the Scripture: “And the Egyptians exercised 
their power rigorously upon the children of 
Israel; and they made life bitter to them by 
severe labours, in mortar and in brick, and in all 
manner of service in the field which they did, 
by all the works in which they oppressed them 
with rigour.’’! And with immense labour they 
built for them fenced cities, increasing the sub- 
stance of these men throughout a long course of 
years, and by means of every species of slavery ; 
while these [masters] were not only ungrateful 
towards them, but had in contemplation their 
utter annihilation. In what way, then, did [the 
Israelites] act unjustly, if out of many things 
they took a few, they who might have possessed 
much property had they not served them, and 
might have gone forth wealthy, while, in fact, by 
receiving only a very insignificant recompense 
for their heavy servitude, they went away poor? 
It is just as if any free man, being forcibly carried 
away by another, and serving him for many 
years, and increasing his substance, should be 
thought, when he ultimately obtains some sup- 
port, to possess some small portion of his 
[master’s] property, but should in reality depart, 





1 Ex, i. 13, 14. 








993 
having obtained only a little as the result of his 
own great labours, and out of vast possessions 
which have been acquired, and this should be 
made by any one a subject of accusation against 
him, as if he had not acted properly.2. He (the 
accuser) will rather appear as an unjust judge 
against him who had been forcibly carried away 
into slavery. Of this kind, then, are these men 
also, who charge the people with blame, because 
they appropriated a few thtings out of many, but 
who bring no charge against those who did not 
render them the recompense due to their fathers’ 
services ; nay, but even reducing them to the 
most irksome slavery, obtained the highest profit 
from them. And [these objectors] allege that 
[the Israelites] acted dishonestly, because, for- 
sooth, they took away for the recompense of 
their labours, as I have observed, unstamped 
gold and silver in a few vessels ; while they say 
that they themselves (for let truth be spoken, 
although to some it may seem ridiculous) do act 
honestly, when they carry away in their girdles 
from the labours of others, coined gold, and 
silver, and brass, with Ceesar’s inscription and 
image upon it. 

3. If, however, a comparison be instituted be- 
tween us and them, [I would ask] which party 
shall seem to have received [their worldly goods | 
in the fairer manner? Will it be the [Jewish] 
people, [who took] from the Egyptians, who 
were at all points their debtors; or we, [wlto 
receive property] from the Romans and other 
nations, who are under no similar obligation to 
us? Yea, moreover, through their instrumental- 
ity the world is at peace, and we walk on the 
highways without fear, and sail where we will.3 
Therefore, against men of this kind (namely, the 
heretics) the word of the Lord applies, which 
says: “Thou hypocrite, first cast the beam out 
of thine eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to 
pull out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.’ ¢ 
For if he who lays these things to thy charge, and 
glories in his own wisdom, has been separated 
from the company of the Gentiles, and possesses 
nothing [derived from] other peopk’s goods, 
but is literally naked, and barefoot, and dwells 
homeless among the mountains, as any of those 
animals do which feed on grass, he will stand 
excused [in using such language], as being igno- 
rant of the necessities of our mode of life. But 
if he do partake of what, in the opinion of men, 
is the property of others, and if [at the same 
time] he runs down their type,5 he proves him- 


——<~ 








2 This perplexed sentence is pointed by Harvey interrogatively, 
but we prefer the above. : : 

3 [A touching tribute to the imperial law, at a moment when 
Christians were ‘‘dying daily” and ‘as sheep for the slaughter. 
So powerfully worked the divine command, Luke vi. 29. ] 

4 Matt. vii. 5. : : 

5 This is, if he’inveighs against the Israelites for spoiling the 
Egyptians; the former being a type of the Christian Church in rela- 
tion to the Gentiles, 


504 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 








self most unjust, turning this kind of accusation 
against himself. For he will be found carrying 
about property not belonging to him, and covet- 
ing goods which are not his. And therefore has 
the Lord said: “Judge not, that ye be not 
judged: for with what judgment ye shall judge, 
ye shall be judged.” ' [The meaning is] not 
certainly that we should not find fault with sin- 
ners, nor that we should consent to those who 
act wickedly ; but that we should not pronounce 
an unfair judgment on the dispensations of God, 
inasmuch as He has Himself made provision 
that all things shall turn out for good, in a way 
consistent with justice. For, because He knew 
that we would make a good use of our substance, 
which we should possess by receiving it from 
another, He says, “ He that hath two coats, let 
him impart to him that hath none ; and he that 
hath meat, let him do likewise.” ? And, “ For I 
was an hungered, and ye gave Me meat; I was 
thirsty, and ye gave Me drink; I was naked, 
and ye clothed Me.’’3 And, ‘‘ When thou doest 
thine alms, let not thy left hand know what thy 
right hand doeth.”4 And we are proved to be 
righteous by whatsoever else we do well, redeem- 
ing, as it were, our property from strange hands. 
But thus do I say, “ from strange hands,” not as 
if the world were not God’s possession, but that 
we have gifts of this sort, and receive them from 
others, in the same way as these men had them 
from the Egyptians who knew not God ; and by 
means of these same do we erect in ourselves 
the tabernacle of God: for God dwells in those 
who act uprightly, as the Lord says: “ Make to 
yourselves friends of the mammon of unright- 
eousness, that they, when ye shall be put to 
flight,” 5 may receive you into eternal taberna- 
cles.”© For whatsoever we acquired from un- 
righteousness when we were heathen, we are 
proved righteous, when we have become be- 
lievers, by applying it to the Lord’s advan- 
tage. 

4. As a matter of course, therefore, these 
things were done beforehand in a type, and from 
them was the tabernacle of God constructed ; 
those persons justly receiving them, as I have 
shown, while we were pointed out beforehand in 
them, — [we] who should afterwards serve God 
by the things of others. For the whole exodus 
of the people out of Egypt, which took place 
under divine guidance,” was a type and image 
of the exodus of the Church which should ‘take 


I Matt. vii. 1, 2. 
; Luke iii, 11, 
Matt xxv. 35, 36. 

4 Matt. vi. 3. é 

5 As Harvey remarks, this is “a strange translation for é«Aimyre ”? 
of the ¢ext. rec., and he adds that “possibly the translator read 
éxtpamnre.’ 

6 Luke xvi. 9. 

7 We here follow the punctuation of Massuet in preference to that 
of Harvey, ‘ 











place from among the Gentiles ; 8 and for this 
cause He leads it out at last from this world into 
His own inheritance, which Moses the servant 
of God did not [bestow], but which Jesus the 
Son of God shall give for an inheritance. And 
if any one will devote a close attention to those 
things which are stated by the prophets with re- 
gard to the [time of the] end, and those which 
John the disciple of the Lord saw in the Apoc- 
alypse,? he will find that the nations [are to] 
receive the same plagues universally, as Egypt 
then did particularly. 


CHAP, XXXI.— WE SHOULD NOT HASTILY IMPUTE 
AS CRIMES TO THE MEN OF OLD TIME THOSE 
ACTIONS WHICH THE SCRIPTURE HAS NOT CON- 
DEMNED, BUT SHOULD RATHER SEEK IN THEM 
TYPES OF THINGS TO COME: AN EXAMPLE OF 
THIS IN THE INCEST COMMITTED BY LOT. 





1. WHEN recounting certain matt 
kind respecting them of old time, the, presbyter... 
[before mentioned] was in the habit ofinstruct- 
ing us, and saying : “ With respect to those mis- 
deeds for which the Scriptures themselves blame 
the patriarchs and prophets, we ought not to in- 
veigh against them, nor become like Ham, who 
ridiculed the shame of his father, and so fell 


under a curse; but we should [rather] give 


thanks to God in their behalf, inasmuch as their 
sins have been forgiven them through the advent 
of our Lord ; for He said that they gave thanks 
[for us], and gloried in our salvation.’ With 
respect to those actions, again, on which the 
Scriptures pass no censure, but which are simply 
set down [as having occurred], we ought not to 
become the accusers [of those who committed 
them], for we are not more exact than God, nor 
can we be superier to our Master ; but we should 
search for = ype Lin them]. For not one of 
those things which have been set down in Scrip- 
ture without being condemned is without signifi- 
cance.” An example is found in the case of Lot, 
who led forth his daughters from Sodom, and 
these then conceived by their own father; and 
who left behind him within the confines [of the 
land] his wife, [who remains] a pillar of salt 
unto this day. For Lot, not acting under the 
impulse of his own will, nor at the prompting of 
carnal concupiscence, nor having any knowledge 
or thought of anything of the kind, did [in fact] 
work out a type [of future events]. As says the 
Scripture: “And that night the elder went in 


8 [The Fathers regarded the whole Mosaic system, and the history 
of the faithful under it, as one great allegory. In everything they 
saw “‘ similitudes,” as we do in the Faery Queen of Spenser, or the 
Pilgrim's Progress. The ancients may have carried this principle 
too far, but as a principle it receives countenance from our Lord Him- 
self and His apostles. To us there is often a barren bush, where the 
Fathers saw a bush that burned with fire. | . 

9 See Rey. xv., xvi. 

to [Thus far we have a most edifying instruction. The reader will 
be less edified with what follows, but it is a very striking example of 
what is written: “to the pure all things are pure.” Tit, i. 15.) 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


505 





and lay with her father ; and Lot knew not when 
she lay down, nor when she arose.” +‘ And the 
same thing took place in the case of the younger : 
“And he knew not,” it is said, ‘““when she 
slept with him, nor when she arose.”? Since, 
therefore, Lot knew not [what he did], nor was 
a slave to lust [in his actions], the arrangement 
(designed by God] was carried out, by which 
the two daughters (that is, the two churches 3), 
who gave birth to children begotten of one and 
the same father, were pointed out, apart from 
[the influence of] the lust of the flesh. For 
there was no other person, [as they supposed], 
who could impart to them quickening seed, and 
the means of their giving birth to children, as it 
is written ; “ And the elder said unto the younger, 
And there is not a man on the earth to enter in 
unto us after the manner of all the earth: come, 
let us make our father drunk with wine, and let 
us lie with him, and raise up seed from our 
father.” 4 

2, Thus, after their simplicity and innocence, 
did these daughters [of Lot] so speak, imagin- 
ing that all mankind had perished, even as the 
Sodomites had done, and that the anger of God 
had come down upon the whole earth. Where- 
fore also they are to be held excusable, since 
they supposed that they only, along with their 
father, were left for the preservation of the human 
race; and for this reason it was that they de- 
ceived their father. Moreover, by the words 
they used this fact was pointed out — that there 
is no other one who can confer upon the elder 
_ and younger church the [power of ] giving birth 
to children, besides our Father. Now the father 
of the human race is the Word of God, as Moses 
points out when he says, “Is not He thy father 
who hath obtained thee [by generation], and 
formed thee, and created thee?”5 At what 
time, then, did He pour out upon the human 
race the life-giving seed — that is, the Spirit of 
the remission of sins, through means of whom 
we are quickened? Was it not then, when He 
was eating with men, and drinking wine upon the 
earth? For it is said, “The Son of man came 
eating and drinking ;”° and when He had lain 
down, He fell asleep, and took repose. As He 
does Himself say in David, “I slept, and took 
repose.”7 And because He used thus to act 
while He dwelt and lived among us, He says 
again, “ And my sleep became sweet unto me.” 8 


pee es 


1 sy xix, 33. 

2 Gen. x1x. 35. 7 é 

3 “Td est ee synagogee,” referring to the Jews and Gentiles. 
Some regard the words as a marginal gloss which has crept into 
the pce ; 

en. xix. 31, 32. = 

5 Deut. eal aee LXX. [Let us reflect that this effort to spiritu- 
alize this awful passage in the histo of Lot is an innocent but un- 
successful attempt to imitate St. Paul’s allegory, Gal. iv. 24] 

6 Matt. xi. 19- 

7 Ps. iii. 6. 

8 Jer, xxxi. 26. 





Now this whole matter was indicated through 
Lot, that the seed of the Father of all — that is, 
of the Spirit of God, by whom all things were 
made — was commingled and united with flesh 
— that is, with His own workmanship ; by which 
commixture and unity the two synagogues —. 
that is, the two churches — produced from their 
own father living sons to the living God. 

3. And while these things were taking place, 
his wife remained in [the territory of] Sodom, 
no longer corruptible flesh, but a pillar of salt 
which endures for ever ;9 and by those natural 
processes '° which appertain to the human race, 
indicating that the Church also, which is the salt 
of the earth,'' has been left behind within the 
confines of the earth, and subject to human suf- 
ferings; and while entire members are often 
taken away from it, the pillar of salt still en- 
dures,” thus typifying the foundation of the faith 
which maketh strong, and sends forward, children 
to their Father. 


CHAP. XXXII. — THAT ONE GOD WAS THE AUTHOR 
OF BOTH TESTAMENTS, IS CONFIRMED BY THE AU- 
THORITY OF A PRESBYTER WHO HAD BEEN TAUGHT 
BY THE APOSTLES. _ 


1. After this fashion also did a presbyter,'3 a 
disciple of the apostles, reason with respect to 
the two testaments, proving that both were truly 
from one and the same God. For [he main- 
tained] that there was no other God besides 
Him who made and fashioned us, and that the 
discourse of those men has no foundation who 
affirm that this world of ours was made either 
by angels, or by any other power whatsoever, or 
by another God. For if a man be once moved 
away from the Creator of all things, and if he 
grant that this creation to which we belong was 
formed by any other or through any other [than 
the one God], he must of necessity fall into 
much inconsistency, and many contradictions of 
this sort ; to which he will [be able to] furnish 


ee EEE 


9 Comp. Clem. Rom., chap. xi. Josephus (A #zg., i. 1, 4) testi- 
fies that he had himself seen this pillar. 

10 The Latin is ‘per naturalia,” which words, according to Har- 
vey, correspond to St éupnvoppoias, There is a poem entitled Sodo- 
ma preserved among the works of Tertullian and Cyprian which 
contains the following lines: — 

“ Dicitur et vivens, alio jam corpore, sexus 
Munificos solito dispungere sanguine menses.” 


Il Matt. v. 13. : ae 
12 The poem just referred to also says in reference to this pillar: — 


“ Tpsaque imago sibi formam sine corpore servans 
Durat adhuc, et enim nuda statione sub zthram 
Nec pluviis dilapsa situ, nec diruta ventis, 

Quin etiam si quis mutilaverit advena formam, 
Protinus ex sese suggestu vulnera complet.” 


[That a pillar of salt is still to be seen in this vicinity, is ney con- 
firmed by many modern travellers (report of Lieut. Lynch, United 
States Navy), which accounts for the natural inference of Josephus 
and others on whom our author relied. The coincidence is note- 
worn] ; , 

13 Harvey remarks here, that this can hardly be the same Sis! eve 
mentioned before, ‘who was only a hearer of those who had heard the 
apostles. Irenzeus may here mean the venerable martyr Polycarp, 
bishop of Smyrna.” : 


506 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


no explanations which can be regarded as either 
probable or true. And, for this reason, those 
who introduce other doctrines conceal from us 
the opinion which they themselves hold respect- 
ing God, because they are aware of the unten- 
able and absurd nature of their doctrine, and 
are afraid lest, should they be vanquished, they 
should have some difficulty in making good their 
escape. But if any one believes in [only] one 
God, who also made all things by the Word, as 
Moses likewise says, “God said, Let there be 
light : and there was light ;’’? and as we read in 
the Gospel, “ All things were made by Him ; and 
without Him was nothing made;’3 and the 
Apostle Paul [says] in like manner, “There is 
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and 
Father, who is above all, and through all, and in 
us all’’4+— this man will first of all “hold the 
head, from which the whole body is compacted 
and bound together, and, through means of every 
joint according to the measure of the ministra- 
tion of each several part, maketh increase of the 
body to the edification of itself in love.’”5 And 
then shall every word also seem consistent to 
him,° if he for his part diligently read the Scrip- 
tures in company with those who are presbyters 
in the Church, among whom is the apostolic doc- 
trine, as I have pointed out. 

2. For all the apostles taught that there were 
indeed two testaments among the two peoples ; 
but that it was one and the same God who ap- 
pointed both for the advantage of those men (for 
whose? sakes the testaments were given) who 
were to believe in God, I have proved in the 
third book from the very teaching of the apostles ; 
and that the first testament was not given with- 
out reason, or to no purpose, or in an accidental 
sort of manner; but that it subdued 8 those to 
whom it was given to the service of God, for 
their benefit (for God needs no service from 
men), and exhibited a( type of heavenly things, 
inasmuch: as man was hot yet able~to séé the 
things of God through means of immediate 
vision ;9 and foreshadowed the images of those 
things which [now actually] exist in the Church, 
in order that our faith might be firmly estab- 
lished ; ° and contained a prophecy of things to 
come, in order that man might learn that God 
has foreknowledge of all things. . 





t “ Quassum et futile.” The text varies much in the mss. 
2 Gen. i. 3. 

3 ie bce 

4 Eph. iv, 5, 6. 

5 Eph iv. 16; Col. ii. x9. 

6 “ Constabit ei.” 

7 We here read “secundum gos” with Massuet, instead of the 
usual ‘‘ secundum gzod,” 

8 “ Concurvans,” corresponding to ovyxaumtwy, which, says 
Harvey, ‘‘ would be expressive of those who were brought under the 
law, as the neck of the steer is bent to the yoke.” 

9 The Latin is, “ per proprium visum.’ 

10 [If this and the former chapter seem to us superfluous, we must 
reflect that such testimony, from the beginning, has established the 
unity of Holy Scripture, and preserved to us—THE Brexe.] 








CHAP. XXXIII.—WHOSOEVER CONFESSES THAT ONE 
GOD IS THE AUTHOR OF BOTH TESTAMENTS, AND 
DILIGENTLY READS THE SCRIPTURES IN COMPANY 
WITH THE PRESBYTERS OF THE CHURCH, IS A 
TRUE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLE ; AND HE WILL RIGHTLY 
UNDERSTAND AND INTERPRET ALL THAT THE 
PROPHETS HAVE DECLARED RESPECTING CHRIST 
AND THE LIBERTY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


1. A spiritual disciple of this sort truly receiv- 
ing the Spirit of God, who was from the begin- 
ning, in all the dispensations of God, present 
with mankind, and announced things future, re- 
vealed things present, and narrated things past 
— [such a man] does indeed “judge all men, but 
is himself judged by no man.”™ For he judges 
the Gentiles, “who serve the creature more than 
the Creator,” ' and with a reprobate mind spend 
all their labour on vanity. And he also judges 
the Jews, who do not accept of the word of 
liberty, nor are willing to go forth free, although 
they have a Deliverer present [with them] ; but 
they pretend, at a time unsuitable [for such 
conduct], to serve, [with observances] beyond 
[those required by] the law, God who stands_in 
need of nothing, and do not recognise the advent 
of Christ, which He accomplished for the salva- 
tion of men, nor are willing to understand that 
all the prophets announced His two advents: 
the one, indeed, in which He became a man 
subject to stripes, and knowing what it is to bear 
infirmity,"3 and sat upon the foal of an ass,'4 and 
was a stone rejected by the builders,'s and was led 
as a sheep to the slaughter,’® and by the stretch- 
ing forth of His hands destroyed Amalek ;*7 while 
He gathered from the ends of the earth into His 
Father’s fold the children who were scattered 
abroad,!8 and remembered His own dead ones 
who had formerly fallen asleep,?? and came down 
to them that He might deliver them: but the 
second in which He will come on the clouds,?° 
bringing on the day which burns as a furnace,?! 
and smiting the earth with the word of His 
mouth,” and slaying the impious with the breath 
of His lips, and having a fan in His hands, and 
cleansing His floor, and gathering the wheat in- 
deed into His barn, but burning the chaff with 
unquenchable fire.?3 

2. Moreover, he shall also examine the doc- 





11 x Cor. ii. 15. [The argument of this chapter hinges on Ps, xxv. 
14, and expounds a difficult text of St, Paul. A man who has the mind 
of God’s Spirit is the only judge of spiritual things. Worldly men are 
incompetent critics of Scripture and of Christian exposition. 

12 Rom. i. 21. 

13 Isa, lili. 3. 

14 Zech. ix. 9. 

15 Ps. cxviii. 22. 

16 Isa. liii. 7. 

17 Ex, xvii. rr, 

9.Comp. book iii. 2e, 

20 Dan. vii. 13. aby 

2I Mal. iv. 1. 

22'Isa. xi, 4. 

23 Matt. iii, 12; Luke iii, 19. 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 507 
trine of Marcion, [inquiring] how he holds that 
there are two gods, separated from each other 
by an infinite distance. Or how can he be good 
who draws away men that do not belong to him 
from him who made them, and calls them into 
his own kingdom? And why is his goodness, 
which does not save all [thus], defective? Also, 
why does he, indeed, seem to be good as respects that, on account of the passion which was expe- 
men, but most unjust with regard to him who |rienced by Sophia, they themselves were brought 
made men, inasmuch as he deprives him of his ane birth. But their own special prophet 
possessions ? Moreover, how could the Lord, |(Homer, listening to whom they have invented 
with any justice, if He belonged to another |such“doctrines, shall himself reprove them, when 
father, have acknowledged the bread to be His| he expresses himself as follows : — 
body, while He took it from that creation to 
which we belong, and affirmed the mixed cup 
to be His blood??. And why did He acknowl- 
edge Himself to be the Son of man, if He had 
not gone through that birth which belongs to a 
human being? How, too, could He forgive us 
those sins for which we are answerable to our 
Maker and God? And how, again, supposing 
that He was not flesh, but was a man merely in 
appearance, could He have been crucified, and 
could blood and water have issued from His 
pierced side?’ What body, moreover, was it 
that those who buried Him consigned to the 
tomb? And what was that which rose again 
from the dead? 

3. [This spiritual man] shall also judge all 
the followers of Valentinus, because they do in- 
deed confess with the tongue one God the Father, 
and that all things derive their existence from 
Him, but do at the same time maintain that He 
who formed all things is the fruit of an apostasy 
or defect. [He shall judge them, too, because | 
they do in like manner confess with the tongue 
one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, but as- 
sign in their [system of ] doctrine a production 
of his own to the Only-begotten, one of his own 
also to the Word, another to Christ, and yet an- 
other to the Saviour ; so that, according to them, 
all these beings are indeed said [in Scripture 
to be], as it were, one ; [while they maintain], 
notwithstanding, that each one of them should 
be understood [to exist] separately [from the 
rest], and to have [had] his own special origin, 
according to his peculiar conjunction. [It ap- 
pears], then,* that their tongues alone, forsooth, 
have conceded the unity [of God], while their 
[real] opinion and their understanding (by their 
habit of investigating profundities) have fallen 
_ away from [this doctrine of ] unity, and taken 
ap the notion of manifold deities, — [this, I 


pe ee 











































say, must appear] when they shall be exam- 
ined by Christ as to the points [of doctrine] 
which they have invented. Him, too, they af- 
firm to have been born at a later period than 
the Pleroma of the A®ons, and that His pro- 
duction took place after [the occurrence of ] 
a degeneracy or apostasy; and they maintain 


“ Hateful to me that man as Hades’ gates, 
Who one thing thinks, while he another states.” 


[This spiritual man] shall also judge the vain 
speeches of the perverse Gnostics, by showing 
that they are the disciples of Simon Magus. 

4. He will judge also the Ebionites; [for] 
how can they be saved unless it was God who 
wrought out their salvation upon earth? Or how 
shall man pass into God, unless God has [first] 
passed into man? And how shall he (man) es- 
cape from the generation subject to death, if 
not by means® of a new generation, given ina 
wonderful and unexpected manner (but as a sign 
of salvation) by God — [I mean] that regenera- 
tion which flows from the virgin through faith ?7 
Or how shall they receive adoption from God if 
they remain in this [kind of] generation, which 
is naturally possessed by man in this world ? 
And how could He (Christ) have been greater 
than Solomon,’ or greater than Jonah, or have 
been the Lord of David,? who was of the same 
substance as they were? How, too, could He 
have subdued °° him who was stronger than men," 
who had not only overcome man, but also re- 
tained him under his power, and conquered him 
who had conquered, while he set free mankind 
who had been conquered, unless He had been 
greater than man who had thus been vanquished ? 
But who else is superior to, and more eminent 
than, that man who was formed after the like- 
ness of God, except the Son of God, after whose 
image man was created? And for this reason 
He did in these last days‘ exhibit the simili- 
tude ; [for] the Son of God was made man, as- 
suming the ancient production [of His hands] 
into His own nature, as I have shown in the 
immediately preceding book. 


et) ee ee 


5 iad, ix. 312, 313. : 
6 The text is obscure, and the construction doubtful. 
7 The Latin here is, “ que est ex virgine per fidem regenera- 
tionem.” According to Massuet, “ virgine” here refers not to Mary, 
but to the Church. Grabe suspects that some words have been 
lost. 

8 Matt. xii. 41, 42. 

9 Matt. xxii. 43. 5 

10 Matt. xxii. 29; Luke xi. 21, 22. 

11 Literally, ‘‘ who was strong against men.” 

12 In fine; lit. inthe end.” 

13 In semetipsum: lit. ‘‘ unto Himself.” 


1 Harve ints this sentence interrogatively. 

2 ct Memperamentum calicis:”” on which aeeey remarks that 
«the mixture of water with the wine in the holy Eucharist was the 
universal practice of antiquity . - . the wine signifying the mystical 
Head of the Church, the water the body.” [Whatever the signifi- 
cance, it harmonizes with the Paschal chalice, and with 1 John v. 6, 
and St (er Gospel, xix. 34, 35- 

3 1, Nn xix. 34. : ; 

4 This sentence is very obscure in the Latin text. 


5038 





5. He shall also judge those who describe 
Christ as [having become man] only in [human] 
opinion. For how can they imagine that they 
do themselves carry on a real discussion, when 
their Master was a mere imaginary being? Or 
how can they receive anything stedfast from 
Him, if He was a merely imagined being, and 
not a verity? And how can these men really be 
partakers of salvation, if He in whom they pro- 
fess to believe, manifested Himself as a merely 
imaginary being? Everything, therefore, con- 
nected with these men is unreal, and nothing 
[possessed of the character of] truth; and, in 
these circumstances, it may be made a question 
whether (since, perchance, they themselves in 
like manner are not men, but mere dumb ani- 
mals) they do not present,’ in most cases, simply 
a shadow of humanity. 

6. He shall also judge false prophets, who, 
without having received the gift of prophecy 
from God, and not possessed of the fear of God, 
but either for the sake of vainglory, or with a 
view to some personal advantage, or acting in 
some other way under the influence of a wicked 
spirit, pretend to utter prophecies, while all the 
time they lie against God. 

7. He shall also judge those who give rise to 
schisms, who are destitute of the love of God, 
and who look to their own special advantage 
rather than to the unity of the Church ; and who 
for trifling reasons, or any kind of reason which 
occurs to them, cut in pieces and divide the 
great and glorious body of Christ, and so far as 
in them lies, [positively] destroy it, — men who 
prate of peace while they give rise to war, and 
do in truth strain out a gnat, but swallow a 
camel? For no reformation of so great impor- 
tance can be effected by them, as will compen- 
sate for the mischief arising from their schism. 
He shall also judge all those who are beyond 
the pale of the truth, that is, who are outside the 
Church ; but he himself shall be judged by no 
one. For to him all things are consistent: he 
has a full faith in one God Almighty, of whom 
are all things; and in the Son of God, Jesus 
Christ our Lord, by whom are all things, and in 
the dispensations connected with Him, by means 
of which the Son of God became man; and a 
firm belief in the Spirit of God, who furnishes 
us with a knowledge of the truth, and has set 
forth the dispensations of the Father and the 
Son, in virtue of which He dwells with every 
generation of men, according to the will of the 
Father. 








t We here follow the reading “ proferant: ” the passage is difficult 
and obscure, but the meaning is as above. 

2 Matt. xxiii. 24, 

3 The Greek text here is cxnvoBarodr (lit. “ to tabernacle: ” comp. 
eee ey be i. 14) Kad’ éxdornv yeveay év Tols avOpwrots: the 
Latin is, ‘‘Secundum quas (dispositiones) aderat generi humano.” 
We have endeavoured to express the meaning of both. 











IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


8. True knowledge? is [that which consists in] 
the doctrine of the apostles, and the ancient 
constitution 5 of the Church throughout all the 
world, and the distinctive manifestation of the 
body ® of Christ according to the successions of 
the bishops, by which they have handed down 
that Church which exists in every place, and 
has come even unto us, being guarded and pre- 
served,’ without any forging of Scriptures, by a 
very complete system ® of doctrine, and neither 
receiving addition nor [suffering] curtailment 
[in the truths which she believes]; and [it 
consists in] reading [the word of God] without 
falsification, and a lawful and diligent exposition 
in harmony with the Scriptures, both without 
danger and without blasphemy ; and [above all, 
it consists in] the pre-eminent gift of love,° 
which is more precious than knowledge, more 
glorious than prophecy, and which excels all the 
other gifts [of God]. 

g. Wherefore the Church does in every place, 
because of that love which she cherishes towards 
God, send forward, throughout all time, a multi- 
tude of martyrs to the Father ; while all others *° 
not only have nothing of this kind to point to 
among themselves, but even maintain that such 
witness-bearing is not at all necessary, for that 
their system of doctrines is the true witness [for 
Christ], with the exception, perhaps, that one 
or two among them, during the whole time 
which has elapsed since the Lord appeared on 
earth, have occasionally, along with our martyrs, 
borne the reproach of the name (as if he too 
[the heretic] had obtained mercy), and have 
been led forth with them [to death], being, as 
it were, a sort of retinue granted unto them. 
For the Church alone sustains with purity the 
reproach of those who suffer persecution for 
righteousness’ sake, and endure all sorts of pun- 
ishments, and are put to death because of the 
love which they bear to God, and their confes- 
sion of His Son; often weakened indeed, yet 
immediately increasing her members, and be- 
coming whole again, after the same manner as 
her type," Lot’s wife, who became a pillar of 
salt. Thus, too, [she passes through an ex- 
perience] similar to that of the ancient prophets, 
as the Lord declares, “For so persecuted they 
pare RCE LvnebbtnE TY SST by Ge A 





4 The following section is an important one, but very difficult to 
translate with undoubted accuracy. The editors differ considerably 
both as to the construction and the interpretation. We have done 
our best to represent the meaning in English, but may not have been 
altogether successful. 

5 The Greek is cvornua!: the Latin text has “ status.” 

6 The Latin is, ‘‘ character corporis.” 

7 The text here is, “‘ custodita sine fictione scripturarum; ” some 
prefer joining “‘ scripturarum” to the following words. 

i e follow Harvey’s text, ‘‘tractatione;”” others read “ tracta- 
tio.” According to Harvey, the creed of the Church is denoted b 
“‘ tractatione; ” but Massuet renders the clause thus: [‘ True knowl- 
edge consists inj a very complete ¢vactatzo of the Scriptures, which 
has come down to us by being preserved (‘custoditione’ being read 
instead of ‘ custodita’) without falsification,” ie 

9 Comp. 2 Cor. viii. x; x Cor, xiii, 

10 1.e., the heretics. 

31 Comp. above, xxxi. 2, 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


509 





the prophets who were before you ;”* inasmuch 
as she does indeed, in a new fashion, suffer per- 
secution from those who do not receive the 
word of God, while the self-same spirit rests 
upon her? [as upon these ancient prophets]. 
ro. And indeed the prophets, along with 
other things which they predicted, also foretold 
this, that all those on whom the Spirit of God 
should rest, and who would obey the word of 
the Father, and serve Him according to their 
ability, should suffer persecution, and be stoned 
and slain. For the prophets prefigured in them- 
selves all these things, because of their love to 
God, and on account of His word. For since 
they themselves were members of Christ, each 
one of them in his place as a member did, in 
accordance with this, set forth the prophecy 
[assigned him]; all of them, although many, 
prefiguring only one, and proclaiming the things 
which pertain to one. For just as the working 
of the whole body is exhibited through means 
of our members, while the figure of a complete 
man is not displayed by one member, but 
through means of all taken together, so also 
did all the prophets prefigure the one [Christ] ; 
while every one of them, in his special place as 
a member, did, in accordance with this, fill up 
the [established] dispensation, and shadowed 
forth beforehand that particular working of 
Christ which was connected with that member. 
11. For some of them, beholding Him in 
glory, saw His glorious life (conversationem) at 
the Father’s right hand ;3 others beheld Him 
coming on the clouds as the Son of man ;* and 
those who declared regarding Him, “They shall 
look on Him whom they have pierced,” 5 indi- 
cated His [second] advent, concerning which 
He Himself says, ““Thinkest thou that when the 
Son of man cometh, He shall find faith on the 
earth?” Paul also refers to this event when 
he says, “If, however, it is a righteous thing with 
God to recompense tribulation to them that 
trouble you, and to you that are troubled rest 
with us, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from 
heaven, with His mighty angels, and in a flame 
of fire.’7 Others again, speaking of Him as a 
judge, and [referring], as if it were a burning 
furnace, [to] the day of the Lord, who “ gathers 
the wheat into His barn, but will burn up the 
chaff with unquenchable fire,’”’* were accustomed 
to threaten those who were unbelieving, concern- 
ing whom also the Lord Himself declares, “ De- 
part from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, 
i) ee 


I Matt. v. 12. 

2 Comp. 1 Pet. iv. 14. 

3 Isa. vi. 1; Ps. cx. 2. 

4 Ha vii, 13. 

5 Zech. xii, 10. ; 

6 Luke xviii. 8. There is nothing to correspond with “ putas "in 
the received text. 

7 2 Thess. i. 6-8. 

8 Matt. iii. 12. 


which my Father has prepared for the devil and 
his angels.” And the apostle in like manner 
says [of them], “Who shall be punished with 
everlasting death from the face of the Lord, and 
from the glory of His power, when He shall 
come to be glorified in His saints, and to be 
admired in those who believe in Him.” '° There 
are also some [of them] who declare, “Thou art 
fairer than the children of men ;” *! and, “God, 
Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of 
gladness above Thy fellows ;” and, “ Gird Thy 
sword upon Thy thigh, O Most Mighty, with 
Thy beauty and Thy fairness, and go forward 
and proceed prosperously; and rule Thou 
because of truth, and meekness, and righteous- 
ness.” "3 And whatever other things of a like na- 
ture are spoken regarding Him, these indicated 
that beauty and splendour which exist in His 
kingdom, along with the transcendent and pre- 
eminent exaltation [belonging] to all who are 
under His sway, that those who hear might desire 
to be found there, doing such things as are pleas- 
ing to God. Again, there are those who say, 
“ He is a man, and who shall know him?” *4 and, 
“I came unto the prophetess, and she bare a 
son, and His name is called Wonderful, Coun- 
sellor, the Mighty God ;” ‘5 and those [of them] 
who proclaimed Him as Immanuel, [born] of 
the Virgin, exhibited the union of the Word of 
God with His own workmanship, [declaring] 
that the Word should become flesh, and the Son 
of God the Son of man (the pure One opening 
purely that pure womb which regenerates men 
unto God, and which He Himself made pure) ; 
and having become this which we also are, He 
[nevertheless] is the Mighty God, and possesses 
a generation which cannot be declared. And 
there are also some of them who say, “The 
Lord hath spoken in Zion, and uttered His 
voice from Jerusalem ;”* and, “In Judah is God 
known ;””?7— these indicated His advent which 
took place in Judea. Those, again, who declare 
that “God comes from the south, and from a 
mountain thick with foliage,” ‘§ announced His 
advent at Bethlehem, as I have pointed out in 
the preceding book.'? From that place, also, 
He who rules, and who feeds the people of His 
Father, has come. Those, again, who declare 
that at His coming “the lame man shall leap as 
an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall 


Os 

9 Matt. xxv. 41. 

10 2 Thess, i. 9, 10. 

11 Ps, xlv. 2. 

12 Ps, xlv. 7. 

13 Ps, xlv. 3, 4. 

14 Jer, xvii. 9 (Sept.). Harvey here remarks: ‘ The LXX. read 
WAIN instead of WAR. Thus, from a text that teaches us that the 


vt 7 

heart is deceitful above all things, the Fathers extract a proof of 
the manhood of Christ.” 

15 Isa, viii. 3, ix. 6, Vil. 14- 

16 Joel iii. 16. 

17 Ps, Ixxvi. 1. . 

18 Hab. iii. 3. 

19 See ll, xx. 4. 


[A confusion of texts.] 


510 





[speak] plainly, and the eyes of the blind shall 
be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear,” * 
and that “the hands which hang down, and the 
feeble knees, shall be strengthened,” ? and that 
“the dead which are in the grave shall arise,’ 3 
and that He Himself “shall take [upon Him] 
our weaknesses, and bear our sorrows,” +— [all 
these] proclaimed those works of healing which 
were accomplished by Him. 

12. Some of them, moreover— [when they 
predicted that] as a weak and inglorious man, 
and as one who knew what it was to bear in- 
firmity,5 and sitting upon the foal of an ass,° He 
should come to Jerusalem; and that He should 
give His back to stripes,?7 and His cheeks to 
palms [which struck Him] ; and that He should 
be led as a sheep to the slaughter ;® and that 
He should have vinegar and gall given Him to 
drink ;9 and that He should be forsaken by His 
friends and those nearest to Him ;'° and that He 
should stretch forth His hands the whole day 
long ;'* and that He should be mocked and 
maligned by those who looked upon Him ; ” and 
that His garments should be parted, and lots 
cast upon His raiment ;'3 and that He should be 
brought down to the dust of death,™ with all 

the other] things of a like nature — prophesied 

is coming in the character of a man as He 
entered Jerusalem, in which by His passion and 
crucifixion He endured all the things which 
have been mentioned. Others, again, when they 
said, “The holy Lord remembered His own 
dead ones who slept in the dust, and came 
down to them to raise them up, that He might 
save them,’’'5 furnished us with the reason on 
account of which He suffered all these things. 
Those, moreover, who said, “In that day, saith 
the Lord, the sun shall go down at noon, and 
there shall be darkness over the earth in the 
clear day ; and I will turn your feast days into 
mourning, and all your songs into lamentation,” '© 
plainly announced that obscuration of the sun 
which at the time of His crucifixion took place 
from the sixth hour onwards, and that after this 
event, those days which were their festivals ac- 
cording to the law, and their songs, should be 
changed into grief and lamentation when they 
were handed over to the Gentiles. Jeremiah, 
too, makes this point still clearer, when he thus 








I Isa. xxxv. 5, 6. 
2 Isa, xxxv. 3. 

3 Isa, xxvi. 19. 

4 Isa. lili. 4. 

5 Isa. liii, 3. 

& Zech. ix. g. 

7 Isa. 1. 6. 

8 Isa, lili. 7. 

9 Ps, Ixix. ar. 

10 Ps, xxxviii, 12, 
Ir Tsa, Ixv. 2. 
BeOPS) xxii 7, 

13 Ps, xxii. 18. 

34 Ps, xxii. x5. 

15 Comp. book iii. cap, xx. 4 and book iv. cap, xadi. x. 
6 Amos viii. 9, 10. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 









speaks concerning Jerusalem: “She that hath 
born [seven] languisheth ; her soul hath become 
weary; her sun hath gone down while it was 
yet noon; she hath been confounded, and suf- 
fered reproach: the remainder of them will I 
give to the sword in the sight of their enemies.” *7 

13. Those of them, again, who spoke of His 
having slumbered and taken sleep, and of His 
having risen again because the Lord sustained 
Him,'8 and who enjoined the principalities of 
heaven to set open the everlasting doors, that 
the King of glory might go in,’? proclaimed be- 
forehand His resurrection from the dead through 
the Father’s power, and His reception into 
heaven. And when they expressed themselves 
thus, “ His going forth is from the height of 
heaven, and His returning even to the highest 
heaven ; and there is no one who can hide him- 
self from His heat,” ° they announced that very 
truth of His being taken up again to the place 
from which He came down, and that there is no 
one who can escape His righteous judgment. 
And those who said, “ The Lorp hath reigned ; 
let the people be enraged: [even] He who 
sitteth upon the cherubim; let the earth be 
moved,’’?? were thus predicting partly that wrath 
from all nations which after His ascension came 
upon those who believed in Him, with the move- 
ment of the whole earth against the Church ; 
and partly the fact that, when He comes from 
heaven with His mighty angels, the whole earth 
shall be shaken, as He Himself declares, “‘ There 
shall be a great earthquake, such as has not 
been from the beginning.” 2? And again, when 
one says, ‘ Whosoever is judged, let him stand 
opposite ; and whosoever is justified, let him 
draw near to the servant?3 of God ;”’24 and, “Woe 
unto you, for ye shall wax old as doth a garment, 
and the moth shall eat you up ;” and, “All flesh 
shall be humbled, and the Lorp alone shall be 
exalted in the highest,” ?5—it is thus indicated 
that, after His passion and ascension, God shall 
cast down under His feet all who were opposed 
to Him, and He shall be exalted above all, and . 
there shall be no one who can be justified or 
compared to Him. 

14. And those of them who declare that God 
would make a new covenant? with men, not 
such as that which He made with the fathers at 
Mount Horeb, and would give to men a new 
heart and a new spirit ;?7 and again, “And re- 
member ye not the things of old: behold, I 





7 der: XV. 9. 
18 Ps, ili. 5. 

19 Ps. xxiv. 7. 

20 Ps. xix. 6. 

2I Ps. xcix. 1. 

22 Matt. xxiv. 21. 
23 Or “‘ son.” 


24 Isa. 1. 8, 9 (loosely quoted). 
25 Isa, ii, 17. 


26 Jer, xxxi. 31, 32. 
27 EY XXXVi. 26, 


_IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


— ‘ = =—s 


511 





make new things which shall now arise, and ye 
shall know it; and I will make a way in the 
desert, and rivers in a dry land, to give drink to 
my chosen people, my people whom I have 
acquired, that they may show forth my praise,” * 
—plainly announced that liberty which distin- 
guishes the new covenant, and the new wine 
which is put into new bottles,? [that is], the 
-faith which is in Christ, by which He has pro- 
claimed the way of righteousness sprung up in 
the desert, and the streams of the Holy Spirit 
in a dry land, to give water to the elect people 
of God, whom He has acquired, that they might 
show forth His praise, but not that they might 
Lees gi Him who made these things, that is, 
God. 

15. And all those other points which I have 
shown the prophets to have uttered by means of 
so long a series of Scriptures, he who is truly 
spiritual will interpret by pointing out, in regard 
to every one of the things which have been 
spoken, to what special point in the dispensation 
of the Lord is referred, and [by thus exhibiting] 
the entire system of the work of the Son of 
God, knowing always the same God, and always 
acknowledging the same Word of God, although 
He has [but] now been manifested to us; ac- 
knowledging also at all times the same Spirit of 
God, although He has been poured out upon us 
after a new fashion in these last times, [knowing 
that He descends] even from the creation of 
the world to its end upon the human race simply 
as such, from whom those who believe God and 
follow His word receive that salvation which 
flows from Him. ‘Those, on the other hand, 
who depart from Him, and despise His precepts, 
and by their deeds bring dishonour on Him who 
made them, and by their opinions blaspheme 
Him who nourishes them, heap up against them- 
selves most righteous judgment. He therefore 
(i.e., the spiritual man) sifts and tries them all, 





were from another God [than He who is an- 
nounced in the-Gospel], read with earnest care 
that Gospel which has been conveyed to us by 
the apostles, and read with earnest care the 
prophets, and you will find that the whole con- 
duct, and all the doctrine, and all the sufferings 
of our Lord, were predicted through them. 
But if a thought of this kind should then 
suggest itself to you, to say, What then did the 
Lord bring tous by His advent? —know ye 
that He brough:t all [ possible] novelty, by bring- 
ing Himself who had been announced. For 
this very thing was proclaimed beforehand, that 
a novelty should come to renew and quicken 
mankind. For the advent of the King is pre- 
viously announced by those servants who are 
sent [before Him], in order to the preparation 
and equipment of those men who are to enter- 
tain their Lord. But when the King has actually 
come, and those who are His subjects have been 
filled with that joy which was proclaimed before- 
hand, and have attained to that liberty which 
He bestows, and share in the sight of Him, and 
have listened to His words, and have enjoyed 
the gifts which He confers, the question will not 
then be asked by any that are possessed of 
sense what new thing the King has brought be- 
yond [that proclaimed by] those who announced 
His coming. For He has brought Himself, and 
has bestowed on men those good things which 
were announced beforehand, which things the 
angels desired to look into.® 

2. But the servants would then have been 
proved false, and not sent by the Lord, if Christ 
on His advent, by being found exactly such as 
He was previously announced, had not fulfilled 
their words. ‘Wherefore He said, “Think not 
that I have come to destroy the law or the 
prophets; I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. 
For verily I say unto you, Until heaven and earth 
pass away, one jot or one tittle shall not pass 


but he himself is tried by no man:+¢ he neither) from the law and the prophets till all come to 


blasphemes—his—Father, nor sets aside His dis- 
pensations, nor inveighs against the fathers, nor 
dishonours the prophets, by maintaining that 
they were [sent] from another God [than he 
worships], or again, that their prophecies were 
derived from different sources.5 


CHAP. XXXIV. — PROOF AGAINST THE MARCIONITES, 
{HAT THE PROPHETS REFERRED IN ALL THEIR 
PREDICTIONS TO OUR CHRIST. 


1. Now I shall simply say, in opposition to 
all the heretics, and principally against the fol- 
lowers of Marcion, and against those who are 
like to thesé;in maintaining that the prophets 





1 Isa, xliii, 19-21. 

2 Matt. ix. 17. 

3 Rom. ii. 5. . 

4 1 Cor. ii.-15. Ae dh e 
5“ Bx alia et alia substantia fuisse prophetias. 


pass.”7 For by His advent He Himself fulfilled 
all things, and does still fulfil in the Church the 
new covenant foretold by the law, onwards to 
the consummation [of all things]. To this effect 
also Paul, His apostle, says in the Epistle to 
the Romans, “But now,® without the law, has 
the righteousness of God been manifested, being 
witnessed by the law and the prophets; for the 
just shall live by faith.” But this fact, that the 
just shall live by faith, had been previously an- 
nounced ® by the prophets. 

3. But whence could the prophets have had 
power to predict the advent of the King, and to 
preach beforehand that liberty which was be- 
es Sis RE, a ee ee a 


6 x Pet. i. 12. 

7 Rom. iii. 21. 

8 Matt. v. 17, 18. 
9 Rom. i. 17. 

10 Hab. ii. 4. 


512 





stowed by Him, and previously to announce all 
things which were done by Christ, His words, 
His works, and His sufferings, and to predict the 
new covenant, if they had received prophetical 
inspiration from another God [than He who 
is revealed in the Gospel], they being ignorant, 
as ye allege, of the ineffable Father, of His king- 
dom, and His dispensations, which the Son of 
God fulfilled when He came upon earth in these 
last times? Neither are ye in a position to say 
that these things came to pass by a certain kind 
of chance, as if they were spoken by the prophets 
in regard to some other person, while like events 
happened to the Lord. For all_the prophets 
prophesied these same things, but they never 
came to pass in the case of any one of the 
ancients. For if these things had happened to 
any man among them of old time, those [proph- 
ets] who lived subsequently would certainly not 
have prophesied that these events should come 
to pass in the last times. Moreover, there is in 
fact none among the fathers, nor the prophets, 
nor the ancient kings, in whose case any one of 
these things properly and specifically took place. 
For all indeed prophesied as to the sufferings of 
Christ, but they themselves were far from en- 
during sufferings similar to what was predicted. 
And the points connected with the passion of 
the Lord, which were foretold, were realized in 
no other case. For neither did it happen at the 
death of any man among the ancients that the 
sun set at mid-day, nor was the veil of the temple 
rent, nor did the earth quake, nor were the rocks 
rent, nor did the dead rise up, nor was any one 
of these men [of old] raised up on the third day, 
nor received into heaven, nor at his assumption 
were the heavens opened, nor did the nations 
believe in the name of any other; nor did any 
from among them, having been dead and rising 
again, lay open the new covenant of liberty. 
Therefore the prophets spake not of any’one 
else but of the Lord, in whom all these aforesaid 
tokens concurred. 

4. If any one, however, advocating the cause 
of the Jews, do maintain that this new covenant 
consisted in the rearing of that temple which was 
built under Zerubbabel after the emigration to 
Babylon, and in the departure of the people from 
thence after the lapse of seventy years, let him 
know that the temple constructed of stones was 
indeed then rebuilt (for as yet that law was ob- 
served which had been made upon tables of 
stone), yet no new covenant was given, but they 
used the Mosaic law until the coming of the 
Lord; but from the Lord’s advent, the new 
covenant which brings back peace, and the law 
which gives life, has gone forth over the whole 
earth, as the prophets said: “For out of Zion 
shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord 
from Jerusalem; and He shall rebuke many 


IRENAUS AGAINST 











HERESIES. 


a eS 


people ; and they shall break down: their swords 
into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning- 
hooks, and they shall no longer learn to fight.” * 
If therefore another law and word, going forth 
from Jerusalem, brought in such a [reign of ] 
peace among the Gentiles which received it (the 
word), and convinced, through them, many a 
nation of its folly, then [only] it appears that 
the prophets spake of some other person. But 
if the law of liberty, that is, the word of God, 
preached by the apostles (who went forth from 
Jerusalem) throughout all the earth, caused such 
a change in the state of things, that these 
[nations] did form the swords. and war-lances 
into ploughshares, and changed them into prun- 
ing-hooks for reaping the corn, [that is], into 
instruments used for peaceful purposes, and that 
they are now unaccustomed to fighting, but 
when smitten, offer also the other cheek,? then 
the prophets have not spoken these things of any 
other person, but of Him who effected them. 
This person is our Lord, and in Him is that 
declaration borne out; since it is He Himself 
who has made the plough, and introduced the 
pruning-hook, that is, the first semination of man, 
which was the creation exhibited in Adam,3 and 
the gathering in of the produce in the last times 
by the Word; and, for this reason, since He 
joined the beginning to the end, and is the Lord of 
both, He has finally displayed the plough, in that 
the wood has been joined on to the iron, and 
has thus cleansed His land; because the Word, 
having been firmly united to flesh, and in its 
mechanism fixed with pins,4 has reclaimed the 
savage earth. In the beginning, He figured 
forth the pruning-hook by means of Abel, point- 
ing out that there should be a gathering in of 
a righteous race of men. He says, “ For behold 
how the just man perishes, and no man considers 
it; and righteous men are taken away, and no 
man layeth it to heart.’ These things were acted 
beforehand in Abel, were also previously declared 
by the prophets, but were accomplished in the 
Lord’s person; and tne same [is still true] with 
regard to us, the body following the example of 
the Head. 

5. Such are the arguments proper® [to be 
used] in opposition to those who maintain that 
the prophets [were inspired] by a different God, 
and that our Lord [came] from another Father, 
if perchance [these heretics] may at length de- 


I Isa. ii. 3, 4; Mic. iv. 2, 3. 
2 Matt. v. 39. 
3 Book 1. p. 327, this volume, 

_ 4 This is followmg Harvey's conjectural emendation of the text, 
viz., “‘ taleis” for “ talis.” He considers the zs here as symbolical 
of the #az/s by which our Lord was fastened tothe cross. ‘The whole 
passage is almost hopelessly obscure, though the general meaning 
maybe guessed. 

5 Isa. lvii. 1. 

6 [If it be remembered that we know Irenzus here, only through 
a most obscure Latin rendering, we shall be slow to censure this 
conclusion. | 


IRENAZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


ohS 





sist from such extreme folly. This is my earnest | not in that of error, He did the very same also 


object in adducing these Scriptural proofs, that 
confuting them, as far as in me lies, by these 
very passages, I may restrain them from such 
great blasphemy, and from insanely fabricating a 
multitude of gods. 


CHAP. XXXV.—-A REFUTATION OF THOSE WHO 
ALLEGE THAT THE PROPHETS UTTERED SOME 
PREDICTIONS UNDER THE INSPIRATION OF THE 
HIGHEST, OTHERS FROM THE DEMIURGE. DIS- 
AGREEMENTS OF THE VALENTINIANS AMONG 
THEMSELVES WITH REGARD TO THESE SAME 
PREDICTIONS, 


1. Then again, in opposition to the Valentin- 
ians, and the other Gnostics, falsely so called, 
who maintain that some parts of Scripture were 
spoken at one time from meg atte (@ summt- 
tate) through means of the seed [derived] from 
that place, but at another timé from the _interme- 
diate abode through means of the audacious 
mother Prunica, but that many are due to the 
Creator of the world, from whom also the proph- 
ets had their mission, we say that it is altogether 
irrational to bring down the Father of the universe 
to such straits, as that He should not be possessed 
of His own proper instruments, by which the 
things in the Pleroma might be perfectly pro- 
claimed. For of whom was He afraid, so that 
He should not reveal His will after His own way 
and independently, freely, and without being 
involved with that spirit which came into being 
in a state of degeneracy and ignorance? Was 
it that He feared that very many would be saved, 
when more should have listened to the unadul- 
terated truth? Or, on the other hand, was He 
incapable of preparing for Himself those who 
should announce the Saviour’s advent? 

2. But if, when the Saviour came to this earth, 
He sent His apostles into the world to proclaim 
with accuracy His advent, and to teach the 
Father’s will, having nothing in common with 
the doctrine of the Gentiles or of the Jews, much 
more, while yet existing in the Pleroma, would 
He have appointed His own heralds to proclaim 
His future advent into this world, and having 
nothing in common with those prophecies origi- 
nating from the Demiurge. But if, when within 
the Pleroma, He availed Himself of those proph- 
ets who were under the law, and declared His own 
matters through their instrumentality; much 
more would He, upon His arrival hither, have 
made use of these same teachers, and have 
preached the Gospel to us by their means. 
Therefore let them not any longer assert that 
Peter and Paul and the other apostles proclaimed 
the truth, but that it was the scribes and Phari- 
sees, and the others, through whom the law was 
propounded. But if, at His advent, He sent 
forth His own apostles in the spirit of truth, and 








in the case of the prophets; for the Word of 
God was always the self-same: and if the Spirit 
from the Pleroma was, according to these men’s 
system, the Spirit of light, the Spirit of truth, 
the Spirit of perfection, and the Spirit of knowl- 
edge, while that from the Demiurge was the 
spirit of ignorance, degeneracy, and error, and 
the offspring of obscurity ; how can it be, that in 
one and the same being there exists perfection 
and defect, knowledge and ignorance, error and 
truth, light and darkness? But if it was impos- 
sible that such should happen in the case of the 
prophets, for they preached the word of the Lord 
from one God, and proclaimed the advent of 
His Son, much more would the Lord Himself 
never have uttered words, on one occasion from 
above, but on another from degeneracy below, 
thus becoming the teacher at once of knowledge 
and of ignorance; nor would He have ever 
glorified as Father at one time the Founder of 
the world, and at another Him who is above 
this one, as He does Himself declare: “No 
man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an 
old one, nor do they put new wine into old 
bottles.” Let these men, therefore, either have 
nothing whatever to do with the prophets, as 
with those that are ancients, and allege no longer 
that these men, being sent beforehand by the 
Demiurge, spake certain things under that new 
influence which pertains to the Pleroma ; or, on 
the other hand, let them be convinced by our 
Lord, when He declares that new wine cannot 
be put into old bottles. 

3. But from what source could the offspring 
of their mother derive his knowledge of the 
mysteries within the Pleroma, and power to dis- 
course regarding them? Suppose that the 
mother, while beyond the Pleroma, did bring 
forth this very offspring ; but what is beyond the 
Pleroma they represent as being beyond the pale 
of knowledge, that is, ignorance. How, then, 
could that seed, which was conceived in igno- 
rance, possess the power of declaring knowledge ? 
Or how did the mother herself, a shapeless and 
undefined being, one cast out of doors as an abor- 
tion, obtain knowledge of the mysteries within 
the Pleroma, she who was organized outside it 
and given a form there, and prohibited by Horos 
from entering within, and who remains outside 
the Pleroma till the consummation [of all things], 
that is, beyond the pale of knowledge? Then, 
again, when they say that the Lord’s passion is a 
type of the extension of the Christ above, which 
he effected through Horos, and so imparted a 
form to their mother, they are refuted in the 
other particulars [of the Lord’s passion], for they 
have no semblance of a type to show with regard 


Tt Luke v. 36, 37: 


514 


to them. For when did the Christ above have 
vinegar and gall given him to drink? Or when 
was his raiment parted? Or when was he 
pierced, and blood and water came forth? Or 
when did he sweat great drops of blood? And 
[the same may be demanded] as to the other 
particulars which happened to the Lord, of which 
the prophets have spoken. From whence, then, 
did the mother or her offspring divine the things 
which had not yet taken place, but which should 
occur afterwards ? 

4. They affirm that certain things still, besides 
these, were spoken from the Pleroma, but are 
confuted by those which are referred to in the 
Scriptures as bearing on the advent of Christ. 
But what these are [that are spoken from the 
Pleroma] they are not agreed, but give differ- 
ent answers regarding them. For if any one, 
wishing to test them, do question one by one 
with regard to any passage those who are their 
leading men, he shall find one of them referring 
the passage in question to the Propator — that 
is, to Bythus ; another attributing it to Arche — 
that is, to the Only-begotten; another to the 
Father of all — that is, to the Word ; while an- 
other, again, will say that it was spoken of that 
one Aéon who was [formed from the joint con- 
tributions] of the Atons in the Pleroma ; * others 
[will regard the passage] as referring to Christ, 
while another [will refer it] to the Saviour. One, 
again, more skilled than these,? after a long pro- 
tracted silence, declares that it was-spoken of 
Horos ; another that it signifies the ‘Sophia which 
is within the Pleroma ; another that 1t announces 
the mother outside the Pleroma; while another 
will:mention the God who made the world (the 
Demiurge). Such are the variations existing 
among them with regard to one [ passage ], hold- 
ing discordant opinions as to the same Scrip- 
tures; and when the same identical passage is 
read out, they all begin to purse up their eye- 
brows, and to shake their heads, and they say 
that they might indeed utter a discourse tran- 
scendently lofty, but that all cannot comprehend 
the greatness of that thought which is implied in 
it; and that, therefore, among the wise the chief 
thing is silence. For that Sige (szdence) which 
is above must be typified by that silence which 
they preserve. Thus do they, as many as they 
are, all depart [from each other], holding so 
many opinions as to one thing, and bearing 
about their clever notions in secret within them- 
selves. When, therefore, they shall have agreed 
among themselves as to the things predicted in 
the Scriptures, then also shall they be confuted 
by us. For, though holding wrong opinions, 
they do in the meanwhile, however, convict 
themselves, since they are not of one mind with 





1 Book i. p. 334, this volume. 
2 Illorum; following the Greek form of the comparative degree. 








IRENZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





regard to the same words. But as we follow for 
our teacher the one and only true God, and pos- 
sess His words as the rule of truth, we do all 
speak alike with regard to the same things, know- 
ing but one God, the Creator of this universe, 
who sent the prophets, who led forth the people 
from the land of Egypt, who in these last times 
manifested His own Son, that He might put the 
unbelievers to confusion, and search out the fruit 
of righteousness. 


CHAP. XXXVI. — THE PROPHETS WERE SENT FROM 
ONE AND THE SAME FATHER FROM WHOM THE 
SON WAS SENT. 


1. Which [God] the Lord does not reject, 


nor does He say that the prophets [spake] from 


another god than His Father; nor from any 
other essence, but from one and the same Fa- 
ther; nor that any other being made the things 
in the world, except His own Father, when He 
speaks as follows in His teaching: “There was 
a certain householder, and he planted a vine- 
yard, and hedged it round about, and digged in 
it a winepress, and built a tower, and let it out 
to husbandmen, and went into a far country: 
And when the time of the fruit drew near, he 
sent his servants unto the husbandmen, that they 
might receive the fruits of it. And the husband- 
men took his servants: they cut one to pieces, 
stoned another, and killed another. Again he 
sent other servants more than the first: and 
they did unto them likewise. But last of all 
he sent unto them his only son, saying, Per- 
chance they will reverence my son. But when 
the husbandmen saw the son, they said among 
themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill 
him, and we shall possess his inheritance. And 
they caught him, and cast him out of the vine- 
yard, and slew him. When, therefore, the lord 
of the vineyard shall come, what will he do unto 
these husbandmen? They say unto him, He 
will miserably destroy these wicked men, and 
will let out his vineyard to other husbandmen, 
who shall render him the fruits in their season.” 3 
Again does the Lord say: “ Have ye never read, 
The stone which the builders rejected, the same 
is become the head of the corner: this is the 
Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? 
Therefore I say unto you, that the kingdom of 
God shall be taken from you, and given to a 
nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”+ By 
these words He clearly points out to His disci- 
ples one and the same Householder — that is, 
one God the Father, who made all things by 
Himself ; while [He shows] that there are vari- 
ous husbandmen, some obstinate, and proud, and 
worthless, and slayers of the Lord, but ethers 
who render Him, with all obedience, the fruits 


3 Matt. xxi. 33-41. 
4 Matt. xxi. 42-44. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


515 





in theit seasons ; and that it is the same House- 
holder who sends at one time His servants, at 
another His Son. From that Father, therefore, 
from whom the Son was sent to those husband- 
men who slew Him, from Him also were the 
servants [sent]. But the Son, as coming from 
the Father with supreme authority (principah 
auctoritate), used to express Himself thus: “ But 
I say unto you.’! ‘The servants, again, [who 
came] as from their Lord, spake after the man- 
ner of servants, [delivering a message]; and 
they therefore used to say, “Thus saith the 
Lord.” 

2. Whom these men did therefore preach to 
the unbelievers as Lord, Him did Christ teach 
to those who obey Him; and the God who had 
called those of the former dispensation, is the 
same as He who has received those of the latter. 
In other words, He who at first used that law 
which entails bondage, is also He who did in 
- after times [call His people] by means of adop- 
tion. For God planted the vineyard of the 
human race when at the first He formed Adam 
and chose the fathers ; then He let it out to hus- 
bandmen when He established the Mosaic dis- 
pensation: He hedged it round about, that is, 
He gave particular instructions with regard to 
their worship: He built a tower, [that is], He 
chose Jerusalem: He digged a winepress, that 
is, He prepared a receptacle of the prophetic 
Spirit. And thus did He send prophets prior to 
the transmigration to Babylon, and after that 
event others again in greater number than the 
former, to seek the fruits, saying thus to them 
(the Jews): “Thus saith the Lorp, Cleanse 
your ways and your doings, execute just judg- 
ment, and look each one with pity and compas- 
sion on his brother: oppress not the widow nor 
the orphan, the proselyte nor the poor, and let 
none of you treasure up evil against his brother 
in your hearts, and love not false swearing. Wash 
you, make you clean, put away evil from your 
hearts, learn to do well, seek judgment, protect 
the oppressed, judge the fatherless (pmufzllo), 
plead for the widow; and come, let us reason 
together, saith the Lorp.”? And again: “ Keep 
thy tongue from evil, and thy lips that they speak 
no guile ; depart from evil, and do good; seek 
peace, and pursue it.”3 In preaching these 
things, the prophets sought the fruits of right- 
eousness. But last of all He sent to those un- 
believers His own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, 
whom the wicked husbandmen cast out of the 
vineyard when they had slain Him. Wherefore 
the Lord God did even give it up (no longer 
hedged around, but thrown open throughout all 
the world) to other husbandmen, who render the 





1 Matt, v. 22. es ES I 
2 Jer. vii. 3; Zech. vil. 9, 10, vill. 17; Isa. 1. 17-39. 
3 Ps, xxxiv. 13) 14- 











fruits in their seasons, — the beautiful elect tower 
being also raised everywhere. For the illustrious 
Church is [now] everywhere, and everywhere is 
the winepress digged : because those who do re- 
ceive the Spirit are everywhere. For inasmuch 
as the former have rejected the Son of God, and 
cast Him out of the vineyard when they slew 
Him, God has justly rejected them, and given to 
the Gentiles outside the vineyard the fruits of its 
cultivation. This is in accordance with what 
Jeremiah says, “‘The Lorp hath rejected and 
cast off the nation which does these things ; for 
the children of Judah have done evil in my 
sight, saith the Lorp.”4 And again in like man- 
ner does Jeremiah speak : “I set watchmen over 
you ; hearken to the sound of the trumpet ; and 
they said, We will not hearken. Therefore have 
the Gentiles heard, and they who feed the flocks 
in them.”5 It is therefore one and the same 
Father who planted the vineyard, who led forth 
the people, who sent the prophets, who sent His 
own Son, and who gave the vineyard to those 
other husbandmen that render the fruits in their 
season. 

3. And therefore did the Lord say to His dis- 
ciples, to make us become good workmen: 
“Take heed to yourselves, and watch continually 
upon every occasion, lest at any time your hearts 
be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, 
and cares of this life, and that day shall come 
upon you unawares ; for as a snare shall it come 
upon all dwelling upon the face of the earth.” © 
“Let your loins, therefore, be girded about, and 
your lights burning, and ye like to men who wait 
for their lord, when he shall return from the 
wedding.” 7 “For as it was in the days of 
Noe, they did eat and drink, they bought and 
sold, they married and were given in marriage, 
and they knew not, until Noe entered into the 
ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all ; 
as also it was in the days of Lot, they did eat 
and drink, they bought and sold, they planted 
and builded, until the time that Lot went out 
of Sodom ; it rained fire from heaven, and de- 
stroyed them all: so shall it also be at the com- 
ing of the Son of man.”® “Watch ye therefore, 
for ye know not in what day your Lord shall 
come.”9 [In these passages] He declares one 
and the same Lord, who in the times of Noah 
brought the deluge because of men’s disobedi- 
ence, and who also in the days of Lot rained fire 
from heaven because of the multitude of sinners 
among the Sodomites, and who, on account of 
this same disobedience and similar sins, will 
bring on the day of judgment at the end of 





4 Jer. vii. 29, 30. 

5 Jer, vi, 17, 18. ’ 
6 Luke xxi. 34, 35. 

7 Luke xii. 35, 36. 

8 Luke xvii. 26, etc. 
9 Matt. xxiv. 42, 


516 


time (im novissimo) ; On which day He declares 
that it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and 
Gomorrah than for that city and house which 
shall not receive the word of His apostles. “ And 
thou, Capernaum,” He said, “is it that thou 
shalt be exalted to heaven?* Thou shalt go 
down to hell. For if the mighty works which 
have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, 
it would have remained unto this day. Verily 
I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable 
for Sodom in the day of judgment than for 
ou.” 2 

4. Since the Son of God is always one and the 
same, He gives to those who believe on Him a 
well of water 3 [springing up] to eternal life, but 
He causes the unfruitful fig-tree immediately 
to dry up; and in the days of Noah He justly 
brought on the deluge for the purpose of extin- 
guishing that most infamous race of men then 
existent, who could not bring forth fruit to God, 
since the angels that sinned had commingled 
with them, and [acted as He did] in order that 
He might put a check upon the sins of these 
men, but [that at the same time] He might pre- 
serve the archetype,‘ the formation of Adam. 
And it was He who rained fire and brimstone 
from heaven, in the days of Lot, upon Sodom 
and Gomorrah, “an example of the righteous 
judgment of God,” 5 that all may know, “ that 
every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall 
be cut down, and cast into the fire.”® And it is 
He who uses [the words], that it will be more 
tolerable for Sodom in the general judgment than 
for those who beheld His wonders, and did not 
believe on Him, nor receive His doctrine.” For 
as He gave by His advent a greater privilege to 
those who believed on Him, and who do His 
will, so also did He point out that those who did 
not believe on Him should have a more severe 
punishment in the judgment; thus extending 
equal justice to all, and being to exact more from 
those to whom He gives the more; the more, 
however, not because He reveals the knowledge 
of another Father, as I have shown so fully and 
so repeatedly, but because He has, by means of 
His advent, poured upon the human race the 
greater gift of paternal grace. 

5. If, however, what I have stated be insuffi- 





I No other of the Greek Fathers quotes this text as above; from 
which fact Grabe infers that the old Latin translator, or his transcrib- 
ers, altered the words of Ireneus [N.B.— From one example infer 
the rest. ] to suit the Latin versions. 

2 Matt. xi. 23, 24. 

3 John iv. x4. 

4 This is Massuet’s conjectural emendation of the text, viz., 
archetypum for arcetypum. Grabe would insert per before arce, 
and he thinks the passage to have a reference to 1 Pet. iii. 20. Ire- 
nzeus, incommon with the other ancient Fathers, believed that the fallen 
angels were the “ sons of God” who commingled with “‘ the daughters 
of men,” and thus produced a race of spurious men, [Gen. vi. 1, 2, 3, 
and Josephus. ] 

5 Jude 7. [And note “strange flesh” (Gr. caps érépas) as to 
the angels. Gen, xix. 4, 5.] 

6 Matt. iii. 10. 

7 Matt, xi. 24; Luke x. 12. 








IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


cient to convince any one that the prophets were 
sent from one and the same Father, from whom 
also our Lord was sent, let such a one, opening 
the mouth of his heart, and calling upon the 
Master, Christ Jesus the Lord, listen to Him 
when He says, “The kingdom of heaven is like 
unto a king who made a marriage for his son, 
and he sent forth his servants to call them who 
were bidden to the marriage.” And when they 
would not obey, He goes on to say, “ Again he 
sent other servants, saying, Tell them that are 
bidden, Come ye, I have prepared my dinner ; 
my oxen and all the fatlings are killed, and every- 
thing is ready; come unto the wedding. But 
they made light of it, and went their way, some 
to their farm, and others to their merchandize ; 
but the remnant took his servants, and some they 
treated despitefully, while others they slew. But 
when the king heard this, he was wroth, and sent 
his armies and destroyed these murderers, and 
burned up their city, and said to his servants, 
The wedding is indeed ready, but they which 
were bidden were not worthy. Go out therefore 
into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, 
gather in to the marriage. So the servants went 
out, and collected together as many as they found, . 
bad and good, and the wedding was furnished 
with guests. But when the king came in to see 
the guests, he saw there a man not having on a 
wedding garment ; and he said unto him, Friend, 
how camest thou hither, not having on a wedding 
garment? But he was speechless. Then said 
the king to his servants, Take him away, hand 
and foot, and cast him into outer darkness: 
there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 
For many are called, but few are chosen.” ® 
Now, by these words of His, does the Lord 
clearly show all [these points, viz.,] that there is 
one King and Lord, the Father of all, of whom 
He had previously said, “ Neither shalt thou 
swear by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great 
King ;”9 and that He had from the beginning 
prepared the marriage for His Son, and used, 
with the utmost ‘kindness, to call, by the instru- 
mentality of His servants, the men of the former 
dispensation to the wedding feast ; and when 
they would not obey, He still invited them by 
sending out other servants, yet that even then 
they did not obey Him, but even stoned and 
slew those who brought them the message of in- 
vitation. He accordingly sent forth His armies 
and destroyed them, and burned down their city ; 
but He called together from all the highways, 
that is, from all nations, [guests] to the marriage 
feast of His Son, as also He says by Jeremiah: 
“JT have sent also unto you my servants the 
prophets to say, Return ye now, every man, from 





8 Matt. xxii. 1, etc. 


_ 9 Matt. v. 35. Instead of placing a period here, as the editors do, 
it seems to us preferable to carry on the construction, 


IREN/EUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





his very evil way, and amend your doings.” : 
And again He says by the same prophet: “I 
have also sent unto you my servants the prophets 
throughout the day and before the light; yet 
they did not obey me, nor incline their ears unto 
me. And thou shalt speak this word to them: 
This is a people that obeyeth not the voice of 
the Lord, nor receiveth correction ; faith has 
perished from their mouth.” ? The Lord, there- 
fore, who has called us everywhere by the apos- 
tles, is He who called those of old by the 
prophets, as appears by the words of the Lord; 
and although they preached to various nations, 
the prophets were not from one God, and the 
apostles from another; but, [proceeding] from 
one and the same, some of them announced the 
Lord, others preached the Father, and others 
again foretold the advent of the Son of God, 
while yet others declared Him as already present 
to those who then were afar off. 

6. Still further did He also make it manifest, 
that we ought, after our calling, to be also 
adorned with works of righteousness, so that the 
Spirit of God may rest upon us; for this is the 
wedding garment, of which also the apostle 
speaks, “ Not for that we would be unclothed, 
but clothed upon, that mortality might be swal- 
lowed up by immortality.”3 But those who 
have indeed been called to God’s supper, yet 
have not received the Holy Spirit, because of 
their wicked conduct “shall be,’’ He declares, 
“cast into outer darkness.’”’* He thus clearly 
shows that the very same King who gathered 
from all quarters the faithful to the marriage of 
His Son, and who grants them the incorruptible 
banquet, [also] orders that man to be cast into 
outer darkness who has not on a wedding gar- 
ment, that is, one who despises it. For as in 
the former covenant, “with many of them was 
He not well pleased ;’’5 so also is it the case 
here, that “ many are called, but few chosen.” © 
It is not, then, one God who judges, and another 
Father who calls us together to salvation; nor 
one, forsooth, who confers eternal light, but 
another who orders those who have not on the 
wedding garment to be sent into outer darkness. 
But it is one and the same God, the Father of 
our Lord, from whom also the prophets had 
their mission, who does indeed, through His 
infinite kindness, call the unworthy; but He 
examines those who are called, [to ascertain] if 
they have on the garment fit and proper for the 
marriage of His Son, because nothing unbecom- 
ing or evil pleases Him. This is in accordance 
with what the Lord said to the man who had 











ot7 


been healed: “Behold, thou art made whole ; 


sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto. 

thee.”7 For he who is good, and righteous, 
and pure, and spotless, will endure nothing. 
evil, nor unjust, nor detestable in His wedding. - 
chamber. ‘This is the Father of our Lord, by « 
whose providence all things consist, and all. are: 
administered by His command. and..He con-.. 
fers His free gifts upon those who. should f[re-. : 
ceive them]; but the most righteous. Retributor 
metes out [punishment] according to their 
deserts, most deservedly, to the ungrateful and 
to those that are insensible of His kindness ; 
and therefore does He say, “ He sent His armies, 
and destroyed those murderers, and burned up 
their city.”° He says here, “ His armies,” be- 
cause all men are the property of God. For 
“the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness there- 
of; the world, and all that dwell therein.” 9 
Wherefore also the Apostle Paul says in the 
Epistle to the Romans, “ For there is no power 
but of God; the powers that be are ordained 
of God. Whosoever resisteth the power, resist- 
eth the ordinance of God ; and they that resist 
shall receive unto themselves condemnation. 
For. rulers are not for a terror to a good work, 
but:-to an evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of 

the power? Do that which is good, and thou 
shalt have praise of the same; for he is the 
minister of God to thee for good. But if thou 
do that which is evil, be afraid ; for he beareth. 
not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of 

God, the avenger for wrath upon him that doeth 
evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not 
only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. 
For this cause pay ye tribute also; for they are 
God’s ministers, attending continually upon this 
very thing.” © Both the Lord, then, and the apos- 
tles announce as the one only God the Father, 
Him who gave the law, who sent the proph- 
ets, who made all things; and therefore does 
He say, “He sent His armies,” because every 
man, inasmuch as he is a man, is His workman- 
ship, although he may be ignorant of his God. 
For He gives existence to all ; He, “ who maketh 
His sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and 
sendeth rain upon the just and unjust.” "* 

7. And not alone by what has been stated, but 
also by the parable of the two sons, the younger 
of whom consumed his substance by living luxu- 
riously with harlots, did the Lord teach one and 
the same Father, who did not even allow a kid 
to his elder son; but for him who had been lost, 
[namely] his younger son, he ordered the fatted 
calf to be killed, and he gave him the best robe.” 
QE SRS At Se Se 
a Matt. sxik 7. 

9 Ps. xxiv, 1. 
to Rom. xiii. 1-7. 


Il Matt. v. 45. 
1 Luke xy. 11. 





518 


Also by the parable of the workmen who were 
sent into the vineyard at different periods of the 
day, one and the same God is declared * as hav- 
ing called some in the beginning, when the world 
was first created; but others afterwards, and 
others during the intermediate period, others 
after a long lapse of time, and others again in 
the end of time; so that there are many work- 
men in their generations, but only one house- 
holder who calls them together. For there is 
but one vineyard, since there is also but one 
righteousness, and one dispensator, for there is 
one Spirit of God who arranges all things ; and 
in like manner is there one hire, for they all 
received a penny each man, having [stamped 
upon it] the royal image and superscription, the 
knowledge of the Son of God, which is immor- 
tality. And therefore He began by giving the 
hire to those [who were engaged] last, because 
in the last times, when the Lord was revealed, 
He presented Himself to all [as their reward]. 
8. Then, in the case of the publican, who ex- 
celled the Pharisee in prayer, [we find] that it 
was not because he worshipped another Father 
that he received testimony from ‘the Lord that 
he was justified rather [than the other] ; but be- 
cause with great humility, apart from all boasting 
and pride, he made confession to the same God. 
The parable of the two sons also: those who are 
sent into the vineyard, of whom one indeed op- 
posed his father, but afterwards repented, when 
repentance profited him nothing; the other, 
however, promised to go, at once assuring his 
father, but he did not go (for “ every man is a 
liar ;”3 “to will is present with him, but he 
finds not means to perform” +), — [this para- 
ble, I say], points out one and the same Father. 
Then, again, this truth was clearly shown forth 
by the parable of the fig-tree, of which the Lord 
says, “ Behold, now these three years I come 
seeking fruit on this fig-tree, but I find none” 5 
(pointing onwards, by the prophets, to His ad- 
vent, by whom He came from time to time, 
seeking the fruit of righteousness from them, 
which he did not find), and also by the circum- 
stance that, for the reason already mentioned, 
the fig-tree should be hewn down. And, with- 
out using a parable, the Lord said to Jerusalem, 
‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the 
prophets, and stonest those that are sent unto 
thee ; how often would I have gathered thy chil- 
dren together, as a hen gathereth her chickens 
under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, 
your house shall be left unto you desolate.” © For 
that which had been said in the parable, “‘ Behold, 


1 Matt. xx. 1, etc. 

2 Luke xviii. ro. 

3 Ps. cxvi. 2. 

4 Rom, vii. 18. 

5 Luke xiii. 6. 

6 Luke xiii. 34; Matt. xxiii, 37. 








IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


for three years I come seeking fruit,” and in 
clear terms, again, [where He says |, “‘ How often 
would I have gathered thy children together,” 
shall be [found] a falsehood, if we do not under- 
stand His advent, which is [announced] by the 
prophets — if, in fact, He came to them but 
once, and then for the first time. But since He 
who chose the patriarchs and those [who lived 
under the first covenant], is the same Word of 
God who did both visit them through the pro- 
phetic Spirit, and us also who have been called 
together from all quarters by His advent; in 
addition to what has been already said, He truly 
declared, “ Many shall come from the east and 
from the west, and shall recline with Abraham, 
and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. 
But the children of the kingdom shall go into 
outer darkness; there shall be weeping and 
gnashing of teeth.”7 If, then, those who do 
believe in Him through the preaching of His 
apostles throughout the east and west shall 
recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the 
kingdom of heaven, partaking with them of the 
[heavenly] banquet, one and the same God is 
set forth as He who did indeed choose the patri- 
archs, visited also the people, and called the 


‘Gentiles. 


CHAP. XXXVII.— MEN ARE POSSESSED OF FREE 
WILL, AND ENDOWED WITH THe FACULTY OF 
MAKING A CHOICE. IT IS NOT TRUE, THERE- 
FORE, THAT SOME ARE BY NATURE GOOD, AND 
OTHERS BAD. 


1. This expression [of our Lord], “ How often 
would I have gathered thy children together, 
and thou wouldest not,”® set forth the ancient 
law of human liberty, because God made man a 
free [agent] from the beginning, possessing his 
own power, even as he does his own soul, to 
obey the behests (ad utendum sententia) of God 
voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God. For 
there is no coercion with God, but a good will 
[towards us] is present with Him continually. 
And therefore does He give good counsel to all. 
And in man, as well as in angels, He has placed 


the power of choice (for angels are rational be- 


ings), SO that those who had yielded obedience 
might justly possess what is good, given indeed 
by God, but preserved by themselves. On the 
other hand, they who have not obeyed shall, 
with justice, be not found in possession of the 
good, and shall receive condign punishment: 
for God did kindly bestow on them what was 
good; but they themselves did not diligently 
keep it, nor deem it something precious, but 
poured contempt upon His super-eminent good- 
ness. Rejecting therefore the good, and as it 
were spuing it out, they shall all deservedly incur 





7 Matt. viii, rr, r2. 
§ Matt. xxiii. 37. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


519 





the just judgment of God, which also the Apos- 
tle Paul testifies in his Epistle to the Romans, 
where he says, ‘“‘ But dost thou despise the riches 
of His goodness, and patience, and long-suffer- 
ing, being ignorant that the goodness of God 
leadeth thee to repentance? But according to 
thy hardness and impenitent heart, thou treas- 
urest to thyself wrath against the day of wrath, 
and the revelation of the righteous judgment 
of God.” “ But glory and honour,” he says, “to 
every one that doeth good.” God therefore 
has given that which is good, as the apostle tells 
us in this Epistle, and they who work it shall 
receive glory and honour, because they have 
done that which is good when they had it in their 
power not to do it; but those who do it not shall 
receive the just judgment of God, because they 
did not work good when they had it in their 
power so to do. 

2. But if some had been made by nature bad, 
and others good, these latter would not be de- 
serving of praise for being good, for such were 
they created ; nor would the former be reprehen- 
sible} for thus they were made [originally]. But 
since all men are of the same nature, able both 
to hold fast and to do what is good; and, on 
the other hand, having also the power to cast 
it from them and not to do it, —some do justly 
receive praise even among men who are under 
the control of good laws (and much more from 
God), and obtain deserved testimony of their 
choice of good in general, and of persevering 
therein ; but the others are blamed, and receive 
a just condemnation, because of their rejection 
of what is fair and good. And therefore the 
prophets used to exhort men to what was good, 
to act justly and to work righteousness, as I have 
so largely demonstrated, because it is in our 
power so to do, and because by excessive negli- 
gence we might become forgetful, and thus stand 
in need of that good counsel which the good 
God has given us to know by means of the 
prophets. 

3. For this reason the Lord also said, “ Let 
your light so shine before men, that they may 
see your good deeds, and glonfy your Father 
who is in heaven.”? And, “Take heed to your- 
selves, lest perchance your hearts be overcharged 
with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and worldly 
cares.”3 And, “ Let your loins be girded about, 
and your lamps burning, and ye like unto men 
that wait for their Lord, when He returns from 
the wedding, that when He cometh and knock- 
eth, they may open to Him. Blessed is that 
servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall 
find so doing.” And again, “ The servant who 


es he 





I Rom. ti. 4, 5, 7+ 
2 Matt. v. 16. 

3 Luke xxi. 34. 

4 Luke xii. 35, 36. 








knows his Lord’s will, and does it not, shall be 
beaten with many stripes.”5 And, “Why call 
ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which 
I say ?”® And again, “But if the servant say 
in his heart, The Lord delayeth, and begin to 
beat his fellow-servants, and to eat, and drink, 
and to be drunken, his Lord will come in a day 
on which he does not expect Him, and shall cut 
him in sunder, and appoint his portion with the 
hypocrites.”7 All such passages demonstrate 
the independent will* of man, and at the same 
time the counsel which God conveys to him, 
by which He exhorts us to submit ourselves to 
Him, and seeks to turn us away from [the sin 
of] unbelief against Him, without, however, in 
any way coercing us. 

4. No doubt, if any one is unwilling to follow 
the Gospel itself, it is in his power [to reject it], 
but it is not expedient. For it is in man’s power 
to disobey God, and to forfeit what is good ; 
but [such conduct] brings no small amount of 
injury and mischief. And on this account Paul 
says, “ All things are lawful to me, but all things 
are not expedient ;”’ 9 referring both to the liberty 
of man, in which respect “all things are lawful,” 
God exercising no compulsion in regard to him ; 
and [by the expression] “ not expedient” point- 
ing out that we “should not use our liberty as 
a cloak of maliciousness,” '° for this is not expe- 
dient. And again he says, “Speak ye every man 
truth with his neighbour.” *: And, “Let no cor- 
rupt communication proceed out of your mouth, 
neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor scur- 
rility, which are not convenient, but rather giving 
of thanks.” '2 And, “For ye were sometimes 
darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord ; walk 
honestly as children of the light, not in rioting 
and drunkenness, not in chambering and wanton- 
ness, not in anger and jealousy. And such were 
some of you; but ye have been washed, but ye 
have been sanctified in the name of our Lord.’ "3 
If then it were not in our power to do or not to 
do these things, what reason had the apostle, and 
much more the Lord Himself, to give us coun- 
sel to do some things, and to abstain from others ? 
But because man is possessed of free will from 
the beginning, and God is possessed of free will, 
in whose likeness man was created, advice is 
always given to him to keep fast the good, which 
thing is done by means of obedience to God. 

5s. And not merely in works, but also in faith, 
has God preserved the will of man free and under 
his own control, saying, “ According to thy faith 
fplese P Ee AD ae Pere wahg ope os oS ok eee 

S Luke xii. 47. 

6 Luke vi. 46. : 

7 Luke xii. 45 46; Matt, xxiv. 48-51. 

8 ro avte£ovatov. 

9 x Cor. vi. 12. : 

to x Pet. ii. 16. 

11 Eph. iv. 25. 


12 Eph. iv. 29. 
13 y Cor. vi. 11. 


520 


be it unto thee ;”* thus showing that there is a 
faith specially belonging to man, since he has an 
opinion specially his own. And again, “ All things 
are possible to him that believeth ;’’? and, “Go 
thy way ; and as thou hast believed, so be it done 
unto thee.”3 Now all such expressions demon- 
strate that man is in his own power with respect 
to faith. And for this reason, “he that believeth 
in Him has eternal life ; while he who believeth 
not the Son hath not eternal life, but the wrath 
of God shall remain upon him.”+ In the same 
manner therefore the Lord, both showing His 
own goodness, and indicating that man is in his 
own free will and his own power, said to Jerusa- 
lem, “ How often have I wished to gather thy 
children together, as a hen [gathereth] her chick- 
ens under her wings, and ye would not! Where- 
fore your house shall be left unto you desolate.” 5 

6. Those, again, who maintain the opposite to 
these [conclusions], do themselves present the 
Lord as destitute of power, as if, forsooth, He 
were unable to accomplish what He willed ; or, 
on the other hand, as being ignorant that they 
were by nature “ material,” as these men express 
it, and such as cannot receive His immortality. 
“But He should not,” say they, “have created 
angels of such a nature that they were capable of 
transgression, nor men who immediately proved 
ungrateful towards Him; for they were made 
rational beings, endowed with the power of ex- 
amining and judging, and were not [formed] as 
things irrational or of a [merely] animal nature, 
which can do nothing of their own will, but are 
drawn by necessity and compulsion to what is 
good, in which things there is one mind and one 
usage, working mechanically in one groove (z7- 
flexibiles et sine judicio), who are incapable of 
being anything else except just what they had 
been created.” But upon this supposition, nei- 
ther would what is good be grateful to them, nor 
communion with God be precious, nor would the 
good be very much to be sought after, which 
would present itself without their own proper 
endeavour, care, or study, but would be im- 
planted of its own accord and without their con- 
cern. ‘Thus it would come to pass, that their 


being good would be of no consequence, because. 


they were so by nature rather than by will, and are 
possessors of good Spontaneously, not by choice ; 
and for this reason they would not understand 
this fact, that good is a comely thing, nor would 
they take pleasure init. For how can those who 
are ignorant of good enjoy it? Or what credit is 
it to those who have not aimed at it? And what 
crown is it to those who have not followed in 
pursuit of it, like those victorious in the contest? 


T Matt. ix. 29. 

2 Mark ix. 23. 

3 Matt. viii. 13. 

4 John iii. 36. 

5 Matt. xxiii. 37, 38. 








IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


7. On this account, too, did the Lord assert 
that the kingdom of heaven was the portion of 
“the violent ;”” and He says, “The violent take 
it by force ;”® that is, those who by strength 
and earnest striving are on the watch to snatch 
it away on the moment. On this account also 
Paul the Apostle says to the Corinthians, “ Know 
ye not, that they who run in a racecourse, do all 
indeed run, but one receiveth the prize? So run, 
that ye may obtain. Every one also who engages 
in the contest is temperate in all things: now 
these men [do it] that they may obtain a cor- 
ruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. But I 
so run, not as uncertainty ; I fight, not as one 
beating the air; but I make my body livid, and 
bring it into subjection, lest by any means, when 
preaching to others, I may myself be rendered 
a castaway.’7 This able wrestler, therefore, 
exhorts us to the struggle for immortality, that 
we may be crowned, and may deem the crown 
precious, namely, that which is acquired by our 
struggle, but which does not encircle us of its 
own accord (sed non ultro coalitam). And the 
harder we strive, so much is it the more valua- 
ble ; while so much the more valuable it is, so 
much the more should we esteem it. And indeed 
those things are not esteemed so highly which 
come spontaneously, as those which are reached 
by much anxious care. Since, then, this power 
has been conferred upon us, both the Lord has 
taught and the apostle has enjoined us the more 
to love God, that we may reach this [prize] for 
ourselves by striving after it. For otherwise, no 
doubt, this our good would be [virtually] irra- 
tional, because not the result of trial. Moreover, 
the faculty of seeing would not appear to be so 
desirable, unless we had known what a loss it 
were to be devoid of sight; and health, too, is 
rendered all the more estimable by an acquaint- 
ance with disease ; light, also, by contrasting it 
with darkness ; and life with death. Just in the 
same way is the heavenly kingdom honourable 
to those who have known the earthly one. But 
in proportion as it is more honourable, so much 
the more do we prize it; and if we have prized 
it more, we shall be the more glorious in the 
presence of God. ‘The Lord has therefore en- 
dured all these things on our behalf, in order that 
we, having been instructed by means of them all, 
may be in all respects circumspect for the time 
to come, and that, having been rationally taught 
to love God, we may continue in His perfect 
love: for God has displayed long-suffering in 
the case of man’s apostasy ; while man has been 
instructed by means of it, as also the prophet says, 
“Thine own apostasy shall heal thee ;’’® God 
thus determining all things beforehand for the 


6 Matt. xi. r2. 
7 1 Cor, ix. 24-27. 
8 Jer. ii. 19. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





bot 





bringing of man to perfection, for his edification, 
and for the revelation of His dispensations, that 
goodness may both be made apparent, and right- 
eousness perfected, and that the Church may be 
fashioned after the image of His Son, and that 
man may finally be brought to maturity at some 
future time, becoming ripe through such privi- 
leges to see and comprehend God. 


CHAP. XXXVIII. — WHY MAN WAS NOT MADE PER- 
FECT FROM THE BEGINNING. 


1. If, however, any one say, “ What then? 
Could not God have exhibited man as perfect 
from the beginning?” let him know that, inas- 
much as God is indeed always the same and 
unbegotten as respects Himself, all things are 
possible to Him. But created things must be 
inferior to Him who created them, from the 
very fact of their later origin; for it was not 
possible for things recently created to have been 
uncreated. But inasmuch as they are not uncre- 
ated, for this very reason do they come short 
of the perfect. Because, as these things are of 
later date, so are they infantile; so are they 
unaccustomed to, and unexercised in, perfect 
discipline. For as it certainly is in the power 
of a mother to give strong food to her infant, 
[but she does not do so], as the child is not 
yet able to receive more substantial nourish- 
ment; so also it was possible for God Himself 
to have made man perfect from the first, but 
man could not receive this [perfection], being 
as yet an infant. And for this cause our Lord, 
in these last times, when He had summed up all 
things into Himself, came to us, not as He might 
have come, but as we were capable of beholding 
Him. He might easily have come to us in His 
immortal glory, but in that case we could never 
have endured the greatness of the glory; and 
therefore it was that He, who was the perfect 
bread of the Father, offered Himself to us as 
milk, [because we were] as infants. He did 
this when He appeared as a man, that we, being 
nourished, as it were, from the breast of His 
flesh, and having, by such a course of milk- 
nourishment, become accustomed to eat and 
drink the Word of God, may be able also to 
contain in ourselves the Bread of immortality, 
which is the Spirit of the Father. 

2. And on this account does Paul declare to 
the Corinthians, ‘I have fed you with milk, not 
with meat, for hitherto ye were not able to bear 
it.’ That is, ye have indeed learned the ad- 
vent of our Lord as a man ; nevertheless, because 
of your infirmity, the Spirit of the, Father has 
not as yet rested upon you. “ For when envy- 
ing and strife,” he says, “ and dissensions are 


inal, this would doubtless be found in all 


I [If we but had the original, th 
primitive theology.] 


respects a noble specimen o} 
2 x Cor, iii. 2, 














among you, are ye not carnal, and walk -as 
men?’’3 That is, that the Spirit of the Father 
was not yet with them, on account of their im- 
perfection and shortcomings of their walk in 
life. As, therefore, the apostle had the power to 
give them strong meat — for those upon whom 
the apostles laid hands received the Holy Spirit, 
who is the food of life [eternal] —but they 
were not capable of receiving it, because they 
had the sentient faculties of the soul still feeble 
and undisciplined in the practice of things per- 
taining to God; so, in like manner, God had 
power at. the beginning to grant perfection to 
man ; but as the latter was only recently created, 
he could not possibly have received it, or even 
if he had received it, could he have contained 
it, or containing it, could he have retained it. 
It was for this reason that the Son of God, 
although He was perfect, passed through the 
state of infancy in common with the rest of 
mankind, partaking of it thus not for His own 
benefit, but for that of the infantile stage of 
man’s existence, in order that man might be 
able to receive Him. ‘There was nothing, there- 
fore, impossible to and deficient in God, [im- 
plied in the fact] that man was not an uncreated 
being ; but this merely applied to him who was 
lately created, [namely] man. 

3. With God there are simultaneously exhib- 
ited power, wisdom, and goodness. His power 
and goodness [appear] in this, that of His own 
will He called into being and fashioned things 
having no previous existence ; His wisdom [is 
shown] in His having made created things parts 
of one harmonious and consistent whole; and 
those things which, through His super-eminent 
kindness, receive growth and a long period of 
existence, do reflect the glory of the uncreated 
One, of that God who bestows what is good 
ungrudgingly. For from the very fact of these 
things having been created, [it follows] that 
they are not uncreated ; but by their. continuing 
in being throughout a long course of ages, they 
shall receive a faculty of the Uncreated, through 
the gratuitous bestowal of eternal existence upon 
them by God. And thus in all things God has 
the pre-eminence, who alone is uncreated, the 
first of all things, and the primary cause of the 
existence of all, while all other things remain 
under God’s subjection. But being in subjec- 
tion to God is continuance in immortality, and 
immortality is the glory of the uncreated One. 
By this arrangement, therefore, and these har- 
monies, and a sequence of this nature, man, a 
created and organized being, is rendered after 
the image and likeness of the uncreated God, — 
the Father planning everything well and giving 
His commands, the Son carrying these into exe- 


SS real 


3 1 Cor. iii. 3. 


522 IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 
































immortality, and the corruptible by incorrupti- 
bility, and that man should be made after the 
image and likeness of God, having received the 
knowledge of good and evil. 


cution and performing the work of creating, and 
the Spirit nourishing and increasing [what is 
made], but man making progress day by day, 
and ascending towards the perfect, that is, ap- 
proximating to the uncreated One. For the 
Uncreated is perfect, that is, God. Now it was 
necessary that man should in the first instance be 
created ; and having been created, should receive 
growth ; and having received growth, should be 
strengthened ; and having been strengthened, 
should abound; and having abounded, should 
recover [from the disease of sin] ; and having 
recovered, should be glorified ; and being glori- 
fied, should see his Lord. For God is He who 
is yet to be seen, and the beholding of God 
is productive of immortality, but immortality 
renders one nigh unto God. 

4. Irrational, therefore, in every respect, are 
they who await not the time of increase, but 
ascribe to God the infirmity of their nature. 
Such persons know neither God nor themselves, 
being insatiable and ungrateful, unwilling to be 
at the outset what they have also been created 
—men subject to passions ; but go beyond the 
law of the human race, and before that they 
become men, they wish to be even now like 
God their Creator, and they who are more des- 
titute of reason than dumb animals [insist] that 
there is no distinction between the uncreated 
God and man, a creature of to-day. For these, 
[the dumb animals], bring no charge against 
God for not having made them men; but each 
one, just as he has been created, gives thanks 
that he has been created. For we cast blame 
upon Him, because we have not been made 
gods from the beginning, but at first merely 
men, then at length gods; although God has 
adopted this course out of His pure benevo- 
lence, that no one may impute to Him invidious- 
ness or grudgingness. He declares, “I have 
said, Ye are gods; and ye are all sons of the 
Highest.”’* ‘But since we could not sustain the 
power of divinity, He adds, “But ye shall die 
like men,” setting forth both truths — the kind- 
ness of His free gift, and our weakness, and 
also that we were possessed of power over our- 
selves. For after His great kindness He gra- 
ciously conferred good [upon us], and made 
men like to Himself, [that is] in their own 
power ; while at the same time by His prescience 
He knew the infirmity of human beings, and 
the consequences which would flow from it ; but 
through [His] love and [His] power, He shall 
overcome the substance of created nature.2_ For 
it was necessary, at first, that nature should be 
exhibited ; then, after that, that what was mor- 
tal should be conquered and swallowed up by 


CHAP. XXXIX. — MAN IS ENDOWED WITH THE FAC- 
ULTY OF DISTINGUISHING GOOD AND EVIL ; so 
THAT, WITHOUT COMPULSION, HE HAS THE POWER, 
BY HIS OWN WILL AND CHOICE, TO PERFORM GOD’S 
COMMANDMENTS, BY DOING WHICH HE AVOIDS 
THE EVILS PREPARED FOR THE REBELLIOUS. 


1. Man has received the knowledge of good 
and evil. It is good to obey God, and to be- 
lieve in Him, and to keep Hiscommandment, and 
this is the life of man; as not to obey God is © 
evil, and this is his death. Since God, therefore, 
gave [to man] such mental power (magna- 
nimitatem) man knew both the good of obedi- 
ence and the evil of disobedience, that the eye 
of the mind, receiving experience of both, may 
with judgment make choice of the better things ; 
and that he may never become indolent or neg- 
lectful of God’s command ; and learning by ex- 
perience that it is an evil thing which deprives 
him of life, that is, disobedience to God, may 
never attempt it at all, but that, knowing that 
what preserves his life, namely, obedience to 
God, is good, he may diligently keep it with all 
earnestness. Wherefore he has also had a two- 
fold experience, possessing knowledge of both 
kinds, that with dicipline he may make choice 
of the better things. But how, if he had no 
knowledge of the contrary, could he have had 
instruction in that which is good? For there is 
thus a surer and an undoubted comprehension 
of matters submitted to us than the mere sur- 
mise arising from an opinion regarding them. 
For just as the tongue receives experience of 
sweet and bitter by means of tasting, and the 
eye discriminates between black and white by 
means of vision, and the ear recognises the dis- 
tinctions of sounds by hearing ; so also does the 
mind, receiving through the experience of both 
the knowledge of what is good, become more 
tenacious of its preservation, by acting in obedi- 
ence to God: in the first place, casting away, 
by means of repentance, disobedience, as being 
something disagreeable and nauseous ; and after- 
wards coming to understand what it really is, 
that it is contrary to goodness and sweetness, so 
that the mind may never even attempt to. taste 
disobedience to God. But if any one do shun 
the knowledge of both these kinds of things, and 
the twofold perception of knowledge, he un- 
awares divests himself of the character of a 
human being. 

2. How, then, shall he be a God, who has not 
as yet been made a man? Or how can he be 
perfect who was but lately created? How, again, 
can he be immortal, who in his mortal nature 


Ps, Ixxxii. 6, 7. 


* That is, that man’s human nature should not prevent him from 
becoming a partaker of the divine. 


IRENAZAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


523 





did not obey his Maker? For it must be that 
thou, at the outset, shouldest hold the rank of 
a man, and then afterwards partake of the glory 
of God. For thou dost not make God, but God 


thee. If, then, thou art God’s workmanship, 
await the hand of thy Maker which creates every- 
thing in due time ; in due time as far as thou art 
concerned, whose creation is being carried out.’ 
Offer to Him thy heart in a soft and tractable 
state, and preserve the form in which the Crea- 
tor has fashioned thee, having moisture in thy- 
self, lest, by becoming hardened, thou lose the 
impressions of His fingers. But by preserving 
the framework thou shalt ascend to that which is 
perfect, for the moist clay which is in thee is 
hidden [there] by the workmanship of God. 
His hand fashioned thy substance ; He will cover 
thee over [too] within and without with pure gold 
and silver, and He will adorn thee to such a de- 
gree, that even “the King Himself shall have 
pleasure in thy beauty.”? But if thou, being 
obstinately hardened, dost reject the operation of 
His skill, and show thyself ungrateful towards 
Him, because thou wert created a [mere] man, 
by becoming thus ungrateful to God, thou hast 
at once lost both His workmanship and life. For 
creation is an attribute of the goodness of God ; 
but to be created is that of human nature. If, 
then, thou shalt deliver up to Him what is thine, 
that is, faith towards Him and subjection, thou 
shalt receive His handiwork, and shalt be a per- 
fect work of God. 

3. If, however, thou wilt not believe in Him, 
and wilt flee from His hands, the cause of im- 
perfection shall be in thee who didst not obey, 
but not in Him who called [thee]. For He 
commissioned [messengers] to call people to 
the marriage, but they who did not obey Him 
deprived themselves of the royal supper.’ The 
skill of God, therefore, is not defective, for He 
has power of the stones to raise up children to 
Abraham ;4 but the man who does not obtain it, 
is the cause to himself of his own imperfection. 
Nor, [in like manner], does the light fail because 
of those who have blinded themselves; but 
while it remains the same as ever, those who are 
[thus] blinded are involved in darkness through 
their own fault. The light does never enslave 
any one by necessity; nor, again, does God 
exercise compulsion upon any one unwilling to 
accept the exercise of His skill. Those persons, 
therefore, who have apostatized from the light 
given by the Father, and transgressed the law of 
liberty, have done so through their own fault, 
since they have been created free agents, and 
possessed of power over themselves. 
(ee aoa 

1 Efficeris. 

2 Ps, xlv. 11. 


3>Matt. xxii. 3, etc. 
4 Patt. iii. 9. 


4. But God, foreknowing all things, prepared 
fit habitations for both, kindly conferring that 
light which they desire on those who seek after 
the light of incorruption, and resort to it; but 
for the despisers and mockers who avoid and 
turn themselves away from this light, and who 
do, as it were, blind themselves, He has prepared 
darkness suitable to persons who oppose the 
light, and He has inflicted an appropriate pun- 
ishment upon those who try to avoid being sub- 
ject to Him. Submission to God is eternal rest, 
so that they who shun the light have a place 
worthy of their flight; and those who fly from 
eternal rest, have a habitation in accordance 
with their fleeing. Now, since all good things 
are with God, they who by their own determina- 
tion fly from God, do defraud themselves of all 
good things ; and having been [thus] defrauded 
of all good things with respect to God, they shall 
consequently fall under the just judgment of 
God. For those persons who shun rest shall 
justly incur punishment, and those who avoid 
the light shall justly dwell in darkness. For as 
in the case of this temporal light, those who 
shun it do deliver themselves over to darkness, 
so that they do themselves become the cause to 
themselves that they are destitute of light, and 
do inhabit darkness; and, as I have already 
observed, the light is not the cause of such an 
[unhappy] condition of existence to them ; so 
those who fly from the eternal light of God, 
which contains in itself all good things, are 
themselves the cause to themselves of their in- 
habiting eternal darkness, destitute of all good 
things, having become to themselves the cause 
of [their consignment to] an abode of that 
nature. 


CHAP. XL.—ONE AND THE SAME GOD THE FATHER 
INFLICTS PUNISHMENT ON THE REPROBATE, AND 
BESTOWS REWARDS ON THE ELECT. 


1. It is therefore one and the same God the 
Father who has prepared good things with Him- 
self for those who desire His fellowship, and 
who remain in subjection to Him ; and who has 
prepared the eternal fire for the ringleader of 
the apostasy, the devil, and those who revolted 
with him, into which [fire] the Lord’ has de- 
clared those men shall be sent who have been 
set apart by themselves on His left hand. And 
this is what has been spoken by the prophet, “I 
am a jealous God, making peace, and creating 
evil things ;”” © thus making peace and friendship 
with those who repent and turn to Him, and 
bringing [them to] unity, but preparing for the 
impenitent, those who shun the light, eternal fire 
and outer darkness, which are evils indeed to 
those persons who fall into them. 


4 


5 Matt. xxv. 41. 
© Isa. xlv. 7. 


524 






the other into eternal fire. 
one and the same Lord has pointed out that the 
whole human race shall be divided at the judg- 


ment, “as a shepherd divideth the sheep from 


the goats,”’* and that to some He will say, 
“Come, ye blessed of My Father, receive the 
kingdom which has been prepared for you,”? 
but to others, “ Depart from me, ye cursed, into 
everlasting fire, which My Father has prepared 
for the devil and his angels,” 3 one and the same 
Father is manifestly declared [in this passage], 
“making peace and creating evil things,” pre- 
paring fit things for both; as also there is one 
Judge sending both into a fit place, as the Lord 
sets forth in the parable of the tares and the 
wheat, where He says, “As therefore the tares 
are gathered together, and burned in the fire, so 


shall it be at the end of the world. The Son of 


man shall send His angels, and they shall gather 
from His kingdom everything that offendeth, 
and those who work iniquity, and shall send 
them into a furnace of fire: there shall be weep- 
ing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the just 
shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their 
Father.” 4+ The Father, therefore, who has pre- 
pared the kingdom for the righteous, into which 
the Son has received those worthy of it, is He 
who has also prepared the furnace of fire, into 


which these angels commissioned by the Son of 


man shall send those persons who deserve it, ac- 
cording to God’s command. 

3. The Lord, indeed, sowed good seed in His 
own field;5 and He says, “The field is the 
world.” But while men slept, the enemy came, 
and “sowed tares in the midst of the wheat, and 
went his way.”° Hence we learn that this was 
the apostate angel and the enemy, because he 
was envious of God’s workmanship, and took in 
hand to render this [workmanship] an enmity 
with God. For this cause also God has banished 
from His presence him who did of his. own ac- 
cord stealthily sow the tares, that is, him who 
brought about the transgression ;7 but He took 
compassion upon man, who, through want of 
care no doubt, but still wickedly [on the part 
of another], became involved in disobedience ; 
and He turned the enmity by which [the devil] 


I Matt. xxv. 32. 

2 Matt. xxv. 34. 

3 Matt. xxv. 41. 

4 Matt xiii, 40-43. 

5 Matt. xiii. 34. [Applicable to the origin of heresies.] 

(© Matt. xiii, 28, 

7 The old Latin translator varies from this (the Greek of which 
was recovered by Grabe from two ancient Catene Patrum), making 
the clause run thus, that zs, the transgression which he had him- 
self introduced, making the explanatory words to refer to the fares, 
and not, as in the Greek, to the sower of the tares. 


2. If, however, it were truly one Father who 
confers rest, and another God who has prepared 
the fire, their sons would have been equally 
different [one from the other]; one, indeed, 
sending [men] into the Father’s kingdom, but 
But inasmuch as 





IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


had designed to make [man] the enemy of God, 
against the author of it, by removing His own 
anger from man, turning it in another direction, 
and sending it instead upon the serpent. As 
also the Scripture tells us that God said to the 
serpent, “ And I will place enmity between thee 
and the woman, and between thy seed and her 
seed. He® shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt 
bruise his heel.”9 And the Lord summed up 
in Himself this enmity, when He was made man 
from a woman, and trod upon his [the serpent’s ] 
head, as I have pointed out in the preceding 
book. 


CHAP, XLI.— THOSE PERSONS WHO DO NOT BE- 
LIEVE IN GOD, BUT WHO ARE DISOBEDIENT, ARE 
ANGELS AND SONS OF THE DEVIL, NOT INDEED 
BY NATURE, BUT BY IMITATION. CLOSE OF THIS 
BOOK, AND SCOPE OF THE SUCCEEDING ONE, 


1. Inasmuch as the Lord has said that there 
are certain angels, [viz., those] of the devil, for 
whom eternal fire is prepared; and as, again, 
He declares with regard to the tares, ‘‘ The tares 
are the children of the wicked one,’ '° it must 
be affirmed that He has ascribed all who are of 
the apostasy to him who is the ringleader of this 
transgression. But He made neither angels nor 
men so by nature. For we do not find that the 
devil created anything whatsoever, since indeed 
he is himself a creature of God, like the other 
angels. For God made all things, as also David 
says with regard to all things of the kind: “ For 
He spake the word, and they were made; He 
commanded, and they were created.” * 

2. Since, therefore, all things were made by 
God, and since the devil has become the cause 
of apostasy to himself and others, justly does 
the Scripture always term those who remain in 
a state of apostasy “sons of the devil” and 
“angels of the wicked one” (maligni). For 
[the word] “son,” as one before me has ob- 
served, has a twofold meaning: one [is a son] 
in the order of nature, because he was born a 
son ; the other, in that he was made so, is reputed 
a son, although there be a difference between 
being born so and being made so. For the first 
is indeed born from the person referred to; 
but the second is made so by him, whether as 
respects his creation or by the teaching of his 
doctrine. For when any person has been taught 
from the mouth of another, he is termed the 
son of him who instructs him, and the latter [is 
called] his father. According to nature, then— 
that is, according to creation, so to speak — we 
are all sons of God, because we have all been 
created by God. But with respect to obedience 





8 Following the reading of the LXX., avrés cou rnpicet Kepadyn 
9 Gen. iii, 15. 

10 Matt. xiii. 38. 

I Ps, cxlix. 5. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


§25 





and doctrine we are not all the sons of God: 
those only are so who believe in Him and do 
His will. And those who do not believe, and 
do not obey His will, are sons and angels of the 
devil, because they do the works of the devil. 
And that such is the case He has declared in 
Isaiah: “I have begotten and brought up chil- 
dren, but they have rebelled against Me.” ! And 
again, where He says that these children are 
aliens: ‘Strange children have lied unto Me.” ? 
- According to nature, then, they are [His] chil- 
dren, because they have been so created ; but 
with regard to their works, they are not His 
children. 

. For as, among men, those sons who dis- 
obey their fathers, being disinherited, are still 
their sons in the course of nature, but by law 
are disinherited, for they do not become the 
heirs of their natural parents; so in the same 
way is it with God, —those who do not obey 
Him being disinherited by Him, have ceased to 
be His sons. Wherefore they cannot receive 
His inheritance: as David says, “Sinners are 
alienated from the womb; their anger is after 
the likeness of a serpent.”3 And therefore did 
the Lord term those whom He knew to be the 
offspring of men “a generation of vipers ;”’* 
because after the manner of these animals they 
go about in subtilty, and injure others. For He 
said, “ Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and 
of the Sadducees.”5 Speaking of Herod, too, 
He says, “ Go ye and tell that fox,” ° aiming at 
his wicked cunning and deceit. Wherefore the 
prophet David says, “Man, being placed in 
honour, is made like unto cattle.”7 And again 
Jeremiah says, “They are become like horses, 
furious about females ; each one neighed after his 
neighbour's wife.”® And Isaiah, when preach- 
ing in Judea, and reasoning with Israel, termed 
them “rulers of Sodom” and “ people of Go- 
morrah ;”9 intimating that they were like the 
Sodomites in wickedness, and that the same 
description of sins was rife among them, calling 
them by the same name, because of the simi- 
larity of their conduct. And inasmuch as they 
were not by nature so created by God, but had 
power also to act rightly, the same person said 
-to them, giving them good counsel, “‘ Wash ye, 
make you clean; take away iniquity from your 
souls before mine eyes; cease from your Iniqul- 
ties.” *° Thus, no doubt, since they had trans- 
i ene te 


1 Isa. i, 2. 

2 Ps, xviii. 45. 

3 Ps, lviil. 3, 4. 
4 Matt. xxii. 33. 
5 Matt. xvi. 6. 

6 Luke xiii. 32. 
7 Ps. xlix, 21. 

8 Jer. v. 8. 

9 Isa. i. 10. 


10 Isa, i. 16. 


{ 





gressed and sinned in the same manner, so did 
they receive the same reproof as did the Sodom- 
ites. But when they should be converted and 
come to repentance, and cease from evil, they 
should have power to become the sons of God, 
and to receive the inheritance of immortality 
which is given by Him. For this reason, there- 
fore, He has termed those “ angels of the devil,” 
and “children of the wicked one,” ' who give 
heed to the devil, and do his works. But these 
are, at the same time, all created by the one and 
the same God. When, however, they believe 
and are subject to God, and go on and keep 
His doctrine, they are the sons of God; but 
when they have apostatized and fallen into 
transgression, they are ascribed to their chief, 
the devil—to him who first became the cause 
of apostasy to himself, and afterwards to others. 
4. Inasmuch as the words of the Lord are 
numerous, while they all proclaim one and the 
same Father, the Creator of this world, it was 
incumbent also upon me, for their own sake, to 
refute by many [arguments] those who are in- 
volved in many errors, if by any means, when 
they are confuted by many [proofs], they may 
be converted _to the truth and saved. But it 1s 
necessary to subjoin to this composition, in what 
follows, also the doctrine of Paul after the words 
of the Lord, to examine the opinion of this man, 
and expound the apostle, and to explain whatso- 
ever [passages] have received other interpreta- 
tions from the heretics, who have altogether 
misunderstood what Paul has spoken, and to 
point out the folly of their mad opinions ; and 
to demonstrate from that same Paul, from whose 
[writings] they press questions upon us, that 
they are indeed utterers of falsehood, but that 
the apostle was a preacher of the truth, and 
that he taught all things agreeable to the preach- 
ing of the truth; [to the effect that] it was one 
God the Father who spake with Abraham, who 
gave the law, who sent the prophets beforehand, 
who in the last times sent His Son, and con- 
ferred salvation upon His own handiwork — 
that is, the substance of flesh. Arranging, then, 
in another book, the rest of the words of the 
Lord, which He taught concerning the Father 
not by parables, but by expressions taken in 
their obvious meaning (sed simpliciter ipsis dic- 
Hontbus), and the exposition of the Epistles 
of the blessed apostle, I shall, with God’s aid, 
furnish thee with the complete work of the 
exposure and _refutation— of--knowledge,_falsely 
so_called-; thus practising myself and thee in 
[these] five books for presenting opposition to 
all heretics. 
Perictiye sateen ee pees ce SOO ee 
11 Matt, xxv. 41, xiii. 38. 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


BOOK V. 





PREFACE. 


In the four preceding books, my very dear 
friend, which I put forth to thee, all the heretics 
have been exposed, and their doctrines brought 
to light, and these men refuted who have devised 
irreligious opinions. [I have accomplished this 
by adducing] something from the doctrine pecul- 
iar to each of these men, which they have left 
in their writings, as well as by using arguments 
of a more general nature, and applicable to them 
all! Then I have pointed out the truth, and 
shown the preaching of the Church, which the 
prophets proclaimed (as I have already demon- 
strated), but which Christ brought to perfec- 
tion, and the apostles have handed down, from 
whom the Church, receiving [these truths], and 
throughout all the world alone preserving them 
in their integrity (dene), has transmitted them to 
her sons. Then also —having disposed of all 
questions which the heretics propose to us, and 
having explained the doctrine of the apostles, 
and clearly set forth many of those things which 
were said and done by the Lord in parables — I 
shall endeavour, in this the fifth book of the 
entire work which treats of the exposure and 
refutation of knowledge falsely so called, to 
exhibit proofs from the rest of the Lord’s doc- 
trine and the apostolical epistles: [thus] com- 
plying with thy demand, as thou didst request 
of me (since indeed I have been assigned a 
place in the ministry of the word) ; and, labour- 
ing by every means in my power to furnish thee 
with large assistance against the contradictions 
of the heretics, as also to reclaim the wanderers 
and convert them to the Church of God, to con- 
firm at the same time the minds of the neophytes, 
that they may preserve stedfast the faith which 
they have received, guarded by the Church in 
its integrity, in order that they be in no way 
perverted by those who endeavour to teach 





1 Ex ratione universis ostensionibus procedente. 


The words are 
very obscure. 
526 





them false doctrines, and lead them away from 
the truth. It will be incumbent upon thee, how- 
ever, and all who may happen to read this writ- 
ing, to peruse with great attention what I have 
already said, that thou mayest obtain a knowl- 
edge of the subjects against which I am con- 
tending. For it is thus that thou wilt both 
controvert them in a legitimate manner, and 
wilt be prepared to receive the proofs brought 
forward against them, casting away their doc- 
trines as filth by means of the celestial faith ; 
but following the only true and stedfast Teacher, 
the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
did, through His transcendent love, become what 
we are, that He might bring us to be even what 
He is Himself. 


CHAP. I.— CHRIST ALONE IS ABLE TO TEACH DI- 
VINE THINGS, AND TO REDEEM US: HE, THE 
SAME, TOOK FLESH OF THE VIRGIN MARY, NOT 
MERELY IN APPEARANCE, BUT ACTUALLY, BY THE 
OPERATION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, IN ORDER TO 
RENOVATE US. STRICTURES ON THE CONCEITS OF 
VALENTINUS AND EBION. 


1. For in no other way could we have learned 
the things of God, unless our Master, existing 
as the Word, had become man. For no other 
being had the power of revealing to us the 
things of the Father, except His own proper 
Word. For what other person “knew the mind 
of the Lord,” or who else “has become His 
counsellor?” Again, we could have learned 
in no other way than by seeing our Teacher, and 
hearing His voice with our own ears, that, hav- 
ing become imitators of His works as well as 
doers of His words, we may have communion 
with Him, receiving increase from the perfect 
One, and from Him who is prior to all creation. 
We —who were but lately created by the only 
best and good Being, by Him also who has the 
gift of immortality, having been formed after 





2 Rom, xi. 34. 


IRENAEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


527 





His likeness (predestinated, according to the 
prescience of the Father, that we, who had as 
yet no existence, might come into being), and 
made the first-fruits of creation’ —have received, 
in the times known beforehand, [the blessings 
of salvation] according to the ministration of the 
Word, who is perfect in all things, as the mighty 
Word, and very man, who, redeeming us by His 
own blood in a manner consonant to reason, gave 
Himself as a redemption for those who had been 
led into captivity. And since the apostasy tyran- 
nized over us unjustly, and, though we were by 
nature the property of the omnipotent God, 
alienated us contrary to nature, rendering us its 
own disciples, the Word of God, powerful in all 
things, and not defective with regard to His own 
justice, did righteously turn against that apos- 
tasy, and redeem from it His own property, not 
by violent means, as the [apostasy] had obtained 
dominion over us at the beginning, when it in- 
satiably snatched away what was not its own, but 
by means of persuasion, as became a God of 
counsel, who does not use violent means to 
obtain what He desires ; so that neither should 
justice be infringed upon, nor the ancient handi- 
wotk of God go to destruction. Since the Lord 
thus has redeemed us through His own blood, 
giving His soul for our souls, and His flesh for 
our flesh,? and has also poured out the Spirit of 
the Father for the union and communion of God 
and man, imparting indeed God to men by means 
of the Spirit, and, on the other hand, attaching 
man to God by His own incarnation, and bestow- 
ing upon us at His coming immortality durably 
and truly, by means of communion with God, — 
all the doctrines of the heretics fall to ruin. 
XL 2 Vain indeed_are-those, who allege that He 
v’ appeared in mere seeming) For these things 
were not done i cereus only, but in ac- 
tual reality. But if He did appear as a man, 
when He was not a man, neither could the Holy 
Spirit haye rested upon Him,—an occurrence 
which did actually take place —as the Spirit is 
invisible ; nor, [in that case], was there any de- 
gree of truth in Him, for He was not that which 
He seemed to be. But I have already remarked 
that Abraham and the other prophets beheld 
Him after a prophetical manner, foretelling in 
vision what should come to pass. If, then, such 
a being has now appeared in outward semblance 
different from what he was in reality, there has 
been a certain prophetical vision made to men ; 
and another advent of His must be looked for- 
ward to, in which He shall be such as He has 
now been seen in a prophetic manner. And I 
have proved already, that it is the same thing to 
say that He appeared merely to outward seeming, 


1 “Jnitium facture,” which Grabe thinks should be thus trans- 
lated with reference to Jas. i. 18. 


2 [Compare Clement, cap. 49, p.18, this volume. ] 


and [to affirm] that He received nothing from 
Mary. For He would not have been one truly 
possessing flesh and blood, by which He redeemed 
us, unless He had summed up in Himself the an- 
cient formation of Adam. Vain therefore are the 
disciples of Valentinus who put forth this opinion, 
in order that they may exclude the flesh from 
salvation, and cast aside what God has fashioned. 

3. Vain also are the Ebionites, who do not 
receive by faith into their soul the union of God 
and man, but who remain in the old leaven of 
[the natural] birth, and who do not choose to 
understand that the Holy Ghost came upon 
Mary, and the power of the Most High did 
overshadow her :3 wherefore also what was gen- 
erated is a holy thing, and the Son of the Most 
High God the Father of all, who_effected the in- 
carnation of this being, and showed forth a new 
[kind of] generation ; that as by the former gen- 
eration we inherited death, so by this new gener- 
ation we might inherit life. Therefore do these 
men reject the commixture of the heavenly wine,‘ 
and wish it to be water of the world only, not 
receiving God so as to have union with Him, 
but they remain in that Adam who had been 
conquered and was expelled from Paradise : not 
considering that as, at the beginning of our for- 
mation in Adam, that breath of life which pro- 
ceeded from God, having been united to what 
had been fashioned, animated the man, and 
manifested him as a being endowed with rea- 
son; so also, in [the times of] the end, the 
Word of the Father and the Spirit of God, hav- 
ing become united with the ancient substance of 
Adam’s formation, rendered man living and per- 
fect, receptive of the perfect Father, in order 
that as in the natural [Adam] we all were dead, 
so in the spiritual we may all be made alive.’ 
For never at any time did Adam escape the 
hands® of God, to whom the Father speaking, 
said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after 
Our likeness.” And for this reason in the last 
times (fine), not by the will of the flesh, nor by 
the will of man, but by the good pleasure of the 
Father,? His hands formed a living man, in order 
that Adam might be created [again] after the 
image and likeness of God. 





CHAP. Il. — WHEN CHRIST VISITED US IN HIS 
GRACE, HE DID NOT COME TO WHAT DID NOT 
BELONG TO HIM: ALSO, BY SHEDDING HIS TRUE 
BLOOD FOR US, AND EXHIBITING TO US HIS 
TRUE FLESH IN THE EUCHARIST, HE CONFERRED 
UPON OUR FLESH THE CAPACITY OF SALVATION, 





1. And vain likewise are those who say that 





3 Luke i. 35. ; Ve 

4 In allusion to the mixture of water in the eucharistic cup, as 
practised in these primitive times. The Ebionites and others used to 
consecrate the element of water alone. 

Sir Cor xva 22. 

6 Viz., the Son and the Spirit, 

7 John i, 13. 


528 





God came to those things which did not belong 
to Him, as if covetous of another’s property ; in 
order that He might deliver up that man who had 
been created by another, to that God who had 
neither made nor formed anything, but who also 
was deprived from the beginning of His own 
proper formation of men. The advent, there- 
fore, of Him whom these men represent as com- 
ing to the things of others, was not righteous ; 
nor did He truly redeem us by His own blood, if 
He did not really become man, restoring to His 
own handiwork what was said [of it] in the be- 
ginning, that man was made after the image and 
likeness of God; not snatching away by strata- 
gem the property of another, but taking pos- 
session of His own in a righteous and gracious 
manner. As far as concerned the apostasy, in- 
deed, He redeems us righteously from it by His 
own blood; but as regards us who have been 
redeemed, [He does this] graciously. For we 
have given nothing to Him previously, nor does 
He desire anything from us, as if He stood in 
need of it; but we do stand in need of fellow- 
ship with Him. And for this reason it was 
that He graciously poured Himself out, that 
He might gather us into the bosom of the 
Father. 

2. But vain in every respect are they who de- 
spise the entire dispensation of God, and disallow 


_ the salvation of the flesh, and treat with con- 


} 


tempt its regeneration, maintaining that it is not 
capable of incorruption. But if this indeed do 
not attain salvation, then neither did the Lord 


' redeem us with His blood, nor is the cup of the 


‘remission of sins.’ 2 


Eucharist the communion of His blood, nor the 
bread which we break the communion of His 
body.t For blood can only come from veins 
and flesh, and whatsoever else makes up the sub- 
stance of man, such as the Word of God was 
actually made. By His own blood he redeemed 
us, as also His apostle declares, “In whom we 
have redemption through His blood, even the 
And as we are His mem- 


-bers, we are also nourished by means of the 


creation (and He Himself grants the creation to 


us, for He causes His sun to rise, and sends rain 
when He wills3). He has acknowledged the 
cup (which is a part of the creation) as His own 
blood, from which He bedews our blood; and 
the bread (also a part of the creation) He-has 
established as His own body, from which He 
gives increase to our bodies.* 

3. When, therefore, the mingled cup and the 
manufactured bread receives the Word of God, 
and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of 





1 x Cor. x. 16. 

2 Col i. 14. 

3 Matt. v. 45. 

4 (Again, he carefully asserts that the bread is the Jody, and the 
wine (cup) is the d/ood, The elements are sanctified, not changed 
materially. ] 





IRENAZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


Christ is made,$ from which things the substance 
of our flesh is increased and supported, how can 
they affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving 
the gift of God, which is life eternal, which 
[flesh] is nourished ‘from the body and blood of 
the Lord, and is a member of Him? — even as 
the blessed Paul declares in his Epistle to the 
Ephesians, that “we are members of His body, 
of His flesh, and of His bones.”® He does not 
speak these words of some spiritual and invisible 
man, for a spirit has not bones nor flesh ;7 but 
[he refers to] that dispensation [by which the 
Lord became ] ‘an actual man, consisting_of flesh, 
and nerves, and bones, — that [flesh] which is 
nourished by the cup which is His blood, and 
receives increase from the bread which is His 
body. And just as a cutting from the vine 
planted in the ground fructifies in its season, or 
as a corn of wheat falling into the earth and be- 
coming decomposed, rises with manifold increase 
by the Spirit of God, who contains all things, 
and then, through the wisdom of God, serves 
for the use of men, and having received the 
Word of God, becomes the Eucharist, which is 
the body and blood of Christ ; so also our bodies, 
being nourished by it, and deposited in the 
earth, and suffering decomposition there, shall 
rise at their appointed time, the Word of God 
granting them resurrection to the glory of God, 
even the Father, who freely gives to this mortal 
immortality, and to this corruptible incorrup- 
tion,® because the strength of God is made per- 
fect in weakness,? in order that we may never 
become puffed up, as if we had life from our- 
selves, and exalted against God, our minds be- 
coming ungrateful; but learning by experience 
that we possess eternal duration from the excel- 
ling power of this Being, not from our own nature, 
we may neither undervalue that glory which sur- 
rounds God as He is, nor be ignorant of our own 
nature, but that we may know what God can 
effect, and what benefits man receives, and thus 
never wander from the true comprehension of 
things as they are, that is, both with regard to 
God and with regard to man. And might it not 
be the case, perhaps, as I have already observed, 
that for this purpose God permitted our resolu- 
tion into the common dust of mortality.'° that 
we, being instructed by every mode, may be ac- 
curate in all things for the future, being ignorant 
neither of God nor of ourselves? 


5 The Greek text, of which a considerable portion remains here, 

would give, “and the Eucharist becomes the body of Christ.” 
Eph. v. 30 

7 Luke xxiv. 39. 

8 x Cor. xv. 53. 

9 2 Cor. xii. 3. 

10 This is Harvey’s free rendering of the passage, which is in the 
Greek (as preserved in the Catena of John of Damascus): xa: dca 
TovTO HvécxeTO O Beds Thy eis Thy yHv Nuav avddvow. In the 
Latin: Propter hoc passus est Deus fieri in nobis resolutionem. See 
Book iii. cap, xx. 2, 


, 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


529 


Ia ee ee ge a ee a 


SHAP. III]. — THE POWER AND GLORY OF GOD SHINE 
FORTH IN THE WEAKNESS OF HUMAN FLESH, AS 
HE WILL RENDER OUR BODY A PARTICIPATOR OF 
THE RESURRECTION AND. OF IMMORTALITY, AL- 
THOUGH HE HAS FORMED IT FROM THE DUST 
OF THE EARTH; HE WILL ALSO BESTOW UPON 
IT THE ENJOYMENT OF IMMORTALITY, JUST AS 
HE GRANTS IT THIS SHORT LIFE IN COMMON 
WITH THE SOUL. 


1. The Apostle Paul has, moreover, in the 
most lucid manner, pointed out that man has 
been delivered over to his own infirmity, lest, 
being uplifted, he might fall away from the truth. 
Thus he says in the second [Epistle] to the 
Corinthians : “ And lest I should be lifted up by 
the sublimity of the revelations, there was given 
unto me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of 
Satan to buffet me. And upon this I besought 
the Lord three times, that it might depart from 
me. But he said unto me, My grace is sufficient 
for thee ; for strength is made perfect in weak- 
ness. Gladly therefore shall I rather glory in 
infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell 
in me.”* What, therefore? (as some may ex- 
claim:) did the Lord wish, in that case, that 
His apostles should thus undergo buffeting, and 
that he should endure such infirmity? Even so 
it was ; the word says it. For strength is made 
perfect in weakness, rendering him a better man 
who by means of his infirmity becomes ac- 
quainted with the power of God. For how 
could a man have learned that he is himself an 
infirm being, and mortal by nature, but that God 
is immortal and powerful, unless he had learned 
by experience what is in both? For there is 
nothing evil in learning one’s infirmities by en- 
durance ; yea, rather, it has even the beneficial 
effect of preventing him from forming an undue 
opinion of his own nature (mon aberrare in 
natura sua). But the being Iffted up against 
God, and taking His glory to one’s self, render- 
ing man ungrateful, has brought much evil upon 
him. [And thus, I say, man must learn both 
things by experience], that he may not be des- 
titute of truth and love either towards himself 
or his Creator. But the experience of both 
confers upon him the true knowledge as to God 
and man, and increases his love towards God. 
Now, where there exists an increase of love, 
there a greater glory is wrought out by the power 
of God for those who love Him. 

2. Those men, therefore, set aside the power 
of God, and do not consider what the word 
declares, when they dwell upon the infirmity of 
the flesh, but do not take into consideration the 








I 2 Cor. xii. 7-9. : 

2 We have adopted here the explanation of Massuet, who con- 
siders the preceding period as merely parenthetical. Both Grabe and 
Harvey, however, would make conjectural emendations in the text, 
which seem’to us to be inadmissible. 











power of Him who raises it up from the dead. 
For if He does not vivify what is mortal, and 
does not bring back the corruptible to incorrup- 
tion, He is not a-‘God of power. But that He 
is powerful in all these respects, we ought to 
perceive from our origin, inasmuch as God, 
taking dust from the earth, formed man. And 
surely it is much more difficult and incredible, 
from non-existent bones, and nerves, and veins, 
and the rest of man’s organization, to bring it 
about that all this should be, and to make man 
an animated and rational creature, than to re- 
integrate again that which had been created and 
then afterwards decomposed into earth (for the 
reasons already mentioned), having thus passed 
into those [elements] from which man, who had 
no previous existence, was formed. For He who 
in the beginning caused him to have being who 
as yet was not, just when He pleased, shall much 
more reinstate again those who had a former 
existence, when it is His will [that they should 
inherit] the life granted by Him. And that flesh 
shall also be found fit for and capable of receiv- 
ing the power of God, which at the beginning 
received the skilful touches of God ; so that one 
part became the eye for seeing; another, the 
ear for hearing; another, the hand for feeling 
and working ; another, the sinews stretched out 
everywhere, and holding the limbs together ; 
another, arteries and veins, passages for the 
blood and the air;3 another, the various inter- 
nal organs; another, the blood, which is the 
bond of union between soul and body. But 
why go [on in this strain]? Numbers would 
fail to express the multiplicity of parts in the 
human frame, which was made in no other way 
than by the great wisdom of God. But those 
things which partake of the skill and wisdom of 
God, do also partake of His power. 

3. The flesh, therefore, is not destitute [of 
participation] in the constructive wisdom and 
power of God. But if the power of Him who 
is the bestower of life is made perfect in weak- 
ness —that is, in the flesh—let them inform 
us, when they maintain the incapacity of flesh 
to receive the life granted by God, whether they 
do say these things as being living men at pres- 
ent, and partakers of life, or acknowledge that, 
having no part in life whatever, they are at the 
present moment dead men. And if they really 
are dead men, how is it that they move about, 
and speak, and perform those other functions 
which are not the actions of the dead, but of 
the living? But if they are now alive, and if 
their whole body partakes of life, how can they 
venture the assertion that the flesh is not quali- 





3 The ancients eee & supposed that the arteries were azr- 
vessels, from the fact that these organs, after death, appear quite 
empty from all the blood stagnating in the veins when death super 
venes. 


oe 


IRENAZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





fied to be a partaker of life, when they do con- 
fess that they have life at the present moment ? 
It is just as if anybody were to take up a sponge 
full of water, or a torch on fire, and to declare 
that the sponge could not possibly partake of 
the water, or the torch of the fire. In this very 
manner do those men, by alleging that they are 
alive and bear life about in their members, con- 
tradict themselves afterwards, when they repre- 
sent these members as not being capable of 
[receiving] life. But if the present temporal 
life, which is of such an inferior nature to eternal 
life, can nevertheless effect so much as to quicken 
our mortal members, why should not eternal life, 
being much more powerful than this, vivify the 
flesh, which has already held converse with, and 
been accustomed to sustain, life? For that the 
flesh can really partake of life, is shown from 
the fact of its being alive; for it lives on, as 
long as it is God’s purpose that it should do so. 
It is manifest, too, that God has the power to 
confer life upon it, inasmuch as He grants life 
to us who are in existence. And, therefore, since 
the Lord has power to infuse life into what He 
has fashioned, and since the flesh is capable of 
being quickened, what remains to prevent its 
participating in incorruption, which is a blissful 
and never-ending life granted by God? 


CHAP. IV. — THOSE PERSONS ARE DECEIVED WHO 
FEIGN ANOTHER GOD THE FATHER BESIDES THE 
CREATOR OF THE WORLD; FOR HE MUST HAVE 
BEEN FEEBLE AND USELESS, OR ELSE MALIG- 
NANT AND FULL OF ENVY, IF HE BE EITHER 
UNABLE OR UNWILLING TO EXTEND EXTERNAL 
LIFE TO OUR BODIES. 


1. Those persons who feign the existence of 
another Father beyond the Creator, and who 
term him the good God, do deceive themselves ; 
for they introduce him as a feeble, worthless, 
and negligent being, not to say malign and full 
of envy, inasmuch as they affirm that our bodies 
are not quickened by him. For when they say 
of things which it is manifest to all do remain 
immortal, such as the spirit and the soul, and 
such other things, that they are quickened by 
the Father, but that another thing [viz. the 
body] which is quickened in no different man- 
ner than by God granting [life] to it, is aban- 
doned by life, — [they must either confess] that 
this proves their Father to be weak and power- 
less, or else envious and malignant. For since 
the Creator does even here quicken our mortal 
bodies, and promises them resurrection by the 
prophets, as I have pointed out; who [in that 
case] is shown to be more powerful, stronger, or 
truly good? Whether is it the Creator who 
vivifies the whole man, or is it their Father, 
falsely so called? He feigns to be the quick- 
ener of those things which are immortal by 











nature, to which things life is always present 
by their very nature ; but he does not benevo- 
lently quicken those things which required his 
assistance, that they might live, but leaves them 
carelessly to fall under the power of death. 
Whether is it the case, then, that their Father 
does not bestow life upon them when he has the 
power of so doing, or is it that he does not 
possess the power? If, on the one hand, it is 
because he cannot, he is, upon that supposition, 
not a powerful being, nor is he more perfect 
than the Creator; for the Creator grants, as we 
must perceive, what /7e is unable to afford. But 
if, on the other hand, [it be that he does. not 
grant this] when he has the power of so doing, 
then he is proved to be not a good, but an 
envious and malignant Father. 

2. If, again, they refer to any cause on account 
of which their Father does not impart life to 
bodies, then that cause must necessarily appear 
superior to the Father, since it restrains Him 
from the exercise of His benevolence ; and His 
benevolence will thus be proved weak, on account 
of that cause which they bring forward. Now 
every one must perceive that bodies are capable 
of receiving life. For they live to the extent 
that God pleases that they should live ; and that 
being so, the [heretics] cannot maintain that 
[these bodies] are utterly incapable of receiving 
life. If, therefore, on account of necessity and 
any other cause, those [bodies] which are capa- 
ble of participating in life are not vivified, their 
Father shall be the slave of necessity and that 
cause, and not therefore a free agent, having His 
will under His own control. 


CHAP. V.—THE PROLONGED LIFE OF THE AN- 
CIENTS, THE TRANSLATION OF ELIJAH AND OF 
ENOCH IN THEIR OWN BODIES, AS WELL AS THE 
PRESERVATION OF JONAH, OF SHADRACH, ME- 
SHACH, AND ABEDNEGO, IN THE MIDST OF EX- 
TREME PERIL, ARE CLEAR DEMONSTRATIONS THAT 
GOD CAN RAISE UP OUR BODIES TO LIFE ETER- 
NAL. 


1. [In order to learn] that bodies did continue 
in existence for a lengthened period, as long as 
it was God’s good pleasure that they should 
flourish, let [these heretics] read the Scriptures, 
and they will find that our predecessors advanced 
beyond seven hundred, eight hundred, and nine 
hundred years of age ; and that their bodies kept 
pace with the protracted length of their days, 
and participated in life as long as God willed 
that they should live. But why do I refer to 
these men? For Enoch, when he pleased God, 
was translated in the same body in which he did 
please Him, thus pointing out by anticipation the 
translation of the just. Elijah, too, was caught 
up [when he was yet] in the substance of the 
[natural] form ; thus exhibiting in prophecy the 


IREN4ZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


531 





assumption of those who are spiritual, and that 
nothing stood in the way of their body being 
translated and caught up. For by means of 
the very same hands through which they were 
moulded at the beginning, did they receive this 
translation and assumption. For in Adam the 
hands of God had become accustomed to set in 
order, to rule, and to sustain His own workman- 
ship, and to bring it and place it where they 
pleased. Where, then, was the first man placed ? 
In paradise certainly, as the Scripture declares : 
“And God planted a garden [faradisum] east- 
ward in Eden, and there He placed the man 
whom He had formed.’’! And then afterwards, 
when [man] proved disobedient, he was cast-out 
thence into this world. Wherefore also eogcey 
who were disciples of the apostles tell at 
those who were translated were transferred to 
that place (for paradise has been prepared for 
righteous men, such as have the Spirit ; in which 
place also Paul the apostle, when he was caught 
up, heard words which are unspeakable as re- 
gards us in our present condition”), and that 
there shall they who have been translated remain 
until the consummation [of all things], as a prel- 
ude to immortality. 

2. If, however, any one imagine it impossible 
that men should survive for such a length of 
time, and that Elias was not caught up in the 
flesh, but that his flesh was consumed in the fiery 
chariot, let him consider that Jonah, when he 
had been cast into the deep, and swallowed 
down into the whale’s belly, was by the command 
of God again thrown out safe upon the land.3 
And then, again, when Ananias, Azarias, and 
Misaél were cast into the furnace of fire seven- 
fold heated, they sustained no harm whatever, 
neither was the smell of fire perceived upon 
them. As, therefore, the hand of God was 
present with them, working out marvellous things 
in their case — [things] impossible [to be ac- 
complished] by man’s nature —what wonder was 
it, if also in the case of those who were translated 
it performed something wonderful, working in 
obedience to the will of God, even the Father? 
Now this is the Son of God, as the Scripture 
represents Nebuchadnezzar the king as having 
said, “Did not we cast three men bound into 
the furnace? and, lo, I do see four walking in 
the midst of the fire, and the fourth is like the 
Son of God.” + Neither the nature of any cre- 
ated thing, therefore, nor the weakness of the 
flesh, can prevail against the will of God. For 
God is not subject to created things, but created 
things to God ; and all things yield obedience 
to His will. ‘Wherefore also the Lord declares, 





1 Gen. ¥ 8. 
2 2 Cor. xii. 4. 


3 ee ii, 1. 
4 + Ul. 19-35. 











“The things which are impossible with men, are 
possible with God.’’5 As, therefore, it might 
seem to the men of the present day, who are 
ignorant of God’s appointment, to be a thing 
incredible and impossible that any man could 
live for such a number of years, yet those who 
were before us did live [to such an age], and 
those who were translated do live as an earnest 
of the future length of days; and [as it might 
also appear impossible] that from the whale’s 
belly and from the fiery furnace men issued forth 
unhurt, yet they nevertheless did so, led forth as 
it were by the hand of God, for the purpose of 
declaring His power: so also now, although 
some, not knowing the power and promise of 
God, may oppose their own salvation, deeming 
it impossible for God, who raises up the dead, 
to have power to confer upon them eternal dura- 
tion, yet the scepticism of men of this stamp 
shall not render the faithfulness of God of none 
effect. 


CHAP. VI.— GOD WILL BESTOW SALVATION UPON 
THE WHOLE NATURE OF MAN, CONSISTING OF 
BODY AND SOUL IN CLOSE UNION, SINCE THE 
WORD TOOK IT UPON HIM, AND ADORNED IT 
WITH THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, OF WHOM 
OUR BODIES ARE, AND ARE TERMED, THE TEM- 
PLES. 


1. Now God shall be glorified in His handi- 
work, fitting it so as to be conformable to, and 
modelled after, His own Son. For by the hands 
of the Father, that is, by the Son and the Holy 
Spirit, man, and not [merely] a part of man, 
was made in the likeness of God. Now the soul 
and the spirit are certainly a part of the man, 
but certainly not ¢ke man; for the_perfect_man 
consists in the commingling and the union of 
the soul receiving the spirit of the Father, and 
the admixture of that fleshly nature which was 
moulded after the image of God. For this rea- 
son does the apostle declare, “ We speak wisdom 
among them that are perfect,” ° terming those 
persons “ perfect” who havé received the Spirit 
of God, and who through the Spirit of God do 
speak in all languages, as he used Himself also 
to speak. In like manner we do also hear’ 
many brethren in the Church, who possess pro- 
phetic gifts, and who through the Spirit speak 
all kinds of languages, and bring to light for the 
general benefit the hidden things of men, and 
declare the mysteries of God, whom also the 
apostle terms “spiritual,” they being spiritual 
because they partake of the Spirit, and not be- 
cause their flesh has been stripped off and taken 
away, and because they have become purely 
spiritual. For if any one take away the sub- 
LL EE aS ee Eo eet) 

S Luke xviii. 27. 


_ 6 x Cor. ii. 6. 
7 The oa uses has “‘ audivimus,” Aave heard. 


@e 


aoe 


stance of flesh, that is, of the handiwork [of 
God], and understand that which is purely spir- 
itual, such then would not be a spiritual man, 
but would be the spirit of a man, or the Spirit 
of God. But when the spirit here blended with 
the soul is united to [God’s] handiwork, the 
man is rendered spiritual and perfect because of 
the outpouring of the Spirit, and this is he who 
was made in the image and likeness of God. 
But if the Spirit be wanting to the soul, he who 
is such is indeed of an animal nature, and being 
left carnal, shall be an imperfect being, possess- 
ing indeed the image [of God] in his formation 
(in plasmate), but not receiving the similitude 
through the Spirit ; and thus is this being imper- 
fect. Thus also, if any one take away the image 
and set aside the handiwork, he cannot then 
understand this as being a man, but as either 
some part of a man, as I have already said, or 
as something else than a man. For that flesh 
which has been moulded is not a perfect man in 
itself, but the body of a man, and part of a man. 
Neither is the soul itself, considered apart by 
itself, the man; but it is the soul of a man, and 
part of aman. Neither is the spirit a man, for 
it is called the spirit, and not a man; but the 
commingling and union of all these constitutes 
the perfect man. And for this cause does the 
apostle, explaining himself, make it clear that 
the saved man is a complete man as well as a 
spiritual man; saying thus in the first Epistle 
to the Thessalonians, “‘ Now the God of peace 
sanctify you perfect (ferfectos) ; and may your 
spirit, and soul, and body be preserved whole 
without complaint to the coming of the Lord 
Jesus Christ.”* Now what was his object in 
praying that these three —that is, soul, body, 
and spirit — might be preserved to the coming 


of the Lord, unless he was aware of the[ future] 


reintegration and union of the three, and [that 
they should be heirs of] one and the same sal- 
vation? For this-cause also he declares that 
those are “the perfect’? who present unto the 
Lord the three_[comfponent parts] without of- 
fence. Those, then, are the perfect who have 
had the Spirit of God remaining in them, and 
have preserved their souls and bodies blameless, 
holding fast the faith of God, that is, that faith 
which is [directed] towards God, and maintain- 
ing righteous dealings with respect to their 
neighbours. 

2. Whence also he says, that this handiwork 
is ‘‘ the temple of God,” thus declaring: “ Know 
ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that 
the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man, 
therefore, will defile the temple of God, him will 
God destroy: for the temple of God is holy, 


; 1; Thess. v.23. [I have before referred the student to the 
‘Biblical Psychology” of Prof. Delitzsch (translation), 7. & T. 
Clark, Edinburgh, 1868.j 











IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


which [temple] ye are.”? Here he manifestly 
declares the body to be the temple in which the 
Spirit dwells. As also the Lord speaks in refey- 
ence to Himself, “ Destroy this temple, and in 
three days I will raise it up. He spake this, 
however,” it is said, “of the temple of His 
body.” 3 And not only does he (the apostle) 
acknowledge our bodies to be a temple, but even 
the temple of Christ, saying thus to the Corinth- 
ians, “ Know ye not that your bodies are mem- 
bets of Christ? Shall I then take the members 
of Christ, and make them the members of an 
harlot?’’+ He speaks these things, not in ref- 
erence to some other spiritual man ; for a being 
of such a nature could have nothing to do with 
an harlot: but he declares “our body,” that 
is, the flesh which continues in sanctity and 
purity, to be “the members of Christ ;” but 
that when it becomes one with an harlot, it be- 
comes the members of an harlot. And for this 
reason he said, “If any man defile the temple 
of God, him will God destroy.” How then is 
it not the utmost blasphemy to allege, that the 
temple of God, in which the Spirit of the Father 
dwells, and the members of Christ, do not par- 
take of salvation, but are reduced to perdition? 


Also, that our bodies are raised not from their 


own substance, but by the power of God, he 
says to the Corinthians, “ Now the body is not 
for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord 
for the body. But God hath both raised up the 
Lord, and shall raise us up by His own power.” 5 


CHAP. VII.—INASMUCH AS CHRIST DID RISE IN 
OUR FLESH, IT FOLLOWS THAT WE SHALL BE 
ALSO RAISED IN THE SAME; SINCE THE RESUR- 
RECTION PROMISED TO US SHOULD NOT BE RE- 
FERRED TO SPIRITS NATURALLY IMMORTAL, BUT 
TO BODIES IN THEMSELVES MORTAL. 


1. In the same manner, therefore, as Christ 
did rise in the substance of flesh, and pointed 
out to His disciples the mark of the nails and 
the opening in His side® (now these are the 
tokens of that flesh which rose from the dead), 
so “shall He also,” it is said, “raise us up by 
His own power.’’7 And again to the Romans 
he says, “ But if the Spirit of Him that raised 
up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that 
raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken 
your mortal bodies.” § What, then, are mortal 
bodies? Can they be souls? Nay, for souls are 
incorporeal when put in comparison with mor- 
tal bodies ; for God “ breathed into the face of 
man the breath of life, and man became a living 
soul.” Now the breath of life is an incorporeal 

2 x Cor. iii. 16. 

3 John ii. r9~21. 

4 x Cor. iii. 17. 

5 x Cor. vi. 13, 4. 

6 John xx. 23 e@5, 27. 

7 x Cor. vi. 14 

# Rom. viii. 11. 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





thing. And certainly they cannot maintain that 
the very breath of life is mortal. Therefore 
David says, “‘ My soul also shall live to Him,’’? 
just as if its substance were immortal. Neither, 
on the other hand, can they say that the spirit is 
the mortal body. What therefore is there left to 
which we may apply the term “mortal body,” 
unless it be the thing that was moulded, that is, 
the flesh, of which it is also said that God will 
vivify it? For this it is which dies and is de- 
composed, but not the soul or the spirit. For to 
die is to lose vital power, and to become hence- 
forth breathless, inanimate, and devoid of motion, 
and to melt away into those [component parts] 
from which also it derived the commencement 
of [its] substance. But this event happens 
neither, to the soul, for it is the breath of life; 
nor to the spirit, for the spirit is simple and not 
composite, so that it cannot be decomposed, 
and is itself the life of those who receive it. We 
must therefore conclude that it is in reference to 
the flesh that death is mentioned ; which | flesh], 
after the soul’s departure, becomes breathless 
and inanimate, and is decomposed gradually into 
the earth from which it was taken. This, then, 
is what is mortal. And it is this of which he also 
says, ‘‘ He shall also quicken your mortal bodies.” 
And therefore in reference to it he says, in the 
first [Epistle] to the Corinthians: “So also is 
the resurrection of the dead: it is sown in cor- 
ruption, it rises in incorruption.” ? For he de- 
clares, “‘That which thou sowest cannot be 
quickened, unless first it die.” 3 

2. But what is that which, like a grain of 
wheat, is sown in the earth and decays, unless it 
be the bodies which are laid in the earth, into 
which seeds are also cast? And for this reason 
he said, “It is sown in dishonour, it rises in 
glory.’* For what is more ignoble than dead 
flesh? Or, on the other hand, what is more 
glorious than the same when it arises and _par- 
takes of incorruption? “It is sown in weakness, 
it is raised in power:’’5 in its own weakness 
certainly, because since it is earth it goes to earth ; 
but [it is quickened] by the power of God, who 
raises it from the dead. “It is sown an animal 
body, it rises a spiritual body.” ° He has taught, 
beyond all doubt, that such language was not 
used by him, either with reference to the soul or 
to the spirit, but to bodies that have become 
corpses. For these are animal bodies, that is, 
[bodies] which partake of life, which when they 
have lost, they succumb to death; then, rising 
through the Spirit’s instrumentality, they become 
spiritual bodies, so that by the Spirit they pos- 





1 Ps, xxii. 31, LXX. 
2 1 Cor. xv. 42. 
3 x Cor. xv. 36. 
4 1 Cor. xv. 43. 
5 x Cor. xv. 43- 
6 x Cor. xv. 44. 














woe 





sess a perpetual life. ‘ For now,” he says, “we 
know in part, and we prophesy in part, but then 
face to face.”’7 And this it is which has been 
said also by Peter: “ Whom having not seen, ye 
love ; in whom now also, not seeing, ye believe ; 
and believing, ye shall rejoice with joy unspeak-, 
ble.”® For our face shall see the face of the 
Lord,? and shall rejoice with joy unspeakable, 
—that is to say, when it shall behold its own 
Delight. 


CHAP. VIII.—THE GIFIS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 
WHICH WE RECEIVE PREPARE US FOR INCOR- 
RUPTION, RENDER US SPIRITUAL, AND SEPARATE 
US FROM CARNAL MEN. THESE TWO CLASSES 
ARE SIGNIFIED BY THE CLEAN AND UNCLEAN 
ANIMALS IN THE LEGAL DISPENSATION. 

1. But we do now receive a certain portion of 
His Spirit, tending towards perfection, and pre- 
paring us for incorruption, being little by little 
accustomed to receive and bear God ; which also 
the apostle terms “an earnest,” that is, a part of 
the honour which has been promised us by God, 
where he says in the Epistle to the Ephesians, 
“In which ye also, having heard the word of 
truth, the Gospel of your salvation, believing in 
which ye have been sealed with the Holy Spirit 
of promise, which is the earnest of our inherit- 
ance.” '° This earnest, therefore, thus dwelling 
in us, renders us spiritual even now, and. the 
mortal is swallowed up by immortality."' “‘ For 
ye,” he declares, “are not in the flesh, but in 
the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in 
you.” This, however, does not take place by a 
casting away of the flesh, but by the impartation 
of the Spirit. For those to whom he was writing 
were not without flesh, but they were those who 
had received the Spirit of God, “by which we 
cry, Abba, Father.” ‘3 If therefore, at the present 
time, having the earnest, we do cry, “Abba, 
Father,” what shall it be when, on rising again, 
we behold Him face to face; when all the 
members shall burst out into a continuous hymn 
of triumph, glorifying Him who raised them from 
the dead, and gave the gift of eternal life? Fox 
if the earnest, gathering man into itself, does 
even now cause him to cry, “Abba, Father,” 
what shall the complete grace of the Spirit effect, 
which shall be given to men by God? It will 
render us like unto Him, and accomplish the 
will ™ of the Father ; for it shall make man after 
the image and likeness of God. 





7 x Cor. xiii, 9, 12. 

8 x Pet. i. 8. 

9 Grabe, Massuet, and Stieren prefer to read, “‘the face of the 
living God; ” while Harvey adopts the above, reading merely “‘ Do- 
mini,” and not “‘ Dei vivi.” 

io Eph. i. 13, etc. 

II 2 Cor. v. 4. 

12 Rom. viii. 9. 

13 Rom, viii. 15. 2 zi 

14 This is adopting Harvey’s emendation of “ yoluntatem” for 
“ weluntate.” 


534 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


OO eee 


2. Those persons, then, who possess the ear- 
nest of the Spirit, and who are not enslaved by 
the lusts of the flesh, but are subject to the Spirit, 
and who in all things walk according to the light 
of reason, does the apostle properly term “spirit- 
ual,” because the Spirit of God dwells in them. 
Now, spiritual men shall not be incorporeal 
spirits ; but our substance, that is, the union_of 
flesh and spirit, receiving the Spirit of God, 
makes up the spiritual man. But those who do 
indeed reject the Spirit’s counsel, and are the 
slaves of fleshly lusts, and lead lives contrary to 
reason, and who, without restraint, plunge head- 
long into their own desires, having no longing 
after the Divine Spirit, do live after the manner 
of swine and of dogs; these men, [I say], does 
the apostle very properly term “carnal,” because 
they have no thought of anything else except 
carnal things. 

3. For the same reason, too, do the prophets 
compare them to irrational animals, on account 
of the irrationality of their conduct, saying, “They 
have become as horses raging for the females ; 
each one of them neighing after his neighbour’s 
wife.” * And again, “ Man, when he was in hon- 
our, was made like unto cattle.”? This denotes 
that, for his own fault, he is likened to cattle, by 
rivalling their irrational life. And we also, as the 
custom is, do designate men of this stamp as 
cattle and irrational beasts. 

4. Now the law has figuratively predicted all 
these, delineating man by the [various] animals :> 
whatsoever of these, says [the Scripture], have a 
double hoof and ruminate, it proclaims as clean ; 
but whatsoever of them do not possess one or 
other of these [properties], it sets aside by 
themselves as unclean. Who then are the clean? 
Those who make their way by faith steadily 
towards the Father and the Son; for this is de- 
noted by the steadiness of those which divide 
the hoof; and they meditate day and night upon 
the words of God,‘ that they may be adorned 
with good works : for this is the meaning of the 
ruminants. The unclean, however, are those 
which do neither divide the hoof nor ruminate ; 
that is, those persons who have neither faith in 
God, nor do meditate on His words: and such 
is the abomination of the Gentiles. But as to 
those animals which do indeed chew the cud, 
but have not the double hoof, and are themselves 
unclean, we have in them a figurative description 
of the Jews, who certainly have the words of God 
in their mouth, but who do not fix their rooted 
stedfastness in the Father and in the Son ; where- 
fore they are an unstable generation. For those 
animals which have the hoof all in one piece 








I es Vv. 3. 

2 Ps. xlix. 20. 

3 Lev. xi. 2; Deut. xiv. 3, etc. 
4 Ps, i. 2. 





easily slip ; but those which have it divided are 
more sure-footed, their cleft hoofs succeeding 
each other as they advance, and the one hoof 
supporting the other. In like manner, too, those 
are unclean which have the double hoof but do 
not ruminate: this is plainly an indication of all 
heretics, and of those who do not meditate on 
the words of God, neither are adorned with works 
of righteousness ; to whom also the Lord says, 
“Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do not the 
things which I say to you?” S For men of this 
stamp do indeed say that they believe in the 
Father and the Son, but they never meditate as 
they should upon the things of God, neither are 
they adorned with works of righteousness ; but, 
as I have already observed, they have adopted 
the lives of swine and of dogs, giving themselves 
over to filthiness, to gluttony, and recklessness 
of all sorts. Justly, therefore, did the apostle 
call all such “carnal” and “animal,” © — [all 
those, namely], who through their own unbelief 
and luxury do not receive the Divine Spirit, and 
in their various phases cast out from themselves 
the life-giving Word, and walk stupidly after their 
own lusts: the prophets, too, spake of them as 
beasts of burden and wild beasts ; custom like- 


‘wise has viewed them in the light of cattle and 


irrational creatures ; and the law has pronounced 
them unclean. 


CHAP. IX.— SHOWING HOW THAT PASSAGE OF 
THE APOSTLE WHICH THE HERETICS PERVERT, 
SHOULD BE UNDERSTOOD; VIZ., ‘‘ FLESH AND 
BLOOD SHALL NOT POSSESS THE KINGDOM OF | 
GOD.” 


1. Among the other [truths] proclaimed by 
the apostle, there is also this one, “ That flesh 
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” 7 
This is [the passage] which is adduced by all 
the heretics in support of their folly, with an 
attempt to annoy us, and to point out that the 
handiwork of God is not saved. They do not 
take this fact into consideration, that there are . 
three things out of which, as I have shown, the 
complete man is composed — flesh, soul, and 
spirit. One of these does indeed preserve and 
fashion [the man] —this is the spirit; while as 
to another it is united and formed — that is the 
flesh ; then [comes] that which is between these 
two — that is the soul, which sometimes indeed, 
when it follows the spirit, is raised up by it, but 
sometimes it sympathizes with the flesh, and falls 
into carnal lusts. Those then, as many as they 
be, who have not that which saves and forms 
[us] into life [eternal], shall be, and shall be 
called, [mere] flesh and blood ; for these are they 


S Luke vi, 46. 
© x Cor. ii. 14, ili. 1, etc. 
7 x Cor. xv. 50. 


IREN/EUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


535 


[ESS | a aT Se ee a a ee a ee 


who have not the Spirit of God in themselves. 
Wherefore men of this stamp are spoken of by 
the Lord as “dead;” for, says He, “Let the 
dead bury their dead,” * because they have not 
the Spirit which quickens man. 

2. On the other hand, as many as fear God 
and trust in His Son’s advent, and who through 
faith do establish the Spirit of God in their 
hearts, — such men as these shall be properly 
called both “ pure,” and “ spiritual,” and “ those 
living to God,” because they possess the Spirit 
of the Father, who purifies man, and raises him 
up to the life of God. For as the Lord has testi-’ 
fied that “the flesh is weak,” so [does He also 
say] that “the spirit is willing.” For this latter 
is capable of working out its own suggestions. 
If, therefore, any one admix the ready inclina- 
tion of the Spirit to be, as it were, a stimulus to 
the infirmity of the flesh, it inevitably follows 
that what is strong will prevail over the weak, so 
that the weakness of the flesh will be absorbed 
by the strength of the Spirit; and that the man 
in whom this takes place cannot in that case 
be carnal, but epi, because of the fellow- 
ship of the Spirit-~Thus it is, therefore, that 
the martyrs bear their witness, and despise 
death, not after the infirmity of the flesh, but 
because of the readiness of the Spirit. For 
when the infirmity of the flesh is absorbed, it 
exhibits the Spirit as powerful ; and again, when 
the Spirit absorbs the weakness [of the flesh], 
it possesses the flesh as an inheritance in itself, 
and from both of these is formed a living man, 
—living, indeed, because he partakes of the 
‘ Spirit, but man, because of the substance of 
flesh. 

3. The flesh, therefore, when destitute of the 
Spirit of God, is dead, not having life, and can- 
not possess the kingdom of God: [it is as] irra- 
tional blood, like water poured out upon the 
ground. And therefore he says, “As is the 
earthy, such are they that are earthy.”3 But 
where the Spirit of the Father is, there is a liv- 
ing man ; [there is] the rational blood preserved 
by God for the avenging [of those that shed it] ; 
[there is] the flesh possessed by the Spirit, for- 
getful indeed of what belongs to it, and adopting 
the quality of the Spirit, being made conforma- 
ble to the Word of God. And on this account 
he (the apostle) declares, “ As we have borne 
the image of him who is of the earth, we shall 
also bear the image of Him who is from heaven.” + 
What, therefore, is the earthly? That which was 
fashioned. And what is the heavenly? The 
Spirit. As therefore he says, when, we were 
destitute of the celestial Spirit, we walked in 
ee a mama Ga 


Luke x. 60. 
2 Matt. xxvi. 41. 
3 1 Cor. xv. 48. 
4 1 Cor. xv. 49- 











former times in the oldness of the flesh, not 
obeying God ; so now let us, receiving the Spirit, 
walk in newness of life, obeying God. Inas- 
much, therefore, as without the Spirit of God we 
cannot be saved, the apostle exhorts us through 
faith and chaste conversation to preserve the 
Spirit of God, lest, having become non-partici- 
pators of the Divine Spirit, we lose the kingdom 
of heaven ; and he exclaims, that flesh in itself, 
as blood, cannot possess the kingdom of 
God. 

4. If, however, we must speak strictly, [we 
would say that] the flesh does not inherit, but ¢s 
inherited ; as also the Lord declares, “ Blessed 
are the meek, for they shall possess the earth by 
inheritance ;”5 as if in the [future] kingdom, 
the earth, from whence exists the substance of 
our flesh, is to be possessed by inheritance. 
This is the reason for His wishing the temple 
(i.e., the flesh) to be clean, that the Spirit of 
God may take delight therein, as a bridegroom 
with a bride. As, therefore, the bride cannot 
[be said] to wed, but to be wedded, when the 
bridegroom comes and takes her, so also the 
flesh cannot by itself possess the kingdom of 
God by inheritance ; but it can be taken for an 
inheritance into the kingdom of God. Fora 
living person inherits the goods of the deceased ; 
and it is one thing to inherit, another to be in- 
herited. The former rules, and exercises power 
over, and orders the things inherited at his will ; 
but the latter things are in a state of subjection, 
are under order, and are ruled over by him who 
has obtained the inheritance. What, therefore, 
is it that lives? The Spirit of God, doubtless. 
What, again, are the possessions of the deceased ? 
The various parts of the man, surely, which rot 
in the earth. But these are inherited by the 
Spirit when they are translated into the kingdom 
of heaven. For this cause, too, did Christ die, 
that the Gospel covenant being manifested and 
known to the whole world, might in the first 
place set free His slaves; and then afterwards, 
as I have already shown, might constitute them 
heirs of His property, when the Spirit possesses 
them by inheritance. For he who lives inherits, 
but the flesh is inherited. In order that we 
may not lose life by losing that Spirit which 
possesses us, the apostle, exhorting us to the 
communion of the Spirit, has said, according to 
reason, in those words already quoted, “That 
flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of 
God.” Just as if he were to say, “ Do not err; 
for unless the Word of God dwell with, and the 
Spirit of the Father be in you, and if ye shall live 
frivolously and carelessly as if ye were this only, 
viz., mere flesh and blood, ye cannot inherit the 
kingdom of God.” 


5 Matt. v. 


536 


CHAP. X.—- BY A COMPARISON DRAWN FROM THE 
WILD OLIVE-TREE, WHOSE QUALITY BUT NOT 
WHOSE NATURE IS CHANGED BY GRAFTING, HE 
PROVES MORE IMPORTANT THINGS; HE POINTS 
OUT ALSO THAT MAN WITHOUT THE SPIRIT IS 
NOT CAPABLE OF BRINGING FORTH FRUIT, OR 
OF INHERITING THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 


1. This truth, therefore, [he declares], in or- 
der that we may not reject the engrafting of the 
Spirit while pampering the flesh. “ But thou, 
being a wild olive-tree,” he says, “hast been 
grafted into the good olive-tree, and been made 
a partaker of the fatness of the olive-tree.”’ * 
As, therefore, when the wild olive has been en- 
grafted, if it remain in its former condition, viz., 
a wild olive, it is “cut off, and cast into the 
fire ;”? but if it takes kindly to the graft, and is 
changed into the good olive-tree, it becomes a 
fruit-bearing olive, planted, as it were, in a king’s 
park (paradise): so likewise men, if they do 
truly progress by faith towards better things, 


and receive the Spirit of God, and bring forth 


the fruit thereof, shall be spiritual, as being 
planted in the paradise of God. But if they 
cast out the Spirit, and remain in their former 
condition, desirous of being of the flesh rather 
than of the Spirit, then it is very justly said with 
regard to men of this stamp, “That flesh and 
blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God ;’’3 
just as if any one were to say that the wild olive 
is not received into the paradise of God. Ad- 
mirably therefore does the apostle exhibit our 
nature, and God’s universal appointment, in his 
discourse about flesh and blood and the wild 
olive. For as the good olive, if peglected for a 
certain time, if left to grow wild and to run to 
wood, does itself become a wild olive ; or again, if 
the wild olive be carefully tended and grafted, it 
naturally reverts to its former fruit-bearing con- 
dition : so men also, when they become careless, 
and bring forth for fruit the lusts of the flesh like 
woody produce, are rendered, by their own fault, 
unfruitful in righteousness. For when men sleep, 
the enemy sows the material of tares ;4 and for 
this cause did the Lord command His disciples 
to be on the watch. And again, those persons 
who are not bringing forth the fruits of righteous- 
ness, and are, as it were, covered over and lost 
among brambles, if they use diligence, and re- 
ceive the word of God as a graft,° arrive at the 
pristine nature of man — that which was created 
after the image and likeness of God. 

2. But as the engrafted wild olive does not 
certainly lose the substance of its wood, but 
changes the quality of its fruit, and receives 





Rom, xi. 17. 

Matt. vii. 19. 

1 Cor. xv. 50. 

4 Matt. xiii. 25. 

5 Matt. xxiv. 42, xxv. 13; Mark xdli, 33. 
6 Jas: i. a2, 


8 
2 
3 





IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


another name, being now not a wild olive, but 
a fruit-bearing olive, and is called so; so also, 
when man is grafted in by faith and receives 
the Spirit of God, he certai not_lose 
the substance of flesh, but changes the quality 
of the fruit [brought forth, i.e.,] of his works, 
and receives another name,’ showing that he has 
become changed for the better, being-now not 
[mere] flesh and blood, but a(spiritual man; and 
is called such, Then, again, as’the wild olive, 
if it be not grafted in, remains useless to its lord 
because of its woody quality, and is cut down 
as a tree bearing no fruit, and cast into the fire ; 
so also man, if he does not receive through faith 
the engrafting of the Spirit, remains in his old 
condition, and being [mere] flesh and blood, 
he cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Rightly 
therefore does the apostle declare, “ Flesh and 
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God ;’’8 
and, “Those who are in the flesh cannot please 
God:’9 not repudiating [by these words] the 
substance of flesh, but showing that into it the 
Spirit must be infused.’e And for this reason, 
he says, “This mortal must put on immortality, 
and this corruptible must put on incorruption.” ** 
And again he declares, “ But ye are not in the 


flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit 


of God dwell in you.” * He sets this forth still 
more plainly, where he says, “The body indeed 
is dead, because of sin; but the Spirit is life, 
because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of 
Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwell 
in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead 
shall also quicken your mortal bodies, because 
of His Spirit dwelling in you.” "3 And again he 
says, in the Epistle to the Romans, “ For if ye 
live after the flesh, ye shall die.””** [Now by 
these words] he does not prohibit them from 
living their lives in the flesh, for he was himself 
in the flesh when he wrote to them ; but he cuts 
away the lusts of the flesh, those which bring 
death upon a man. And for this reason he says 
in continuation, “ But if ye through the Spirit 
do mortify the works of the flesh, ye shall live. 
For whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, 
these are the sons of God.” 


CHAP. XI.— TREATS UPON THE ACTIONS OF CAR- 
NAL AND OF SPIRITUAL PERSONS; ALSO, THAT 
THE SPIRITUAL CLEANSING IS NOT TO BE RE- 
FERRED TO THE SUBSTANCE OF OUR BODIES, 
BUT TO THE MANNER OF OUR FORMER LIFE, 


1. [The apostle], foreseeing the wicked 
speeches of unbelievers, has particularized the 





7 Rev. ii. 17. 

8 x Cor. xv. 50. 

9 Rom. viii. 8. 

to The Latin has, “‘ sed infusionem Spiritus attrahens,” 
11 x Cor. xv. 53. 

12 Rom. viii. 9. 

13 Rom. viii. 10, etc. 

14 Rom, viii. 1g. 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


537 





works which he terms carnal; and he explains 
himself, lest any room for doubt be left to those 
who do dishonestly pervert his meaning, thus 
saying in the Epistle to the Galatians: ‘“ Now 
the works of the flesh are manifest, which are: 
adulteries, fornications, uncleanness, luxurious- 
ness, idolatries, witchcrafts,: hatreds, contentions, 
jealousies, wraths, emulations, animosities, irri- 
table speeches, dissensions, heresies, envyings, 
drunkenness, carousings, and such like ; of which 
I warn you, as also I have warned you, that they 
who do such things shall not inherit the king- 
dom of God.”? Thus does he point out to his 
hearers in a more explicit manner what it is [he 
means when he declares], “Flesh and blood 
shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” For 
they who do these things, since they do indeed 
walk after the flesh, have not the power of living 
unto God. And then, again, he proceeds to tell 
us the spiritual actions which vivify a man, that 
is, the engrafting of the Spirit ; thus saying, “ But 
the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long- 
suffering, goodness, benignity, faith, meekness, 
continence, chastity: against these there is no 
law.”3 As, therefore, he who has gone forward 
to the better things, and has brought forth the 
fruit of the Spirit, is saved altogether because 
of the communion of the Spirit ; so also he who 
has continued in the aforesaid works of the 
flesh, being truly reckoned as carnal, because he 
did not receive the Spirit of God, shall not have 
power to inherit the kingdom of heaven. As, 
again, the same apostle testifies, saying to the 
Corinthians, “ Know ye not that the unrighteous 
shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not 
err,” he says: “neither fornicators, nor idola- 
ters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers 
of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor 
covetous, nor revilers, nor rapacious persons, 
shall inherit the kingdom of God. And these 
ye indeed have been; but ye have been washed, 
but ye have been sanctified, but ye have been 
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and in the Spirit of our God.”* He shows in 
the clearest manner ‘through what things it is 
that man goes to destruction, if he has contin- 
ued to live after the flesh; and then, on the 
other hand, [he points out] through what things 
he is saved. Now he says that the things which 
save are the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and 
_ the Spirit of our God. 

2. Since, therefore, in that passage he re- 
counts those works of the flesh which are without 
the Spirit, which bring death [upon their doers ], 
he exclaimed at the end of his Epistle, in ac- 
cordance with what he had already, declared, 


Rn a ee 


I Or, “ poisonings.” 
2 Gal. v. 19, etc. 

3 Gal. v. 22. 

4 x Cor. vi. 9-11. 








“And as we have borne the image of him who 
is of the earth, we shall also bear the image of 
Him who is from heaven. For this I say, 
brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the 
kingdom of God.’’5 Now this which he says, 
“as we have borne the image of him who is of 
the earth,” is analogous to what has been de- 
clared, “And such indeed ye were; but ye 
have been washed, but ye have been sanctified, 
but ye have been justified in the name of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.” 
When, therefore, did we bear the image of him 
who is of the earth? Doubtless it was when 
those actions spoken of as “ works of the flesh” 
used to be wrought in us. And then, again, 
when [do we bear] the image of the heavenly? 
Doubtless when he says, “ Ye have been washed,” 
believing in the name of the Lord, and receiv- 
ing His Spirit. Now we have washed away, 
not the substance of our body, nor the image of 
our [primary] formation, but the former vain 
conversation. In these members, therefore, in 
which we were going to destruction by working 
the works of corruption, in these very members 
are we made alive by working the works of the 
Spirit. 


CHAP. XII.— OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIFE 
AND DEATH ; OF THE BREATH OF LIFE AND THE 
VIVIFYING SPIRIT: ALSO HOW IT IS THAT THE 
SUBSTANCE OF FLESH REVIVES WHICH ONCE WAS 
DEAD. 


1. For as the flesh is capable--of:-corruption, 
so_is it also_of—incerruption ; and as it is of 
death, so is it also of life. These two do mutu- 
ally give way to each other; and both cannot 
remain in the same place, but one is driven out 
by the other, and the presence of the one de- 
stroys that of the other. If, then, when death 
takes possession of a man, it drives life away 
from him, and proves him to be dead, much 
more does life, when it has obtained power over 
the man, drive out death, and restore him as 
living unto God. For if death brings mortality, 
why should not life, when it comes, vivify man? 
Just as Esaias the prophet says, “ Death de- 
voured when it had prevailed.”® And again, 
“God has wiped away every tear from every 
face.’ Thus that former life is expelled, be- 
cause it was not given by the Spirit, but by the 
breath. 

2. For the breath of life, which also rendered 
man an animated being, is one thing, and the 
vivifying Spirit another, which also caused him 
to become spiritual. And for this reason Isaiah 
said, “Thus saith the Lorp, who made heaven 
and established it, who founded the earth and 
the things therein, and gave breath to the people 
Se een 


$ x Cor. xv. 49, etc. 
6 Isa. xxv. 8, LX 


538 


' upon it, and Spirit to those walking upon it ;” * 
thus telling us that breath is indeed given in 
common to all people upon earth, but that the 
Spirit is theirs alone who tread down earthly 
desires. And therefore Isaiah himself, distin- 
guishing the things already mentioned, again 
exclaims, “For the Spirit shall go forth from 
Me, and I have made every breath.”? Thus 
does he attribute the Spirit as peculiar to God, 
which in the last times He pours forth upon the 
human race by the adoption of sons; but [he 
shows] that breath was common throughout the 
creation, and points it out as something created. 
Now what has been made is a different thing 
from him who makes it. The breath, then, is 
temporal, but the Spirit eternal. The breath, 
too, increases [in strength] for a short period, 
and continues for a certain time; after that it 
takes its departure, leaving its former abode 
destitute of breath. But when the Spirit per- 
vades the man within and without, inasmuch as 
it continues there, it never leaves him. “ But 
that is not first which is spiritual,” says the 
apostle, speaking this as if with reference to us 
human beings ; “ but that is first which is ani- 
mal, afterwards that which is spiritual,” 3 in ac- 
cordance with reason. For there had been a 
necessity that, in the first place, a human being 
should be fashioned, and that what was fashioned 
should receive the soul ; afterwards that it should 
thus receive the communion of the Spirit. 

/ Wherefore also “the first Adam was made” by 
( the Lord “a_livi 1, the second Adama 
\. quickening—-spirit’4 As, then, he who was 

’ made a living soul forfeited life when he turned 
aside to what was evil, so, on the other hand, 
the same individual, when he reverts to what is 
good, and receives the quickening Spirit, shall 
find life. 

3. For it is not one thing which dies and 
another which is quickened, as neither is it one 
thing which is lost and another which is found, 
but the Lord came seeking for that same sheep 
which had been lost. What was it, then, which 
was dead? Undoubtedly it was the substance 
of the flesh ; the same, too, which had lost the 
breath of life, and had become breathless and 
dead. ‘This same, therefore, was what the Lord 
came to quicken, that.as in Adam we do all die, 
as being of an animal nature, in Christ we may 
all live, as being spiritual, not laying aside God’s 
handiwork, but the lusts of the flesh, and receiv- 
ing the Holy Spirit; as the apostle says in the 
Epistle to the Colossians: “ Mortify, therefore, 
your members which are upon the earth.” And 
what these are he himself explains: “ Fornica- 





i Isa, xlii. 5. 
2 Isa. lvii. 16. 
3 x Cor. xv. 46. 
4 1 Cor. xv, 43. 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


tion, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil con- 
cupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” 5 
The laying aside of these is what the apostle 
preaches; and he declares that those who do 
such things, as being merely flesh and blood, 
cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. For 
their soul, tending towards what is worse, and 
descending to earthly lusts, has become a par- 
taker in the same designation which belongs to 
these [lusts, viz., “earthly”’], which, when the 
apostle commands us to lay aside, he says in the 
same Epistle, “Cast ye off the old man with his 
deeds.” © But when he said this, he does not 


remove away the ancient formation [of man] ; 


for in that case it would be incumbent on us 
to rid ourselves of its company by committing 


suicide. 


4. But the apostle himself also, being one 


who had been formed in a womb, and had issued 


thence, wrote to us, and confessed in his Epistle 
to the Philippians that “to live in the flesh was 
the fruit of [his] work ;” 7 thus expressing him- 
self. Now the final result of the work of the 
Spirit is the salvation-of-the flesh.? For what 
other visible fruit is there of the invisible Spirit, 
than the rendering of the flesh mature and capa- 
ble of incorruption? If then [he says], “To 


‘live in the flesh, this is the result of labour to 


me,” he did not surely contemn the substance 
of flesh in that passage where he said, “ Put ye 
off the old man with his works ;”9 but he points 
out that we should lay aside our former conver- 
sation, that which waxes old and becomes cor- 
rupt; and for this reason he goes on to say, 
“And put ye on the new man, that which is 
renewed in knowledge, after: the image of Him 
who created him.” In this, therefore, that he 
says, “which is renewed in knowledge,” he de- 
monstrates that he, the selfsame man who was 
in ignorance in times past, that is, in ignorance 
of God, is renewed by that knowledge which 
has respect to Him. For the knowledge of God 
renews man. And when he says, “after the 
image of the Creator,” he sets forth the recapit- 
ulation of the same man, who was at the begin- 
ning made after the likeness of God. 

5. And that he, the apostle, was the very same 
person who had been born from the womb, that 
is, of the ancient substance of flesh, he does 
himself declare in the Epistle to the Galatians : 
“But when it pleased God, who separated me 
from my mother’s womb, and called me by His 
grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I-might 
preach Him among the Gentiles,” '° it was not, 
as I have already observed, one person who had 


5 Col. iii. 5. 

© Col. iii. 9. 

7 x Phil.i. 22. 

§ Following Harvey’s explanation of a somewhat obscure passage, 
9 Col. iii. 10, 


10 Gal. i. 15, 16. 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


539 





been born from the womb, and another who 
preached the Gospel of the Son of God; but 
that same individual who formerly was ignorant, 
and used to persecute the Church, when the 
revelation was made to him from heaven, and 
the Lord conferred with him, as I have pointed 
out in the third book,’ preached the Gospel of 
Jesus Christ the Son of God, who was crucified 
under Pontius Pilate, his former ignorance being 
driven out by his subsequent knowledge: just 
as the blind men whom the Lord healed did 
certainly lose their blindness, but received the 
substance of their eyes perfect, and obtained the 
power of vision in the very same eyes with which 
they formerly did not see; the darkness being 
merely driven away by the power of vision, while 
the substance of the eyes was retained, in order 
that, by means of those eyes through which they 
had not seen, exercising again the visual power, 
they might give thanks to Him who had restored 
them again to sight. And thus, also, he whose 
withered hand was healed, and all who were 
healed generally, did not change those parts of 
their bodies which had at their birth come forth 
from the womb, but simply obtained these anew 
in a healthy condition. 

6. For the Maker of all things, the Word of 
God, who did also from the beginning form man, 
when He found His handiwork impaired by 
wickedness, performed upon it all kinds of heal- 
ing. At one time [He did so], as regards each 
separate member, as it is found in His own 
handiwork ; and at another time He did once 
for all restore man sound and whole in all points, 
preparing him perfect for Himself unto the resur- 
rection. For what was His object in healing 
[different] portions of the flesh, and restoring 
them to their original condition, if those parts 
which had been healed by Him were not in a 
position to obtain salvation? For if it was 
[merely] a temporary benefit which He con- 
ferred, He granted nothing of importance to 
those who were the subjects of His healing. Or 
how can they maintain that the flesh is incapable 
of receiving the life which flows from Him, when 
it received healing from Him? For life is 
brought about through healing, and incorruption 
through life. He, therefore, who confers heal- 
ing, the same does also confer life; and He 
[who gives] life, also surrounds His own handi- 
work with incorruption. 


CHAP. XIII.—IN THE DEAD WHO WERE RAISED 
BY CHRIST WE POSSESS THE HIGHEST PROOF OF 
THE RESURRECTION ; AND OUR HEARTS ARE 
SHOWN TO BE CAPABLE OF LIFE ETERNAL, BE- 
CAUSE THEY CAN NOW RECEIVE THE SPIRIT OF 
GOD. 


1. Let our opponents — that is, they who 
eee er 


I Vol. i. pp. 306, 321. 





speak against their own salvation — inform us 
[as to this point]: The deceased daughter of 
the high priest ;? the widow’s dead son, who 
was being carried out [to burial] near the gate 
[of the city] ;3 and Lazarus, who had lain four 
days in the tomb,‘—1in what bodies did they 
rise again? In those same, no doubt, in which 
they had also died. For if it were not in the 
very same, then certainly those same individuals 
who had died did not rise again. For [the 
Scripture] says, “The Lord took the hand of 
the dead man, and said to him, Young man, I 
say unto thee, Arise. And the dead man sat 
up, and He commanded that something should 
be given him to eat; and He delivered him to 
his mother.” Again, He called Lazarus “ with 
a loud voice, saying, Lazarus, come forth ; and 
he that was dead came forth bound with band- 
ages, feet and hands.” This was symbolical of 
that man who had been bound in sins. And 
therefore the Lord said, “Loose him, and let 
him depart.” As, therefore, those who were 
healed were made whole in those members which 
had in times past been afflicted ; and the dead 
rose in the identical bodies, their limbs and 
bodies receiving health, and that life which was 
granted by the Lord, who prefigures_eternal 
things by temporal, and shows that it is He who 
is Himself able to extend both healing and life 
to His handiwork, that His words concerning 
its [future] resurrection may also be believed ; 
so also at the end, when the Lord utters His 
voice “ by the last trumpet,” © the dead shall be 
raised, as He Himself declares: “The hour 
shall come, in which all the dead which are in 
the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of 
man, and shall come forth; those that have 
done good to the resurrection of life, and those 
that have done evil to the resurrection of judg- 
ment.’’ 7 

2. Vain, therefore, and truly miserable, are 
those who do not choose to see what is so mani- 
fest and clear, but shun the light of truth, blind- 
ing themselves like the tragic (Edipus. And as 
those who are not practised in wrestling, when 
they contend with others, laying hold with a 
determined grasp of some part of [their oppo- 
nent’s] body, really fall by means of that which 
they grasp, yet when they fall, imagine that they 
are gaining the victory, because they have obsti- 
nately kept their hold upon that part which they 
seized at the outset, and besides falling, become 
ARERR NOS SAE AE tac EE ie 9 


2 Mark v. 22. Irenzus confounds the ruler of the synagogue 


with the high priest. [Let not those who possess printed Bibles and 
concordances and commentaries, and all manner of helps to memory, 
blame the Fathers for such mistakes, until eee least equal them 
in their marvellous and minute familiarity with the inspired writers. ] 

3 Luke vii. 12. 

4 John ix. 30. : i 

5 The two miracles of raising the widow's son and the rabbi’s 
daughter are here amalgamated. 

1 Cor. xv. 52. 
7 John y. 28, 


540 


subjects of ridicule ; so is it with respect to that 
[favourite] expression of the heretics: “ Flesh 
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God ;” 
while taking two expressions of Paul’s, without 
having perceived the apostle’s meaning, or exam- 
ined critically the force of the terms, but keeping 
fast hold of the mere expressions by themselves, 
they die in consequence of their influence (epi 
airds), overturning as far as in them lies the 
entire dispensation of God. 

3. For thus they will allege that this passage 
refers to the flesh strictly so called, and not to 
fleshly works, as I have pointed out, so repre- 
senting the apostle as contradicting himself. 
For immediately following, in the same Epistle, 
he says conclusively, speaking thus in reference 
to the flesh: “For this corruptible must put on 
incorruption, and this mortal must put on im- 
mortality. So, when this mortal shall have put 
on immortality, then shall be brought to pass 
the saying which is written, Death is swallowed 
up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O 
death, where is thy victory?’’* 
words shall be appropriately said at the time 
when this mortal and corruptible flesh, which 
is subject to death, which also is pressed down 
by a certain dominion of death, rising up into 
life; shall put on incorruption and immortality. 
For then, indeed, shall death be truly van- 
quished, when that flesh which is held down by 
it shall go forth from under its dominion. And 
again, to the Philippians he says: “ But our con- 
versation is in heaven, from whence also we look 
for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus, who shall trans- 
figure the body of our humiliation conformable 
to the body of His glory, even as He is able 
(ta ut possit) according to the working of His 
own power.”? What, then, is this “body of 
humiliation” which the Lord shall transfigure, 
[so as to be] conformed to “the body of His 
glory?” Plainly it is this body composed of 
flesh, which is indeed humbled when it falls into 
the earth. Now its transformation [takes place 
thus], that while it is mortal and corruptible, it 
becomes immortal. and incorruptible, not after 
its Own proper substance, but after the mighty 
working of the Lord, who is able to invest the 
mortal with immortality, and the corruptible 
with incorruption. And therefore he says,3 
“that mortality may be swallowed up of life. 
He who ‘has perfected us for this very thing is 
God, who also has given unto us the earnest of 
the Spirit.”4 He uses these words most mani- 
festly in reference to the flesh; for the soul is 








tn Cor._xv- 53. 

2 Phil. iii. 29, etc. 

3 The original Greek text is preserved here, as above; the Latin 
translator inserts, ‘‘in secunda ad Corinthios.” Harvey observes: 
“The interpolation of the Scriptural reference by the translator sug- 
gests the suspicion that the greater number of such references have 
come in from the margin.” 

4 2 Cor. v. 4. 





Now these. 





IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





not mortal, neither is the spirit. Now, what is 
mortal shall be swallowed up of life, when the 
flesh is dead no longer, but remains living and 
incorruptible, hymning the praises of God, who 
has perfected us for this very thing. In order, 
therefore, that we .may be perfected for this, 
aptly does he say to the Corinthians, “ Glorify 
God in your body.”5 Now God is He who 
gives rise to immortality. 

4. That he uses these words with respect to 
the body of flesh, and to none other, he declares 
to the Corinthians manifestly, indubitably, and 
free from all ambiguity: ‘“ Always bearing about 
in our body the dying of Jesus,° that also the 
life of Jesus Christ might be manifested in our 
body. For if we who live are delivered unto 
death for Jesus’ sake, it is that the life of Jesus 
may also be manifested in our mortal flesh.” 7 
And that the Spirit lays hold on the flesh, he 
says in the same Epistle, ‘That ye are the epis- 
tle of Christ, ministered by us, inscribed not 
with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, 
not in tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables 
of the heart.”® If, therefore, in the present 
time, fleshly hearts are made partakers of the 
Spirit, what is there astonishing if, in the resur- 
rection, they receive that life which is granted 
by the Spirit? Of which resurrection the apos- 
tle speaks in the Epistle to the Philippians: 
“ Having been made conformable to His death, 
if by any means I might attain to the resurrec- 
tion which is from the dead.” 9 In what other 
mortal flesh, therefore, can life be understood 
as being manifested, unless in that substance 
which is also put to death on account of that 
confession which is made of God?—as he has 
himself declared, “If, as a man, I have fought 
with beasts *® at Ephesus, what advantageth it 
me if the dead rise not? For if the dead rise 
not, neither has Christ risen. Now, if Christ 
has not risen, our preaching is vain, and your 
faith is vain. In that case, too, we are found 
false witnesses for God, since we have testified 
that He raised up Christ, whom [upon that sup- 
position] He did not raise up.** For if the 
dead rise not, neither has Christ risen. But if 
Christ be not risen, your faith is vain, since ye 
are yet in your sins. Therefore those who have 
fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this 
life only we have hope in Christ, we are more 
miserable than all men. But now Christ has 





5 x Cor. vi. 20. 

© Agreeing with the Syriac version in omitting ‘ the Lord” before 
the word “ Jesus,” and in reading dei as et, which Harvey.considers 
the true text. 

7 2 Cor. iy. ro, etc. 

8 2 Cor. iii. 3. 

9 Phil. iti, rr. : 

10 The Syriac translation seems to take a literal meaning out of this 
passage: ‘If, as one of the sons of men, I have been cast forth to 
the wild beasts at Ephesus.” 

1! This is in accordance with the Syriac, which omits the clause, 
€imep Gpa vexpol ovK éyeiporrat. 


tIn like manner, too, did the Lord say to those 


t 


IRENAUS. AGAINST HERESIES. 


risen from the dead, the first-fruits of those that 
sleep ; for as by man [came] death, by man also 
[came] the resurrection of the dead.”’? 

5. In all these passages, therefore, as I have 
already said, these men must either allege that 
the apostle expresses opinions contradicting him- 
self, with respect to that statement, “ Flesh and 
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God ;”’ or, 
on the other hand, they will be forced to make 
perverse and crooked interpretations of all the 
passages, so as to overturn and alter the sense 
of the words. For what sensible thing can they 
say, if they endeavour to interpret otherwise this 
which he writes: “ For this corruptible must put 
on incorruption, and this mortal put on immor- 
tality ;”’2 and, “That the life of Jesus may be 
made manifest in our mortal flesh ;” 3 and all the 
other passages in which the apostle does mani- 
festly and clearly declare the resurrection and 
incorruption of the flesh? And thus shall they 
be compelled to put a false interpretation upon 
passages such as these, they who do not choose 
to understand one correctly. 


CHAP. XIV.— UNLESS THE FLESH WERE TO BE 
SAVED, THE WORD WOULD NOT HAVE TAKEN 
UPON HIM FLESH OF THE SAME SUBSTANCE AS 
OURS: FROM THIS IF WOULD FOLLOW THAT 
NEITHER SHOULD WE HAVE BEEN RECONCILED 
BY HIM. 


1. And inasmuch as the apostle has not pro- 
aounced against the very substance of flesh and 
blood, that it cannot inherit the kingdom of 
God, the same apost s everywhere adopted 
the term “flesh and blood” with regard to the 
Lord Jesus Christ, partly indeed to establish His 
human nature (for He did Himself speak of 
Himself as the Son of man), and partly that He 
might confirm the _salvati . Hor 
if the flesh were not in a position to be saved, 
the Word of God would in no wise have become 
flesh. And if the blood of the righteous were 
not to be inquired after, the Lord would cer- 
tainly not have had blood [in His composition ]. 
But inasmuch as blood cries out (vocalis est) 
from the beginning [of the world], God said to 
Cain, when he had slain his brother, “ The voice 
of thy brother’s blood crieth to Me.” * And as 
their blood will be inquired after, He said to 
those with Noah, “ For your blood.of your souls 
will I require, [even] from the hand of all 
beasts;”5 and again, ‘“ Whosoever will shed 
man’s blood,® it shall be shed for his blood.” 


who should afterwards shed His blood, “ All 
ee ee area c ena c eens ese ee easmmne 


1 x Cor. xv. 13, etc. 

2 x Cor. xv. 5> 

3 2 Cor. iv. 11. 

4 ee iv. a ae 

S Gen. ix. 5 5 e , aeent 

6 One of the mss. reads here: Sanguis pro sanguine ejus effunde- 
tur. : 





541 





righteous blood shall be required which is shed 
upon the earth, from the blood of righteous 
Abel to the blood of Zacharias the son of Bara- 
chias, whom ye slew between the temple and 
the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things 
shall come upon this generation.”7 He thus 
points out the recapitulation that should take 
place in his own person of the effusion of blood 
from the beginning, of all the righteous men and 
of the prophets, and that by means of Himself 
there should be a requisition of their blood. 
Now this [blood] could not be required unless 
it also had the capability of being saved; nor 
would the Lord have summed up these things 
in Himself, unless He had Himself been made 
flesh and blood after the way of the original 
formation [of man], saving in his own person 
at the end that which had in the beginning per- 
ished in Adam. 

2. But if the Lord became incarnate for any 
other order of things, and took flesh of any 
other substance, He has not then summed up | 
human nature in His own person, nor in that 
case can He be termed flesh. For flesh has been 
truly made [to consist in] a transmission of that 
thing moulded originally from the dust. But if 
it had been necessary for Him to draw the mate- 
rial [of His body] from another substance, the 
Father would at the beginning have moulded the 
material [of flesh] from a different substance 
[than from what He actually did]. But now 
the case stands thus, that the Word has saved 
that which really was [created, viz.,] humanity 
which had perished, effecting by means of Him- 
self that communion which should be held with 
it, and seeking out its salvation. But the thing 
which had perished possessed flesh and blood. 
For the Lord, taking dust from the earth, mould- 
ed man ; and it was upon his behalf that all the 
dispensation of the Lord’s advent took place. 
He had Himself, therefore,( flesh) and( blood, re- 
capitulating in Himself not a-certain ‘other, but 
that original handiwork of the Father, seeking 
out that thing which had perished. And for 
this cause the apostle, in the Epistle to the Co- 
lossians, says, “And though ye were formerly 
alienated, and enemies to His knowledge by evil 
works, yet now ye have been reconciled in the . 
body of His flesh, through His death, to present 
yourselves holy and chaste, and without fault in 
His sight.”8 He says, “Ye have been recon- 
ciled in the body of His flesh,” because the 
righteous flesh has reconciled that flesh which 
was being kept under bondage in sin, and brought 
it into friendship with God. 

3. If, then, any one allege that in this respect 
the flesh of the Lord was different from ours, 


because it indeed did not commit sin, neither 
CSREES DOR Ee ee 
7 Matt. xxiii. 35, etc.; Luke xi. 5e. 
8 Col. i, a1, etc. 


\ 


\ 


542 


IRENA/US AGAINST HERESIES. 


was deceit found in His soul, while we, on the | self also of these proofs drawn from Scripture — 


other hand, are sinners, he says what is the fact. 
But if he pretends that the Lord possessed 
another substance of flesh, the sayings respect- 
ing reconciliation will not agree with that man. 
For that thing is reconciled which had formerly 
been in enmity. Now, if the Lord had taken 
flesh from another substance, He would not, by 
so doing, have reconciled that one to God which 
had become inimical through transgression. But 
now, by means of communion with Himself, the 
Lord has reconciled man to God the Father, in 
reconciling us to Himself by the body of His 
own flesh, and redeeming us by His own blood, as 
the apostle says to the Ephesians, “In whom we 
have redemption through His blood, the remission 
of sins ;”' and again to the same he says, “Ye 
who formerly were far off have been brought near 
in the blood of Christ ;”? and again, “ Abolishing 
in His flesh the enmities, [even] the law of com- 
mandments [contained] in ordinances.”3 And 
in every Epistle the apostle plainly testifies, that 
through the flesh of our Lord, and through His 
blood, we have been saved. 

4. If, therefore, flesh and blood are the things 
which procure for us life, it has not been de- 
clared of flesh and blood, in the literal_meaning 
(proprie) of the terms, that they cannot inherit 
the kingdom of God; but [these words apply] 
to those carnal deeds already mentioned, which, 
perverting man to sin, deprive him of life. And 
for this reason he says, in the Epistle to the 
Romans: “ Let not sin, therefore, reign in your 
mortal body, to be under its control: neither 
yield ye your members instruments of unright- 
eousness unto sin ; but yield yourselves to God, 
as being alive from the dead, and your members 
as instruments of righteousness unto God.’’+ In 
these same members, therefore, in which we 
used to serve sin, and bring forth fruit unto death, 
does He wish us to [be obedient] unto right- 
eousness, that we may bring forth fruit unto life. 


_ (Remember) therefore, my beloved friend, that 


‘thou~hast been redeemed by the flesh of our 
Lord, re-established 5 by His blood ; and “ hold- 

\ ing the Head, from which the whole body of 
\ the Church, having been fitted together, takes 
eaeteats 76 __ that is, acknowledging the advent 
in the flesh of the Son of God, and [His] divin- 

l ity (deum), and looking forward with constancy 
to His human nature 7 (hominem), availing thy- 


I Eph. i, 7. 
2 Eph. ii, 13. 
3 Eph. ii. 15. 


4 Rom. vi, 12, etc. 
5 “ Et sanguine ejus redhibitus,” corresponding to the Greek term 


amoxaragradeis, “ Redhibere” is properly a forensic term, meaning 
to Spore Bay article to be restored to the vendor. 
ol. it. x9. 


’ 7 Harvey restores the Greek thus, xai rov avrod dvOpwrov BeBaiws 
éxdexouevos, which he thinks has a reference to the patient waiting 
for “‘ Christ’s second advent to judge the world.” The phrase might 
also be translated, and “ receiving stedfastly His human nature.” 











thou dost easily overthrow, as I have pointed 
out, all those notions of the heretics which were 
concocted afterwards. 


CHAP. XV. — PROOFS OF THE RESURRECTION FROM 
ISAIAH AND EZEKIEL ; THE SAME GOD WHO CRE- 
ATED US WILL ALSO RAISE US UP. 


1. Now, that He who at the beginning created 
man, did promise him a second birth after his 
dissolution into earth, Esaias thus declares: 
“The dead shall rise again, and they who are 
in the tombs shall arise,.and they who are in the 
earth shall rejoice. For the dew which is from 
Thee is health to them.”® And again: “I will 
comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jeru- 
salem : and ye shall see, and your heart shall re- 
joice, and your bones shall flourish as the grass ; 
and the hand of the Lord shall be known to 
those who worship Him.” 9 And Ezekiel speaks 
as follows: “And the hand of the Lorp came 
upon me, and the Lorp led me forth in the 
Spirit, and set me down in the midst of the 
plain, and this place was full of bones. And He 
caused me to pass by them round about: and, 
behold, there were many upon the surface of the 
plain very dry. And He said unto me, Son of 


man, can these bones live? And I said, Lord, 


Thou who hast made them dost know. And He 
said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and 
thou shalt say to them, Ye dry bones, hear the 
word of the Lorp. Thus saith the Lorp to 
these bones, Behold, I will cause the spirit of 
life to come upon you, and I will lay sinews 
upon you, and bring up flesh again upon you, 
and I will stretch skin upon you, and will put 
my Spirit into you, and ye shall live; and ye 
shall know that Iam the Lorp. And I proph- 
esied as the Lord had commanded me. - And 
it came to pass, when. I was prophesying, that, 
behold, an earthquake, and the bones were 
drawn together, each one to its own articulation : 
and I beheld, and, lo, the sinews and flesh were 
produced upon them, and the skins rose upon 
them round about, but there was no breath in 
them. And He said unto me, Prophesy to the 
breath, son-of man, and say to the breath, These 
things saith the Lorp, Come from the four winds 
(spirttibus), and breathe upon these dead, that 
they may live. So I prophesied as the Lord had 
commanded me, and the breath entered into 
them ; and they did live, and stood upon their 
feet, an exceeding great gathering.” © And again 
he says, “Thus saith the Lorp, Behold, I will 
set your graves open, and cause you to come 
out of your graves, and bring you into the land 
of Israel ; and ye shall know that I am the Lorn, 





8 Isa. xxvi. 19. 
9 Isa. Ixvi. 13. 
To Ezek. xxxvii. 1, etc. 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


543 





when I shall open your sepulchres, that I may 
bring my people again out of the sepulchres: 
and I will put my Spirit into you, and ye shall 
live ; and I will place you in your land, and ye 
shall know that I am the Lorp. I have said, 
and I will do, saith the Lorp.’”?! As we at once 
perceive that the Creator (Demiurgo) is in this 
passage represented as vivifying our dead bodies, 
and promising resurrection to them, and resusci- 
- tation from their sepulchres and tombs, con- 
ferring upon them immortality also (He says, 
“For as the tree of life, so shall their days 
be” ?), He is shown to be the only God who 
accomplishes these things, and as Himself the 
good Father, benevolently conferring life upon 
those who have not life from themselves. 

2. And for this reason did the Lord most 
plainly manifest Himself and the Father to His 
disciples, lest, forsooth, they might seek after 
another God besides Him who formed man, and 
who gave him the breath of life; and that men 
might not rise to such a pitch of madness as to 
feign another Father above the Creator. And 
thus also He healed by a word all the others who 
were in a weakly condition because of sin; to 
whom also He said, “ Behold, thou art made 
whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon 
thee:’’3 pointing out by this, that, because of 
the sin of disobedience, infirmities have come 
upon men. ‘To that man, however, who had 
been blind from his birth, He gave sight, not by 
means of a word, but by an outward action ; do- 
ing this not without a purpose, or because it so 
happened, ‘but that He might show forth the 
hand of God, that which at the beginning had 
moulded man. And therefore, when His disci- 
ples asked Him for what cause the man had 
been born. blind, whether for his own or his 
parents’ fault, He replied, “ Neither hath this man 
sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of 
God should be made manifest in him.”+ Now 
the work of God is the fashioning of man. For, 
as the Scripture says, He made [man] by a kind 
of process: “And the Lord took clay from the 
earth, and formed man.’”’5 Wherefore also the 
Lord spat on the ground and made clay, and 
smeared it upon the eyes, pointing out the origi- 
nal fashioning [of man], how it was effected, and 
manifesting the hand of God to those who can 
understand by what [hand] man was formed 
out of the dust. For that which the artificer, the 
Word, had omitted to form in the womb, [viz., 
the blind man’s eyes], He then supplied in pub- 
lic, that the works of God might be manifested 
in him, in order that we might not be seeking out 
another hand by which man was fashioned, nor 
Se eee ee 

1 Ezek. xxxvii. 12, etc. 

2 Isa. Ixv. 22. 

3 John v. 14. 


4 John ix. 3. 
S$ Gen, ii. 7 


another Father ; knowing that this hand of God 
which formed us at the beginning, and which does 
form us in the womb, has in the last times sought 
us out who were lost, winning back His own, 
and taking up the lost sheep upon His shoulders, 
and with joy restoring it to the fold of life. 

3. Now, that the Word of God forms us in the 
womb, He says to Jeremiah, “ Before I formed 
thee in the womb, I knew thee; and before 
thou wentest forth from the belly, I sanctified 
thee, and appointed thee a prophet among the 
nations.”® And Paul, too, says in like manner, 
“But when it pleased God, who separated me 
from my mother’s womb, that I might declare 
Him among the nations.”7 As, therefore, we 
are by the Word formed in the womb, this very 
same Word formed the visual power in him 
who had been blind from his birth; showing 
openly who it is that fashions us in secret, since 
the Word Himself had been made manifest to 
men: and declaring the original formation of 
Adam, and the manner in which he was created, 
and by what hand he was fashioned, indicating 
the whole from a part. For the Lord who 
formed the visual powers is He who made the 
whole man, carrying out the will of the Father. 
And inasmuch as man, with respect to that 
formation which was after Adam, having fallen 
into transgression, needed the laver of regenera- 
tion, [the Lord] said to him [upon whom He 
had conferred sight], after He had smeared his 
eyes with the clay, “ Go to Siloam, and wash ;” 2 
thus restoring to him both [his perfect] confir- 
mation, and that regeneration which takes place 
by means of the laver. And for this reason 
when he was washed he came seeing, that he 
might both know Him who had fashioned him, 
and that man might learn [to know] Him who 
has conferred upon him life. 

4. All the followers of Valentinus, therefore, 
lose their case, when they say that man was not 
fashioned out of this earth, but from a fluid 
and diffused substance. For, from the earth out 
of which the Lord formed eyes for that man, 
from the same earth it is evident that man was 
also fashioned at the beginning. For it were 
incompatible that the eyes should indeed be 
formed from one source and the rest of the body 
from another ; as neither would it be compatible 
that one [being] fashioned the body, and another 
the eyes. But He, the very same who formed 
Adam at the beginning, with whom also the 
Father spake, [saying], “ Let Us make man after 
Our image and likeness,” 9 revealing Himself in 
these last times to men, formed visual organs 
(visionem) for him who had been blind [in 


544 


that body which he had derived] from Adam. 
Wherefore also the Scripture, pointing out what 
should come to pass, says, that when Adam had 
hid himself because of his disobedience, the 
Lord came to him at eventide, called him forth, 
and said, “‘Where art thou?’’t That means 
that in the last times the very same Word of 
God came to call man, reminding him of his do- 
ings, living in which he had been hidden from 
the Lord. For just as at that time God spake 
to Adam at eventide, searching him out; so in 
the last times, by means of the same voice, 
searching out his posterity, He has visited them. 


CHAP. XVI.— SINCE OUR BODIES RETURN TO THE 
EARTH, IT FOLLOWS THAT THEY HAVE THEIR 
SUBSTANCE FROM IT; ALSO, BY THE ADVENT 
OF THE WORD, THE IMAGE OF GOD IN US AP- 
PEARED IN A CLEARER LIGHT. 


1. And since Adam was moulded from this 
earth to which we belong, the Scripture tells us 
that God said to him, “In the sweat of thy face 
shalt thou eat thy bread, until thou turnest again 
to the dust from whence thou wert taken.”? If 
then, after death, our bodies return to any other 
substance, it follows that from it also they have 
their substance. But if it be into this very 
[earth], it is manifest that it was also from it 
that man’s frame was created ; as also the Lord 
clearly showed, when from this very substance He 
formed eyes for the man [to whom He gave 
sight]. And thus was the hand of God plainly 
shown forth, by which Adam was fashioned, and 
we too have been formed; and since there is 
one and the same Father, whose voice from the 
beginning even to the end is present with His 
handiwork, and the substance from which we 
were formed is plainly declared through the 
Gospel, we should therefore not seek after an- 
other Father besides Him, nor [look for] another 
substance from which we have been formed, be- 
sides what was mentioned beforehand, and shown 
forth by the Lord; nor another hand of God 
besides that which, from the beginning even. to 
the end, forms us and prepares us for life, and 
is present with His handiwork, and perfects it 
after the image and likeness of God. 

2. And then, again, this Word was manifested 
when the Word of God was made man, assimi- 
lating Himself to man, and man to Himself, so 
that by means of his resemblance to the. Son, 
man might become precious to the Father. For 
in times long past, it was sazd that man was cre- 
ated after the image of God, but it was not 
[actually] show ; for the Word was as yet invisi- 
ble, after whose image man was created. Where- 
fore also he did easily lose the similitude. When, 
however, the Word of God became flesh, He 

I Gen. iii. g. 

2 Gen. iii. 19. 


-~ 











-he did not perform His commandment. 





IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





confirmed both these: for He both showed 
forth the image truly, since He became Himself 
what was His image ; and He re-established the 
similitude after a sure manner, by assimilating 
man to the invisible Father through means of 
the visible Word. ° 5 

3. And not by the aforesaid things alone has 
the Lord manifested Himself, but [He has done 
this] also by means of His passion. For doing 
away with [the effects of ] that disobedience of 
man which had taken place at the beginning by 
the occasion of a tree, “He became obedient 
unto death, even the death of the cross ;”” 3 rec- 
tifying that disobedience which had occurred by 
reason of a tree, through that obedience which 
was [wrought out] upon the tree [of the cross]. 
Now He would not have come to do away, by 
means of that same [image], the disobedience 
which had been incurred towards our Maker if 
He proclaimed another Father. But inasmuch 
as it was by these things that we disobeyed God, 
and did not give credit to His word, so was it 
also by these same that He brought in obedience 
and consent as respects His Word; by which 
things He clearly shows forth God Himself, whom 
indeed we had offended in the first Adam, when 
In the 
second Adam, however, we are reconciled, being 
made obedient even unto death. For we were 
debtors to none other but to Him whose com- 
mandment we had transgressed at the beginning. 


CHAP. XVII.— THERE IS BUT ONE LORD AND ONE 
GOD, THE FATHER AND CREATOR OF ALL THINGS, 
WHO HAS LOVED US IN CHRIST, GIVEN US COM- 
MANDMENTS, AND REMITTED OUR SINS ; WHOSE 
SON AND WORD CHRIST PROVED HIMSELF TO 
BE, WHEN HE FORGAVE OUR SINS. 


1. Now this being is the Creator (Demiuregus), 
who is, in respect of His love, the Father; but 
in respect of His power, He is Lord ; and in re- 
spect of His wisdom, our Maker and Fashioner ; 
by transgressing whose commandment we became 
His enemies. And therefore in the last times the 
Lord has restored us into friendship through His 
incarnation, having become “the Mediator be- 
tween God and men ;”’* propitiating indeed for 
us the Father against whom we had sinned, and 
cancelling (consolatus) our disobedience by His 
own obedience; conferring also upon us the 
gift of communion with, and subjection to, our 
Maker. For this reason also He has taught us 
to say in prayer, “ And forgive us our debts ;’’5 
since indeed He is our Father, whose debtors 
we were, having transgressed His command- 
ments. But who is this Being? Is He some 
unknown one, and a Father who gives no com- 








hil. ii 
Tim. ii. 5. 
att, vi, 12, 


tle 


ath 
ii, 


wew 
= 


IRENA/ZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


545 





mandment to any one? Or is He the God who 
is proclaimed in the Scriptures, to whom we were 
debtors, having transgressed His commandment ? 
Now the commandment was given to man by the 
Word. For Adam, it is said, “heard the voice 
of the Lorp God.”! Rightly then does His 
Word say to man, “Thy sins are forgiven thee ;”’ ” 
He, the same against whom we had sinned in the 
_ beginning, grants forgiveness of sins in the end. 
But if indeed we had disobeyed the command of 
any other, while it was a different being who said, 
“Thy sins are forgiven thee ;’’? such an one is 
neither good, nor true, nor just. For how can he 
be good, who does not give from what belongs 
to himself? Or how can he be just, who snatches 
away the goods of another? And in what way 
can sins be truly remitted, unless that He against 
whom we have sinned has Himself granted remis- 
sion “ through the bowels of mercy of our God,” 
in which “ He has visited us”3 through His Son? 
2. And therefore, when He had healed the 
man sick of the palsy, [the evangelist] says: 
“The people upon seeing it glorified God, who 
gave such power unto men.”* What God, then, 
did the bystanders glorify? Was it indeed that 
unknown Father invented by the heretics? And 
how could they glorify him who was altogether 
unknown to them? It is evident, therefore, that 
the Israelites glorified Him who has been pro- 
claimed as God by the law and the prophets, 
who is also the Father of our Lord; and there- 
fore He taught men, by the evidence of their 
senses through those signs which He accom- 
plished, to give glory to God. If, however, He 
Himself had come from another Father, and men 
glorified a different Father when they beheld His 
miracles, He [in that case] rendered the mun- 
grateful to that Father who had sent the gift of 
healing. But as the only-begotten Son had 
come for man’s salvation from Him who is God, 
He did both stir up the incredulous by the mira- 
cles which He was in the habit of working, to 
give glory to the Father; and to the Pharisees, 
who did not admit the advent of His Son, and 
who consequently did not believe in the remission 
fof sins] which was conferred by Him, He said, 
“That ye may know that the Son of man hath 
power to forgive sins.”5 And when He had said 
this, He commanded the paralytic man to take 
up the pallet upon which he was lying, and go 
into his house. By this work of His He con- 
founded the unbelievers, and showed that He is 
Himself the voice of God, by which man re- 
ceived commandments, which he broke, and 
became a sinner ; for the paralysis followed as a 
consequence of sins. 


SS 
3 Gen. iii. 8. 
2 Matt. ix. 2; Luke v. 2. 
3 Luke i. 78. 
4 Matt. ix. 8. 
5 Matt. ix. 6, 








3. Therefore, by remitting sins, He did indeed 
heal man, while He also manifested Himself 
who Hewas, For if no one can forgive sins but 
God alone, while the Lord remitted them and 
healed men, it is plain that He was Himself the 
Word of God made the Son of man, receiving 
from the Father the power of remission of sins ; 
since He was man, and since He was God, in 
order that since as man He suffered for us, so 
as God He might have compassion on us, and 
forgive us our debts, in which we were made 
debtors to God our Creator. And _ therefore 
David said beforehand, “ Blessed are they whose 
iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. 
Blessed is the man to whom the Lorp has not 
imputed sin ;”’© pointing out thus that remission 
of sins which follows upon His advent, by which 
“He has destroyed the handwriting” of our 
debt, and “ fastened it to the cross ;”7 so that 
as by means of a tree we were made debtors to 
God, [so also] by means of a tree we may ob- 
tain the remission of our debt. 

3. This fact has been strikingly set forth by 
many others, and especially through means of 
Elisha the prophet. For when his fellow-proph- 
ets were hewing wood for the construction of 
a tabernacle, and when the iron [head], shaken 
loose from the axe, had fallen into the Jordan 
and could not be found by them, upon Elisha’s 
coming to the place, and learning what had hap- 
pened, he threw some wood into the water. 
Then, when he had done this, the iron part of 
the axe floated up, and they took up from the 
surface of the water what they had previously 
lost.8 By this action the prophet pointed out 
that the sure word of God, which we had neg- 
ligently lost by means of a tree, and were not in 
the way of finding again, we should receive anew 
by the dispensation of a tree, [viz., the cross of 
Christ]. For that the word of God is likened 
to an axe, John the Baptist declares [when he 
says] in reference to it, “‘ But now also is the axe 
laid to the root of the trees.”9 Jeremiah also 
says to the same purport: “The word of God 
cleaveth the rock as an axe.” © This word, then, 
what was hidden from us, did the dispensation 
of the tree make manifest, as I have already re- 
marked. For as we lost it by means of a tree, by 
means of a tree again was it made manifest to 
all, showing the height, the length, the breadth, 
the depth in itself; and, as a certain man 
among our predecessors observed, “Through 
the extension of the hands of a divine person,"* 
gathering together the two peoples to one God.” 
lcm pb gn ee Se tere ee 


6 Ps. xxxii. 1, 2. 

7 Col. ii. 14. 

8 2 Kings vi. 6. 

9 Matt. lil. 10. 

Io Jer, xxiii. 29. 

11 The Greek is preserved here, and reads, dea tijs elas ExTavews 
tav xetpav —literally, “through the divine extension of hands,’ 
The old Latin merely reads, ‘“‘ per extensionem manyum.” 


546 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





For these were two hands, because there were 
two peoples scattered to the ends of the earth ; 
but there was one head in the middle, as there 
is but one God, who is above all, and through 
all, and in us all. 


CHAP. XVIII.— GOD THE FATHER AND HIS WORD 
HAVE FORMED ALL CREATED THINGS (WHICH 
THEY USE) BY THEIR OWN POWER AND WIS- 
DOM, NOT OUT OF DEFECT OR IGNORANCE, 
THE SON OF GOD, WHO RECEIVED ALL POWER 
FROM THE FATHER, WOULD OTHERWISE NEVER 
HAVE TAKEN FLESH UPON HIM. 


1. And such or so important a dispensation 
He did not bring about by means of the crea- 
tions of others, but by His own ; neither by those 
things which were created out of ignorance and 
defect, but by those which had their substance 
from the wisdom and power of His Father. For 
He was neither unrighteous, so that He should 
covet the property of another ; nor needy, that 
He could not by His own means impart life to 
His own, and make use of His own creation for 
the salvation of man. For indeed the creation 
could not have sustained Him [on the cross], if 
He had sent forth [simply by commission] what 
was the fruit of ignorance and defect. Now we 
have repeatedly shown that the incarnate Word 
of God was suspended upon a tree, and even the 


very heretics do acknowledge that He was cruci- 





_fied. How, then, could the fruit of ignorance 
and defect sustain Him who contains the knowl- 
edge of all things, and is true and perfect? Or 
how could that creation which was concealed 
from the Father, and far removed from Him, 
have sustained His Word? And if this world 
were made by the angels (it matters not whether 
we suppose their ignorance or their cognizance 
of the Supreme God), when the Lord declared, 
“For I am in the Father, and the Father in Me,’”’! 
how could this workmanship of the angels have 

_ borne to be burdened at once with the Father 

and the Son? How, again, could that creation 
which is beyond the Pleroma have contained 

\ (Him) who contains the entire Pleroma? Inas- 

: Sach, then, as all these things are impossible and 
incapable of proof, that preaching of the Church 
is alone true [which proclaims] that His own 


creation bare Him, which subsists by the power,. 


the skill, and the wisdom of God; which is sus- 
tained, indeed, after an invisible manner by the 
Father, but, on the contrary, after a visible man- 
ner it bore His Word: and this is the true 
[ Word]. 

2. For the Father bears the creation and His 
own Word simultaneously, and the Word borne 
by the Father grants the Spirit to all as the 
STS eS AMMEN DER EIN Src he gue, 


1 John xiv. rx. 








Father wills.2 To some He gives after the man- 
ner of creation what is made ;3 but to others 
[He gives] after the manner of adoption, that 
is, what is from God, namely generation. And 
thus one God the Father is declared, who is 
above all, and through all, and in all. The 
Father is indeed above all, and He is the Head 
of Christ; but the Word is through all things, 
and is Himself the Head of the Church; while 
the Spirit is in us all, and He is the living water,‘ 
which the Lord grants to those who rightly be- 
lieve in Him, and love Him; and who know that 
“there is one Father, who is above all, and 
through all, and in usall.”5 And to these things 
does John also, the disciple of the Lord, bear 
witness, when he speaks thus in the Gospel: ‘ In 
the beginning was the Word, and the Werd was 
with God, and the Word was God. This was in 
the beginning with God. All things were made 
by Him, and without Him was nothing made.’’® 
And then he said of the Word Himself: “ He was 
in the world, and the world was made by Him, 
and the world knew Him not. To His own 
things He came, and His own people received 
Him not. However, as many as did receive 
Him, to these gave He power to become the 
sons of God, to those that believe in His name.’’7 
And again, showing the dispensation with regard 
to His human nature, John said: “And the 
Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” ® 
And in continuation he says, “And we beheld 
His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten by 
the Father, full of grace and truth.” He thus 
plainly points out to those willing to hear, that 
is, to those having ears, that there is one God, 
the Father over all, and one Word of God, who is 
through all, by whom all things have been made ; 
and that this world belongs to Him, and was 
made by Him, according to the Father’s will, and 
not by angels ; nor by apostasy, defect, and igno- 
rance ; nor by any power of Prunicus, whom cer- 
tain of them also call “the Mother ;” nor by any 
other maker of the world ignorant of the Father. 

3. For the ‘Creator of the world is truly the 
Word of God: and this is our Lord, who in the 
last times was made man, existing in this world, 
and who in an invisible manner contains all things 
created, arid is inherent in the entire creation, 
since the Word of God governs and arranges all 





_ ? From this passage Harvey infers that Irenzeus held the proces- 
sion of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, —a doctrine 
denied by the Oriental Church in after times. [Here is nothing about 
the “‘ procession: ” only the “ mission” of the Spirit is here concerned. 
And the Easterns object to the double procession itself olny in so far 
as any one means thereby to deny “‘ quod solus Pater est divinarum 
personarum, Principium et Fons,” — piga xai my}. See Procopo- 
wicz, De Processtone, Gothe, 1772]. 

3 Grabe and Harvey insert the words, “ quod est conditionis,” but 
on slender authority. 

4 John vii. 39. 

5 Eph. iv. 6. 
6 fore i. 1, etc. 
7 John i. 10, ete. 


8 John i. 14, 


IRENZEUS AGAINST HERESIES. 547 


of the virgin Eve. And thus, as the human race 
fell into bondage to death by means of a virgin, 
so is it rescued by a virgin; virginal disobedi- 
ence having been balanced in the opposite scale 
by virginal obedience. For in the same way the 
sin of the first created man (protoplast) receives 
amendment by the correction of the First- 
begotten, and the coming of the serpent is con- 
quered by the harmlessness of the dove, those 
bonds being unloosed by which we had been fast 
bound to death. 

2. The heretics being all unlearned and igno- 
rant of God’s arrangements, and not acquainted 
with that dispensation by which He took upon 
Him human nature (¢nseti ejus qu@ est secundum 
hominem dispensationts), inasmuch as they blind 
themselves with regard te the truth, do in fact 
speak against their own salvation. Some of 
them introduce another Father besides the Cre- 
ator; some, again, say that the world and its 
substance was made by certain angels; certain 
others [maintain] that it was widely separated 
by Horos7 from him whom they represent as 
being the Father—that it sprang forth ( floru- 
isse) of itself, and from itself was born. ‘Then, 
again, others [of them assert] that it obtained 
substance in those things which are contained 
by the Father, from defect and ignorance ; others 
still, despise the advent of the Lord manifest 
[to the senses], for they do not admit His incar- 
nation ; while others, ignoring the arrangement 
[that He should be born] of, a virgin, main- 
tain that He was begotten by Joseph. And still 
further, some affirm that neither their soul nor 
their body can receive eternal life, but merely 
the inner man. Moreover, they will have it that 
this [inner man] is that which is the understand- 
ing (sensum) in them, and which they decree 
as being the only thing to ascend to “the per- 
fect.” Others [maintain], as I have said in the 
first book, that while the soul is saved, their body 
does not participate in the salvation which comes 
from God ; in which [book] I have also set for- 
ward the hypotheses of all these men, and in 
the second have pointed out their weakness and 
inconsistency. 





things ; and therefore He came to His own in a 
visible * manner, and was made. flesh, and hung 
upon the tree, that He might sum up all things 
in Himself. ‘“ And His own peculiar people did 
not receive Him,” as Moses declared. this very 
thing among the people: “ And thy life shall be 
hanging before thine eyes, and thou wilt not be- 
lieve thy life’? Those therefore who did not 
receive Him did not receive life. “But to as 
many as received Him, to them gave He power 
to become the sons of God.”3 For it is He 
who has power from the Father over all things, 
since He is the Word of God, and very man, 
communicating with invisible beings after the 
manner of the intellect, and appointing a law 
observable to the outward senses, that all things 
should continue each in its own order; and He 
reigns manifestly over things visible and pertain- 
ing to men; and brings in just judgment and 
worthy upon all; as David also, clearly pointing 
to this, says, ‘Our God shall openly come, and 
will not keep silence.” * Then he shows also 
the judgment which is brought in by Him, saying, 
“A fire shall burn in His sight, and a strong 
tempest shall rage round about Him. He shall 
call upon the heaven from above, and the earth, 
to judge His people.” 

































CHAP. XIX.—A COMPARISON IS INSTITUTED BE- 
TWEEN THE DISOBEDIENT AND SINNING EVE AND 
THE VIRGIN MARY, HER PATRONESS. VARIOUS 
AND DISCORDANT HERESIES ARE MENTIONED. 


1. That the Lord then was manifestly coming 
to His own things, and was sustaining them by 
means of that creation which is supported by 
Himself, and was making a recapitulation of that 
vith at ce which had occurred in connection 
with\a tree, through the obedience which was 
[exhibited by Himself when He hung] upon a 
tree, [the effects] also of that deception being 
done away with, by which that virgin Eve, who 
was already espoused to a man, was unhappily 
misled, —was happily announced, through means 
of the truth [spoken] by the angel to the Virgin 
Mary, who was [also espoused] to a man.5 
For just as the former was led astray by the word 
of an angel, so that she fled from God when she 
had transgressed His word; so did the latter, 
by an angelic communication, receive the glad 
tidings that she should sustain (for¢are?) God, 
being obedient to His word. And if the former 
did disobey God, yet the latter was persuaded 
to be obedient to God, in order that the Virgin 
Mary might become the patroness ° (advocaia) 


CHAP. XX. —- THOSE PASTORS ARE TO BE HEARD TO 
WHOM THE APOSTLES COMMITTED THE CHURCHES, 
POSSESSING ONE AND THE SAME DOCTRINE OF SAL- 
VATION ; THE HERETICS, ON THE OTHER HAND, 
ARE TO BE AVOIDED. WE MUST THINK SOBERLY 
WITH REGARD TO THE MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH. 


1. Now all these [heretics] are of much later 
date than the bishops to whom the apostles com- 
mitted the Churches ; which fact I have in the 
third book taken all pains to demonstrate. It 
follows, then, as a matter of course, that these 


2 Deut. xxviii. 66. 
3 oe ie 13 
4 Ps. |. 3, 4. ; 

5 The text is here most uncertain and obscure. 

6 [This word patvoness is ambiguous. The Latin may stand for 
Gr. avriAnis, —a person called in to help, or to take hold of the 
other end of a burden. The argument implies that Mary was thus 
the counterpart or balance of Eve.] 


I The text reads “ invisibiliter,” which seems clearly an error. 


7 The text reads “ porro,” which makes no sense; so that Harvey 
looks upon it as a corruption of the reading ‘‘ per Horum.” 


| 
| 


548 


IREN/ZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


I $$ 


heretics aforementioned, sincé they) are blind to 
/the truth, and deviate from the [night] way, will 
| walk in various roads; and therefore the foot- 
\ steps of their doctrine are scattered here and 
\there without agreement or connection. But the 
path of those belonging to the Church circum- 
scribes the whole world, as possessing the sure 
tradition from the apostles, and gives unto us to 
see that the _faith_of..all is one and the same, 
since all receive one and the same God the 
Father, and believe in the same dispensation 


. regarding the incarnation of the Son of God, 


and are cognizant of the same gift of the Spirit, 
and are conversant with the same command- 
ments, and preserve the same form of ecclesi- 
astical constitution,’ and expect the same advent 
of the Lord, and await the same salvation of the 
complete man, that is, of the soul and body. 

And undoubtedly the_preaching.of..the.Church 
is true and stedfast, in which one and the same 
way of salvation is shown throughout the whole 
world. For to her is entrusted the light of God ; 
and therefore the “wisdom” of God, by means 


_ of which she saves all men, “ is declared in [its ] 


going forth; it uttereth [its voice] faithfully in 
the streets, is preached on the tops of the walls, 
\and speaks continually in the gates of the city.’ 3 


For the Church preaches the truth everywhere, | 


and she is the seven-branched candlestick which 
bears the light of Christ. 

2. Those, therefore, who desert the preaching 
of the Church, call in question the knowledge of 
the holy presbyters, not taking into consideration 
of how much greater consequence is a religious 
man, even in a private station, than a blasphemous 

oe pdent sens Now, such are all the 
‘heretics, and those who imagine that they have 
hit-upon something more beyond the truth, so 
that by following those things already mentioned, 
proceeding on their way variously, inharmoni- 
ously, and foolishly, not keeping always to the 
same opinions with regard to the same things, 
as blind men are led by the blind, they shall 
deservedly fall into the ditch of ignorance lying 
in their path, ever seeking and never finding out 
the truth. It behoves us, therefore, to avoid 
their doctrines, and to take careful heed lest we 
suffer any injury from them; but to flee to the 
Church, and be brought up in her bosom, and 
be nourished with the Lord’s Scriptures. For the 
Church has been planted as a(gardén (paradisus) 
in this world ; therefore says th Spirit of God, 
“Thou mayest freely eat from every tree of the 





1 “Et eandem figuram ejus que est erga ecclesiam ordinationis 
custodientibus.” Grabe supposes this refers to the ordained ministry 
of the Church, but Harvey thinks it refers more probably to its gen- 
eral constitution. 

2 [He thus outlines the creed, and epitomizes “the faith once 
delivered to the saints,” as all that is requisite to salvation. ] 

Proy. i. 20, 21. 





4 That is, the private Christian as contrasted with the sophist of 
the schools, 
5 2 Tim. iii, 7, 


garden,” ° that is, Eat ye from every Scripture of 
the Lord ; but ye shall not eat with an uplifted 
mind, nor touch any heretical discord. For these 
men do profess that they have themselves the 
knowledge of good and evil; and they set their 
own impious minds above the God who made 
them. They therefore form opinions on what is 
beyond the limits of the understanding. For this 
cause also the apostle says, “Be not wise beyond 
what it is fitting to be wise, but be wise pru- 
dently,’’? that we be not cast forth by eating of 
the “knowledge” of these men (that knowledge 
which knows more than it should do) from the 
paradise of life. Into this paradise the Lord has 
introduced those who obey His call, “summing 
up in Himself all things which are in heaven, and 
which are on earth ;”® but the things in heaven 
are spiritual, while those on earth constitute the 
dispensation in human nature (secundum homt- 
nem est dispositio). These things, therefore, He 
recapitulated in Himself: by uniting man to the 
Spirit, and causing the Spirit to dwell in man, 
He is Himself made the head of the Spirit, and 
gives the Spirit to be the head of man: for 
through Him (the Spirit) we see, and hear, and 
speak. 


CHAP. XXI.—CHRIST IS THE HEAD OF ALL THINGS 
ALREADY MENTIONED. IT WAS FITTING THAT HE 
SHOULD BE SENT BY THE FATHER, THE CREATOR 
OF ALL THINGS, TO ASSUME HUMAN NATURE, AND 
SHOULD BE TEMPTED BY SATAN, THAT HE MIGHT 
FULFIL THE PROMISES, AND CARRY OFF A GLORI- 
OUS AND PERFECT VICTORY. 


1. He has therefore, in His work of recapitu- 
lation, summed up all things, both waging war 
against our enemy, and crushing him who had 
at the beginning led us away captives in Adam, 
and trampled upon his head, as thou canst per- 
ceive in Genesis that God said to the serpent, 
“And I will put enmity between thee and the 
woman, and between thy seed and her seed; 
He shall be on the watch for (observadit®) thy 
head, and thou on the watch for His heel.’ *° 
For from that time, He who should be born of 
a woman, [namely] from the Virgin, after the 
likeness of Adam, was preached as keeping watch 
for the head of the serpent. This is the seed of 
which the apostle says in the Epistle to the Gala- 
tians, “ that the law of works was established until 
the seed should come to whom the promise was 
made.” ** This fact is exhibited in a still'clearer 
light in the same Epistle, where he thus speaks : 
“ But when the fulness of time was come, God 
nanan Te 

6 Gen. ii. 16. ' 


7 Rom. xii, 3. 

8 Eph. i. ro. 

9 tpyoer and tepécer have probably been confounded, 
TO Gen, ili. 15. 

11 Gal, iii, x9, 





IREN/EUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


549 





sent forth His Son, made of a woman.” For 
indeed the enemy would not have been fairly 
vanquished, unless it had been a man [born] of 
a woman who conquered him. For it was by 
means of a woman that he got the advantage 
over man at first, setting himself up as man’s 
opponent. And therefore does the Lord profess 
Himself to be the Son of man, comprising in 
Himself that original man out of whom the wo- 
man was fashioned (ex guo ea gue secundum 
mulerem est plasmatio facta est), in order that, 
as our species went down to death through a 
vanquished man, so we may ascend to life again 
through a victorious one ; and as through a man 
death received the palm [of victory] against us, 
so again by a man we may receive the palm 
against death. 

2. Now the Lord would not have recapitulated 
in Himself that ancient and primary enmity 
against the serpent, fulfilling the promise of the 
Creator (Demiurgi), and performing His com- 
mand, if He had come from another Father. 
But as He is one and the same, who formed us 
at the beginning, and sent His Son at the end, 
the Lord did perform His command, being made 
of a woman, by both destroying our adversary, 
and perfecting man after the image and likeness 
of God. And for this reason He did not draw 
the means of confounding him from any other 
source than from the words of the law, and made 
use of the Father’s commandment as a help 
towards the destruction and confusion of the 
apostate angel. Fasting forty days, like Moses 
an ias, He afterwards hungered, first, in 
order that we may perceive that He was a real 
and substantial man—for it belongs to a man 
to suffer hunger when fasting; and secondly, 
that His opponent might have an opportunity 
of attacking Him. For as at the beginning it 
was by means of food that [the enemy] per- 
suaded man, although not suffering hunger, to 
transgress God’s commandments, so in the end 
he did not succeed in persuading Him that was 
an hungered to take that food which proceeded 
from God. For, when tempting Him, he said, 
“If thou be the Son of God, command that 
these stones be made bread.”? But the Lord 
repulsed him by the commandment of the law, 
saying, “It is written, Man doth not live by 
bread alone.”3 As to those words [of His 
enemy,] “If thou be the Son of God,” [the 
Lord] made no remark; but by thus acknowl- 
edging His human nature He baffled His ad- 
versary, and exhausted the force of his first 
attack by means of His Father's word. The 
corruption of man, therefore, which occurred in 
paradise by both [of our first parents] eating, 
evemtpeee 2 ee 

T Gal. iv. 4. 


2 Matt, iv. 3. 
3 Deut. viii. g 





was done away with by [the Lord’s] want of 
food in this world. But he, being thus van- 
quished by the law, endeavoured again to make 
an assault by himself quoting a commandment 
of the law. For, bringing Him to the highest 
pinnacle of the temple, he said to Him, “ If thou 
art the Son of God, cast thyself down. For it is 
written, That God shall give His angels charge 
concerning thee, and in their hands they shall 
bear thee up, lest perchance thou dash thy foot 
against a stone ;”’5 thus concealing a falsehood 
under the guise of Scripture, as is done by all 
the heretics. For that was indeed written, 
[namely], “That He hath given His angels 
charge concerning Him;” but “cast thyself 
down from hence” no Scripture said in reference 
to Him: this kind of persuasion the devil pro- 
duced from himself. The Lord therefore con- 
futed him out of the law, when He said, “It is 
written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lorp 
thy God ;”’°® pointing out by the word contained 
in the law that which is the duty of man, that he 
should not tempt God; and in regard to Him- 
self, since He appeared in human form, [declar- 
ing ] that He would not tempt the Lorp his God.” 
The pride of reason, therefore, which was in the 
serpent, was put to nought by the humility found 
in the man [Christ], and now twice was the 
devil conquered from Scripture, when he was 
detected as advising things contrary to God’s 
commandment, and was shown to be the enemy 
of God by [the expression of] his thoughts. 
He then, having been thus signally defeated, and 
then, as it were, concentrating his forces, drawing 
up in order all his available power for falsehood, 
in the third place “showed Him all the king- 
doms of the world, and the glory of them,’ ® 
saying, as Luke relates, “All these will I give 
thee, — for they are delivered to me; and to 
whom I will, I give them,—if thou wilt fall 
down and worship me.” The Lord then, ex- 
posing him in his true character, says, “ Depart, 
Satan ; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the 
Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.” 9 
He both revealed him by this name, and showed 
[at the same time] who He Himself was. For 
the Hebrew word “ Satan” signifies an apostate. 
And thus, vanquishing him for the third time, 
He spurned him from Him finally as being con- 
quered out of the law ; and there was done away 
with that infringement of God’s commandment 
which had occurred in Adam, by means of the 
precept of the law, which the Son of man ob- 





4 The Latin of this obscure sentence is: Que ergo fuit in Paradiso 
repletio hominis per duplicem gustationem, dissoluta est per eam, 
quz: fuit in hoc mundo, indigentiam. Harvey thinks that repletio is 
an error of the translation reading dvamAyjpwots foravamypwors. Thit 
conjecture is adopted above. 

S Ps. Ixxxix. 11. 

6 Deut. vi. 16. ‘ 

7. This sentence is one of great obscurity, 

8 Luke iv. 6, 7. 

9 Matt. iv. 10. 


254 


served, who did not transgress the command- 
ment of God. 

3. Who, then, is this Lord God to whom 
Christ bears witness, whom no man shall tempt, 
whom all should worship, and serve Him alone? 
It is, beyond all manner of doubt, that God who 
also gave the law. For these things had been 
predicted in the law, and by the words (senéen- 
tam) of the law the Lord showed that the law 
does indeed declare the Word of God from the 
Father ; and the apostate angel of God is 
destroyed by its voice, being exposed in his 
true colours, and vanquished by the Son of man 
keeping the commandment of God. For as in 
the beginning he enticed man to transgress his 
Maker’s law, and thereby got him into his 
power; yet his power consists in transgression 
and apostasy, and with these he bound man [to 
himself] ; so again, on the other hand, it was 
necessary that through man himself he should, 
when conquered, be bound with the same chains 
with which he had bound man, in order that 
man, being set free, might return to his Lord, 
leaving to him (Satan) those bonds by which 
he himself had been fettered, that is, sin. For 
when Satan is bound, man is set free; since 
“none can enter a strong man’s house and. 
spoil his goods, unless he first bind the strong 
man himself.”* The Lord therefore exposes 
him as speaking contrary to the word of that 
God who made all things, and subdues him by 
means of the commandment. Now the law is 
the: commandment of God. The Man proves 
him to be a fugitive from and a transgressor of 
the law, an apostate also from God. After [the 
Man had done this], the Word bound him 
securely as a fugitive from Himself, and made 
spoil of his goods, —namely, those men whom 
he held in bondage, and whom he unjustly used 
for his own purposes. And justly indeed is he 
led captive, who had led men unjustly into bond- 
age; while man, who had been led captive in 
times past, was rescued from the grasp of his 
possessor, according to the tender mercy of God 
the Father, who had compassion on His own 
handiwork, and gave to it salvation, restoring it 
by means of the Word — that is, by Christ — in 
order that men might learn by actual proof that 
he receives incorruptibility not of himself, but 
by the free gift of God. 





CHAP. XXII. — THE TRUE LORD AND THE ONE GOD 
IS DECLARED BY THE LAW, AND MANIFESTED BY 
CHRIST HIS SON IN THE GOSPEL ; WHOM ALONE 
WE SHOULD ADORE, AND FROM HIM WE MUST 
LOOK FOR ALL GOOD THINGS, NOT FROM SATAN. 


rt. Thus then does the Lord plainly show that 
it was the true Lord and the one God who had 





1 Matt. xii. 29 and Mark iii. 27. 














IREN/ZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


been set forth by the law; for Him whom the 
law proclaimed as God, the same did Christ 
point out as the Father, whom also it behoves 
the disciples of Christ alone to serve. By means 
of the statements of the law, He put our adver- | 
sary to utter confusion ; and the law directs us 
to praise God the Creator (Demiurgum), and 
to serve Him alone. Since this is the case, we 
must not seek for another Father besides Him, 
or above Him, since there is one God who jus- 
tifies the circumcision by faith, and the uncir- 
cumcision through faith. For if there were any 
other perfect Father above Him, He (Christ) 
would by no means have overthrown Satan by 
means of His words and commandments. For 
one ignorance cannot be done away with by 
means of another ignorance, any more than one 
defect by another defect. If, therefore, the law 
is due to ignorance and defect, how could the 
statements contained therein bring to nought 
the ignorance of the devil, and conquer the 
strong man? For a strong man can be con- 
quered neither by an inferior nor by an equal, 
but by one possessed of greater power. But the 
Word of God is the superior above all, He who 
is loudly proclaimed in the law: “ Hear, O 
Israel, the Lorp thy God is one God;” and, 
“Thou shalt love the Lorp thy God with all thy 
heart ;”’ and, “‘ Him shalt thou adore, and Him 
alone shalt thou serve.”3 Then in the Gospel, . 
casting down the apostasy by means of these 
expressions, He did both overcome the strong 
man by His Father’s voice, and He acknowl- 
edges the commandment of the law to express 
His own sentiments, when He says, “ Thou shalt 
not tempt the Lorp thy God.”* For He did 
not confound the adversary by the saying of any 
other, but by that belonging to His own Father, 
and thus overcame the strong man. 

2. He taught by His commandment that we 
who have been set free should, when hungry, take 
that food which is given by God ; and that, when 
placed in the exalted position of every grace 
[that can be received], we should not, either 
by trusting to works of righteousness, or when 
adorned with super-eminent [gifts of ] ministra- 
tion, by any means be lifted up with pride, nor 
should we tempt God, but should feel humility 
in all things, and have ready to hand [this say- 
ing ], ‘“ Thou shalt not tempt the Lorp thy God.” 5 
As also the apostle taught, saying, “‘ Minding not 
high things, but consenting to things of low 
estate ;”"® that we should neither be ensnared 
with riches, nor mundane glory, nor present 
fancy, but should know that we must “ worship 
the Lorp thy God, and serve Him alone,” and 

2 Rom. iii. 30. 

eee to 


5 Deut. vi. 16. 
© Rom. xii. 16, 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES, 


551 





give no heed to him who falsely promised things 
not his own, when he said, “ All these will I give 
thee, if, falling down, thou wilt worship me.” 
For he himself confesses that to adore him, and 
to do his will, is to fall from the glory of God. 
And in what thing either pleasant or good can 
that man who has fallen participate? Or what 
else can such a person hope for or expect, except 
death? For death is next neighbour to him who 
has fallen. Hence also it follows that he will 
not give what he has promised. For how can he 
make grants to him who has fallen? Moreover, 
‘since God rules over men and him too, and with- 
out the will of our Father in heaven not even a 
sparrow falls to the ground,’ it follows that his 
declaration, “ All these things are delivered unto 
me, and to whomsoever I will I give them,” pro- 
ceeds from him when puffed up with pride. For 
the creation is not subjected to his power, since 
indeed he is himself but one among created 
things. Nor shall he give away the rule over 
men to men; but both all other things, and all 
human affairs, are arranged according to God the 
Father’s disposal. Besides, the Lord declares 
that “the devil isa liar from the beginning, and 
the truth is not in him.’’?_ If then he be a liar, 
and the truth be not in him, he certainly did not 
speak truth, but a lie, when he said, “ For all 
these things are delivered to me, and to whom- 
soever I will I give them.” 3 


CHAP. XXIII. —THE DEVIL IS WELL PRACTISED IN 
FALSEHOOD, BY WHICH ADAM HAVING BEEN LED 
ASTRAY, SINNED ON THE SIXTH DAY OF THE 
CREATION, IN WHICH DAY ALSO HE HAS BEEN 
RENEWED BY CHRIST. 


1. He had indeed been already accustomed 
to lie against God, for the purpose of leading 
men astray. For at the beginning, when God 
had given to man a variety of things for food, 
while He commanded him not to eat of one 
tree only, as the Scripture tells us that God said 
to Adam: “ From every tree which is in the gar- 
den thou shalt eat food; but from the tree of 
knowledge of good and evil, from this ye shall 
not eat: for in the day that ye shall eat of it, ye 
shall die by death ;””* he then, lying against the 
Lord, tempted man, as the Scripture says that 
the serpent said to the woman: ‘“ Has God in- 
deed said this, Ye shall not eat from every tree 
of the garden?”5 And when she had exposed 
the falsehood, and simply related the command, 
as He had said, “ From every tree of the garden 
we shall eat ; but of the fruit of the tree which is 
in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye 
shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest 
TE OES Ia RES Meare ten eoeee 

I Matt. x. 29. 

sole 


4 Gen. ii, 16, 17- 
S Gen, iil. r- . 











ye die: ” © when he had [thus] learned from the 
woman the command of God, having brought 
his cunning into play, he finally deceived her by 
a falsehood, saying, “ Ye shall not die by death ; 
for God knew that in the day ye shail eat of it 
your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as 
gods, knowing good and evil.”7 In the first 
place, then, in the garden of God he disputed 
about God, as if God was not there, for he was 
ignorant of the greatness of God; and then, in 
the next place, after he had learned from the 
woman that God had said that they should die 
if they tasted the aforesaid tree, opening his 
mouth, he uttered the third falsehood, “ Ye shail 
not die by death.” But that God was true, and 
the serpent a liar, was proved by the result, 
death having passed upon them who had eaten. 
For along with the fruit they did also fall under 
the power of death, because they did eat in dis- 
obedience ; and disobedience to God entails 
death. Wherefore, as they became forfeit to 
death, from that [moment] they were handed 
over to it. 

2. Thus, then, in the day that they did eat, in 
the same did they die, and became death’s debt- 
ors, since it was one day of the creation. For 
it is said, “There was made in the evening, and 
there was made in the morning, one day.” Now 
in this same day that they did eat, in that also 
did they die. But according to the cycle and 
progress of the days, after which one is termed 
first, another second, and another third, if any- 
body seeks diligently to learn upon what day 
out of the seven it was that Adam died, he 
will find it by examining the dispensation of 
the Lord. For by summing up in Himself the 
whole human race from the beginning to the 
end, He has also summed up its death. From 
this it is clear that the Lord suffered death, in 
obedience to His Father, upon that day on 
which Adam died while he disobeyed God. 
Now he died on the same day in which he did 
eat. For God said, “In that day on which ye 
shall eat of it, ye shall die by death.” The 
Lord, therefore,r ecapitulating in Himself this 
day, underwent His sufferings upon the day 
preceding the Sabbath, that is, the sixth day of 
the creation, on which day man was created ; 
thus granting him a second creation by means 
of His passion, which is that [creation] out of 
death. And there are some, again, who relegate 
the death of Adam to the thousandth year ; for 
since “a day of the Lord is as a thousand 
years,” ® he did not overstep the thousand years, 
but died within them, thus bearing out the sen- 
tence of his sin. Whether, therefore, with re- 
spect to. disobedience, which is death ; whether 
CO eile Sy “TE REA ee et oes San ame 

6 Gen. iii. 2, 3. 


7 Gen. iil. 4. 
8 2 Pet. iii. 8. 


552 


[we consider] that, on account of that, they 
were delivered over to death, and made debtors 
to it; whether with respect to [the fact that on] 
one: and the same day on which they ate they 
also died (for it is one day of the creation) ; 
whether [we regard this point], that, with re- 
spect to this cycle of days, they died on the 
day in which they did also eat, that is, the day 
of the preparation, which is termed “the pure 
supper,” that is, the sixth day of the feast, 
which the Lord also exhibited when He suffered 
on that day; or whether [we reflect] that he 
(Adam) did not overstep the thousand years, 
but died within their limit, — it follows that, in 
regard to all these significations, God is indeed 
true. For they died who tasted of the tree ; 
and the serpent is proved a liar and a murderer, 
as the Lord said of him: “For he is a mur- 
derer from the beginning, and the truth is not 
in him.” ? 


CHAP. XXIV.—OF THE CONSTANT FALSEHOOD OF 
THE DEVIL, AND OF THE POWERS AND GOV- 
ERNMENTS OF THE WORLD, WHICH WE OUGHT 
.TO OBEY, INASMUCH AS THEY ARE APPOINTED 
OF GOD, NOT OF THE DEVIL. 


1. As therefore the devil lied at the begin- 
ning, so did he also in the end, when he said, 
“ All these are delivered unto me, and to whom- 
soever I will I give them.’’? For it is not he 
who has appointed the kingdoms of this world, 
but God ; for “the heart of the king is in the 
hand of God.’’3 And the Word also says by 
Solomon, “ By me kings do reign, and princes 
administer justice. By me chiefs are raised up, 
and by me kings rule the earth.”4 Paul the 
apostle also says upon this same subject: “ Be 
ye subject to all the higher powers; for there 
is: no power but of God: now those which are 
have been ordained of God.”5 And again, in 
reference to them he says, “‘ For he beareth not 
the sword in vain ; for he is the minister of God, 
the avenger for wrath to him who does evil.” ® 
Now, that he spake these words, not in regard 
to angelical powers, nor of invisible rulers — as 
some venture to expou e— but of 
those of actual ¢human authorities, Phe shows 
when] he says, “For this Cause pay ye tribute 
also: for they are God’s ministers, doing service 
for this very thing.”? This also the Lord con- 
firmed, when He did not do what He was 
tempted to by the devil ; but He gave directions 
that tribute should be paid to the tax-gatherers 
for Himself and Peter;® because “they are 





I John viii. 44. 

3 Matt. iv.9; Luke iv. 6. 
3 Prov. xxi, 1. 

4 Prov. viii, 15. 

5S Rom. xiii. 1. 

6 Rom. xiii. 4. 

7 Rom. xiii. 6. 

3 Matt. xvii. 27. 











IRENZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


the ministers of God, serving for this very 
thing.” 

2. For since man, by departing from God, 
reached such a pitch of fury as even to look 
upon his brother as his enemy, and engaged _ 
without fear in every kind of restless conduct, 
and murder, and avarice; God imposed upon 
mankind the fear of man, as they did not ac- 
knowledge the fear of God, in order that, being 
subjected to the authority of men, and kept 
under restraint by their laws, they might attain 
to some degree of justice, and exercise mutual 
forbearance through dread of the sword sus- 
pended full in their view, as the apostle says: 
‘“‘For he beareth not the sword in vain; for he 
is the minister of God, the avenger for wrath 
upon him who does evil.’”’ And for this reason 
too, magistrates themselves, having laws as a 
clothing of righteousness whenever they act in 
a just and legitimate manner, shall not be called 
in question for their conduct, nor be liable to 
punishment. But whatsoever they do to the sub- 
version of justice, iniquitously, and impiously, and 
illegally, and tyrannically, in these things shall 
they also perish ; for the just judgment of God 
comes equally upon all, and in no case is defec- 
tive. Earthly rule, therefore, has been appointed 
by God for i benefit of nations,? and not by 


Se 


the devil, who is never at rest at all, nay, who 


doés not love to see even nations conducting 
themselves after a quiet manner, so that under 
the fear of human rule, men may not eat each 
other up like fishes ; but that, by means of the 
establishment of laws, they may keep down an 
excess of wickedness among the nations. And 
considered from this point of view, those who 
exact tribute from us are “God’s ministers, serv- 
ing for this very purpose.” 

3. As, then, “the powers that be are ordained 
of God,” it is clear that the devil lied when he 
said, ‘These are delivered unto me; and to 
whomsoever I will, I give them.” For by the 
law of the same Being as calls men into existence 
are kings also appointed, adapted for those men 
who are at the time placed under their govern- 
ment. Some of these [rulers] are given for the 
correction and the benefit of their subjects, and 
for the preservation of justice ; but others, for the 
purposes of fear and punishment and rebuke: 
others, as [the subjects] deserve it, are for de- 
ception, disgrace, and pride; while the just 
judgment of God, as I have observed already, 
passes equally upon all. The devil, however, as 
he is the apostate angel, can only go to this 
length, as he did at the beginning, [namely] to 
deceive and lead astray the mind of man into 
disobeying the commandments of God, and grad- 





<a 


9 [Well says Benjamin Franklin: ‘‘ He who shall introduce 
into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change 
the face of the world.” See Bancroft, Hist. U.S., vol. ix. p. 492-] 


IRENZZUS AGAINST HERESIES, 


553 





ually to darken the hearts of those who would 
endeavour to serve him, to the forgetting of 
the true God, but to the adoration of himself 
as God. 

4. Just as if any one, being an apostate, and 
seizing in a hostile manner another man’s terri- 
tory, should harass the inhabitants of it, in order 
that he might claim for himself the glory of a 
king among those ignorant of his apostasy and 
robbery; so likewise also the devil, being one 
among those angels who are placed over the 
spirit of the air, as the Apostle Paul has declared 
in his Epistle to the Ephesians,’ becoming en- 
vious of man, was rendered an apostate from the 
divine law: for envy is a thing foreign to God. 
And as his apostasy was exposed by man, and 
man became the [means of] searching out his 
thoughts (e¢ examinatio sententi@ ejus, homo fac- 
tus est), he has set himself to this with greater 
and greater determination, in opposition to man, 
envying his life, and wishing to involve him in 
his own apostate power. The Word of God, 
however, the Maker of all things, conquering 
him by means of human nature, and showing 
him to be an apostate, has, on the contrary, 
put him under the power of man. For He says, 
“ Behold, I confer upon you the power of tread- 
ing upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all 
the power of the enemy,” ? in order that, as he 
obtained dominion over man by apostasy, so 
again his apostasy might be deprived of power 
by means of man turning back again to God. 


CHAP. XXV.— THE FRAUD, PRIDE, AND TYRANNI- 
CAL KINGDOM OF ANTICHRIST, AS DESCRIBED 
BY DANIEL AND PAUL. 


x. And not only by the particulars already 
mentioned, but also by means of the events 
which shall occur in the time of Antichrist is it 
shown that he, being an apostate and a robber, 
is anxious to be adored as God; and that, al- 
though a mere slave, he wishes himself to be 
proclaimed as a king. For he (Antichrist) be- 
ing endued with all the power of the devil, shall 
come, not as a righteous king, noras a legitimate 
king, [i.e., one] in subjection to God, but an 
impious, unjust, and lawless one ; as an apostate, 
iniquitous and murderous ; as a robber, concen- 
trating in himself [all] satanic apostasy, and 
setting aside idols to persuade [men] that he 
himself is God, raising up himself as the only 
idol, having in himself the multifarious errors of 
the other idols. This he does, in order that 
they who do [now] worship the devil by means 
of many abominations, may serve himself by this 
one idol, of whom the apostle thus speaks in 
the second Epistle to the Thessalonians: “ Un- 


less there shall come a falling away first, and the 
SE a a ea eS, 
1 Eph. ii. 2. 
e Luke x: =< 





man of sin shall be revealed, the son of perdi- 
tion, who opposeth and exalteth himself above 
all that is called God, or that is worshipped ; se 
that he sitteth in the temple of God, showing 
himself as if he were God.” The apostle there- 
fore clearly points out his apostasy, and that he 
is lifted up above all that is called God, or that 
is worshipped — that is, above every idol — for 
these are indeed so called by men, but are not 
[really} gods; and that he will endeavour in a 
tyrannical manner to set himself forth as God. 

2. Moreover, he (the apostle) has also pointed 
out this which I have shown in many ways, that 
the temple in Jerusalem was made by the direc- 
tion of the true God. For the apostle himself, 
speaking in his own person, distinctly called it 
the temple of God. Now I have shown in the 
third book, that no one is termed God by the 
apostles when speaking for themselves, except 
Him who truly is God, the Father of our Lord, 
by whose directions the temple which is at Jeru- 
salem was constructed for those purposes which 
I have already mentioned ; in which [temple] 
the enemy shall sit, endeavouring to show him- 
self as Christ, as the Lord also declares: “ But 
when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, 
which has been spoken of by Daniel the prophet, 
standing in the holy place (let him that readeth 
understand), then let those who are in Judea 
flee into the mountains ; and he who is upon the 
house-top, let him not come down to take any- 
thing out of his house: forthere shall then be great 
hardship, such as has not been from the beginning 
of the world until now, nor ever shall be.” 3 

3. Daniel too, looking forward to the end of 
the last kingdom, i.e., the ten last kings, amongst 
whom the kingdom of those men shall be parti- 
tioned, and upon whom the son of perdition 
shall come, declares that ten horns shall spring 
from the beast, and that another little horn shall 
arise in the midst of them, and that three of the 
former shall be rooted up before his face. He 
says: “And, behold, eyes were in this horn as 
the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great 
things, and his look was more stout than his fel- 
lows. I was looking, and this horn made war 
against the saints, and prevailed against them, 
until the Ancient of days came and gave judg- 
ment to the saints of the most high God, and 
the time came, and the saints obtained the king- 
dom.” 4 Then, further on, in the interpretation 
of the vision, there was said to him: “The fourth 
beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, 
which shall excel all other kingdoms, and devour 
the whole earth, and tread it down, and cut it in 
pieces. And its ten horns are ten kings which 
shall arise ; and after them shall arise another, 
who shall surpass in evil deeds all that were be- 








3 Matt, xxiv. 15, 21. 
4 Dan. vii. 8, etc. 


554 





‘fore him, and shall overthrow three kings ; and 
he shall speak words against the most high God, 
and wear out the saints of the most high God, 
and shall purpose to change times and laws ; and 
[everything] shall be given into his hand until a 
time of times and a half time,’ that is, for three 
years and six months, during which time, when he 
comes, he shall reign over the earth. Of whom 
also the Apostle Paul again, speaking in the 
second [Epistle] to the Thessalonians, and at 
the same time proclaiming the cause of his ad- 
vent, thus says: ‘‘ And then shall the wicked one 
be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with 
the spirit of His mouth, and destroy by the pres- 
ence of His coming; whose coming [i.e., the 
wicked one’s] is after the working of Satan, in all 
power, and signs, and portents of lies, and with 
all deceivableness of wickedness for those who 
perish ; because they did not receive the love of 
the truth, that they might be saved. And there- 
fore God will send them the working of error, 
that they may believe a lie ; that they all may be 
judged who did not believe the truth, but gave 
consent to iniquity.” ? 

4. The Lord also spoke as follows to those 
who did not believe in Him: “I have come in 
my Father’s name, and ye have not received 
Me: when another shall come in his own name, 
him ye will receive,”3 calling Antichrist ‘“ the 
other,’’ because he is alienated from the Lord. 
This is also the unjust judge, whom the Lord 
mentioned as one “ who feared not God, neither 
regarded man,’’* to whom the widow fled in her 
forgetfulness of God, — that is, the earthly Jeru- 
salem, — to be avenged of her adversary. Which 
also he shall do in the time of his kingdom: he 
shall remove his kingdom into that [city], and 
shall sit in the temple of God, leading astray 
those who worship him, as if he were Christ. 
To this purpose Daniel says again: “And he 
shall desolate the holy place ; and sin has been 
given for a sacrifice,5 and righteousness been cast 
away in the earth, and he has been active (fec7?), 
and gone on prosperously.”° And the angel 
Gabriel, when explaining his vision, states with 
regard to this person: “ And towards the end of 
their kingdom a king of a most fierce coun- 
tenance shall arise, one understanding [dark 
questions, and exceedingly powerful, full of won- 
ders; and he shall corrupt, direct, influence 
(facte¢), and put strong men down, the holy 
people likewise ; and his yoke shall be directed 
as a wreath [round their neck] ; deceit shall be 





T Dan. vii. 23, etc. 
2 2 Thess. ii. 8. 

3 joke Vv. 43- 

4 Luke xviii. 2, etc. 

5 This may refer to Antiochus Epiphanes, Antichrist’s prototype, 
who offered swine upon the altar in the temple at Jerusalem. "ase 
LXX. version has, ¢660y émi thyv-O@vciav auapria, i.e., sin has been 
given against (or, xfom) the sacrifice, 

© Dan. viii. x2. 








IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


in his hand, and he shall be lifted up in his 
heart : he shall also ruin many by deceit, and lead’ 
many to perdition, bruising them in his hand 
like eggs.””7 And then he points out the time 
that his tyranny shall last, during which the saints 
shall be put to flight, they who offer a pure sacri- 
fice unto God: “ And in the midst of the week,” 
he says, “the sacrifice and the libation shall be 
taken away, and the abomination of desolation 
[shall be brought] into the temple: even unto 
the consummation of the time shall the desola- 
tion be complete.” ® Now three years and six 
months constitute the half-week. 

5. From all these passages are revealed to us, 
not merely the particulars of the apostasy, and 
[the doings] of him who concentrates in himself 
every satanic error, but also, that there is one 
and the same God the Father, who was declared 
by the prophets, but made manifest by Christ. 
For if what Daniel prophesied concerning the 
end has been confirmed by the Lord, when He 
said, “When ye shall see the abomination of 
desolation, which has been spoken of by Daniel 
the prophet ”’9 (and the angel Gabriel gave the 
interpretation of the visions to Daniel, and he is 
the archangel of the Creator (Demiurgt), who 
also proclaimed to Mary the visible coming and 
the incarnation of Christ), then one and the 
same God is most manifestly pointed out, who 
sent the prophets, and made promise '° of the 
Son, and called us into His knowledge. 


CHAP. XXVI.— JOHN AND DANIEL HAVE PREDICTED 
THE DISSOLUTION AND DESOLATION OF THE 
ROMAN EMPIRE, WHICH SHALL PRECEDE THE 
END OF THE WORLD AND THE ETERNAL KING- 
DOM OF CHRIST. THE GNOSTICS ARE REFUTED, 
THOSE TOOLS OF SATAN, WHO INVENT ANOTHER 
FATHER DIFFERENT FROM THE CREATOR. 


1. In a still clearer light has John, in the 
Apocalypse, indicated to the Lord’s disciples 
what shall happen in the last times, and concern- 
ing the ten kings who shall then arise, among 
whom the empire which now rules [the earth] 
shall be partitioned. He teaches us what the ten 
horns shall be which were seen by Daniel, telling 
us that thus it had been said to him: ‘ And the 


]| ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, who 


have received no kingdom as yet, but shall re- 
ceive power as if kings one hour with the beast. 
These have one mind, and give their strength 
and power to the beast. These shall make war 
with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome 
them, because He is the Lord of lords and the 
King of kings.” '* It is manifest, therefore, that 





7 Dan. viii. 23, etc. 

8 Dan. ix. 27. 

2 a XxiV, 15, 

° The mss. have “‘premisit,” but Harvey suggests “ promisit,* 
which we have adopted. : +a ss? bs 

II Rey, xvii. 12, etc. 


IRENAZ:US AGAINST HERESIES. 


A Fs 





of these [potentates], he who is to come shall 
slay three, and subject the remainder to his 
power, and that he shall be himself the eighth 
among them. And they shall lay Babylon waste, 
and burn her with fire, and shall give their king- 
dom to the beast, and put the Church to flight. 
After that they shall be destroyed by the coming 
of our Lord. For that the kingdom must be 
divided, and thus come to ruin, the Lord [de- 
clares when He] says: “ Every kingdom divided 
against itself is brought to desolation, and every 
city or house divided against itself shall not 
-stand.”’: It must be, therefore, that the king- 
dom, the city, and the house be divided into ten ; 
and for this reason He has already foreshadowed 
the partition and division [which shall take 
place]. Daniel also says particularly, that the 
end of the fourth kingdom consists in the toes 
of the image seen by Nebuchadnezzar, upon 
which came the stone cut out without hands ; 
and as he does himself say: ‘‘ The feet were in- 
deed the one part iron, the other part clay, until 
the stone was cut out without hands, and struck 
the image upon the iron and clay feet, and 
dashed them into pieces, even to the end.” 
Then afterwards, when interpreting this, he says : 
“ And as thou sawest the feet and the toes, partly 
indeed of clay, and partly of iron, the kingdom 
shall be divided, and there shall be in it a root 
of iron, as thou sawest iron mixed with baked 
clay. And the toes were indeed the one part 
iron, but the other part clay.”3 The ten toes, 
therefore, are these ten kings, among whom the 
kingdom shall be partitioned, of whom some in- 
deed shall be strong and active, or energetic ; 
others, again, shall be sluggish and useless, and 
shall not agree; as also Daniel says: “Some 
part of the kingdom shall be strong, and part 
shall be broken from it. As thou sawest the iron 
mixed with the baked clay, there shall be min- 
glings among the human race, but no cohesion 
one with the other, just as iron cannot be welded 
on to pottery ware.”+ And since an end shall 
take place, he says: “And in the days of these 
kings shall the God of heaven raise up a king- 
dom which shall never decay, and His kingdom 
shall not be left to another people. It shall 
break in pieces and shatter all kingdoms, and 
shall itself be exalted for ever. As thou sawest 
that the stone was cut without hands from the 
mountain, and brake in pieces the baked clay, 
the iron, the brass, the silver, and the gold, God 
has pointed out to the king what shall come to 
pass after these things ; and the dream is true, 
and the interpretation trustworthy.” > 

2. If therefore the great God showed future 


I Matt. xii. 25. 

2 Dan. ii. 33, 34- 
3 Dan. ii. 41, 42. 
4 Dan. ii. 42, 43- 
5 Dan. ii. 44, 45- 








things by Daniel, and confirmed them by His 
Son ; and if Christ is the stone which is cut out 
without hands, who shall destroy temporal king- 
doms, and introduce an eternal one, which is the 
resurrection of the just; as he declares, “ The 
God of heaven shall raise up a kingdom which 
shall never be destroyed,” — let those thus con- 
futed come to their senses, who reject the Crea- 
tor (Demiurgum), and do not agree that the 
prophets were sent beforehand from the same 
Father from whom also the Lord came, but who 
assert that prophecies originated from diverse 
powers. For those things which have been pre- 
dicted by the Creator alike through all| the 
prophets has Christ fulfilled in the end, minister- 
ing to His Father’s will, and completing His dis- 
pensations with regard to the human race. Let 
those persons, therefore, who blaspheme the 
Creator, either by openly expressed words, such 


as the disciples of Marcion, or by a perversion 
of the sense [of Scripture], as those of Valen- 


tinus and all the Gnostics falsely so_ called, be 


recognised as agents of Satan by all those who 
worship God ; through whose agency Satan now, 
and not before, has been seen to speak against 
God, even Him who has prepared eternal fire 
for every kind of apostasy. For he did not ven- 
ture to blaspheme his Lord openly of himself ; as 
also in the beginning he led man astray through 
the instrumentality of the serpent, concealing 
himself as it were from God. ‘Truly has(Justin ) 
remarked :® That before the Lord’s ne ad 
Satan never dared to blaspheme God, inasmuch 
as he did not yet know his own sentence, be- 
cause it was contained in parables and allegories ; 
but that after the Lord’s appearance, when he 
had clearly ascertained from the words of Christ 
and His apostles that eternal fire has been pre- 
pared for him as he apostatized from God of his 
own free-will, and likewise for all who unrepent- 
ant continue in the apostasy, he now blasphemes, 
by means of such men, the Lord who brings 
judgment [upon him] as being already con- 
demned, and imputes the guilt of his_apostasy 
to his Maker, not to his own voluntary disposi- 
tion. Just as it is with those who break the laws, 
when punishment overtakes them: they throw 
the blame upon those who frame the laws, but 
not upon themselves. In like manner do those 
men, filled with a satanic spirit, bring innumera- 
ble accusations against our Creator, who has both 
given to us the spirit of life, and established a 
law adapted for all ; and they will not admit that 
the judgment of God is just. Wherefore also 
they set about imagining some other Father who 
neither cares about nor exercises a providence 


La eee ee 


6 The Greek text is here preserved by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iv. 
18; but we are not told from what work of Justin Martyr it is ex- 
tracted. The work is now lost. An ancient catena continues the 
Greek for several lines further. 


556 





over our affairs, nay, one who even approves of 
all sins. 


CHAP. XXVII.—THE FUTURE JUDGMENT BY CHRIST. 
COMMUNION WITH AND SEPARATION FROM THE 
DIVINE BEING. THE ETERNAL PUNISHMENT OF 
UNBELIEVERS. 


1. If the Father, then, does not exercise judg- 
ment, [it follows] that judgment does not belong 
to Him, or that He consents to all those actions 
which take place ; and if He does not judge, all 
persons will be equal, and accounted in the same 
condition. The advent of Christ will therefore 
be without an object, yea, absurd, inasmuch as 
[in that case] He exercises no judicial power. 
For “ He came to divide a man against his father, 
and the daughter against the mother, and the 
daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law ;’’? 
and when two are in one bed, to take the one, 
and to leave the other ; and of two women grind- 
ing at the mill, to take one and leave the other :? 
[also] at the time of the end, to order the reap- 
ers to collect first the tares together, and bind 
them in bundles, and burn them with unquench- 
able fire, but to gather up the wheat into the 
barn ;3 and to call the lambs into the kingdom 
prepared for them, but to send the goats into 
everlasting fire, which has been prepared by His 
Father for the devil and his angels.# And why 
is this? Has the Word come for the ruin and 
for the resurrection of many? For the ruin, 
certainly, of those who do not believe Him, to 
whom also He has threatened a greater damna- 
tion in the judgment-day than that of Sodom 
and Gomorrah ;5 but for the resurrection of 
believers, and those who do the will of His 
Father in heaven. If then the advent of the 
Son comes indeed alike to all, but is for the pur- 
pose of judging, and separating the believing 
from the unbelieving, since, as those who believe 
do His will agreeably to their own choice, and 
as, [also] agreeably to their own choice, the dis- 
obedient do not consent to His doctrine; it is 
manifest that His Father has made all in a like 
condition, each person having a choice of his 
own, and a free understanding ; and that He has 
regard to all things, and exercises a providence 
over all, “ making His sun to rise upon the evil 
and on the good, and sending rain upon the just 
and unjust.” © 

2. And to as many as continue in their love 
towards God, does He grant communion with 
Him. But communion with God is life and 
light, and the enjoyment of all the benefits 
which He has in store. But on as many as, 





T Matt. x. 25. 

2 Luke xvii. 34. 

3 Matt. xiii. 30. 

4 Matt. xxv. 33, etc. 
5 Luke x. 12. 

6 Matt. v. 45. 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





according to their own choice, depart from God, 
He inflicts that separation from Himself which 
they have chosen of their own accord. But 
separation from God is death, and separation 
from light is darkness ; and separation from God 
consists in the loss of all the benefits which 
He has in store. Those, therefore, who cast 
away by apostasy these forementioned things, 
being in fact destitute of all good, do experience 
every kind of punishment. God, however, does 
not punish them immediately of Himself, but 
that punishment falls upon them because they 
are destitute of all that is good. Now, good 
things are eternal and without end with God, 
and therefore the loss of these is also eternal 
and never-ending. It {s in this matter just as 
occurs in the case of a flood of light: those who 
have blinded themselves, or have been blinded 
by others, are for ever deprived of the enjoyment 
of light. It is not, [however], that the light has 
inflicted upon them the penalty of blindness, 
but it is that the blindness itself has brought 
calamity upon them: and therefore the Lord 
declared, “ He that believeth in Me is not con- 
demned,’’7 that is, is not separated from God, 
for he is united to God through faith. On the © 
other hand, He says, “ He that believeth not is 
condemned already, because he has not believed 
in the name of the only-begotten Son of God ;” 
that is, he separated himself from God of his 
own accord. “For this is the condemnation, 
that light is come into this world, and men have 
loved darkness rather than light. For every one 
who doeth evil hateth the light, and cometh not 
to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that 
his deeds may be made manifest, that he has 
wrought them in God.” 


CHAP. XXVIII.— THE DISTINCTION TO BE MADE 
BETWEEN THE RIGHTEOUS AND THE WICKED. 
THE FUTURE APOSTASY IN THE TIME OF ANTI- 
CHRIST, AND THE END OF THE WORLD. 


1. Inasmuch, then, as in this world (aid) 
some persons betake themselves to the light, and. 
by faith unite themselves with God, but others 
shun the light, and separate themselves from 
God, the Word of God comes preparing a fit 
habitation for both. For those indeed who are 
in the light, that they may derive enjoyment 
from it, and from the good things contained in 
it; but for those in darkness, that they may 
partake in its calamities. And on this account 
He says, that those upon the right hand are 
called into the kingdom of heaven, but that 
those on the left He will send into eternal fire ; 
for they have deprived themselves of all good. 

2. And for this reason the apostle says: “ Be- 





7 John iii. 18, ax. 





IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


Sev 





cause they received not the love of God, that 
they might be saved, therefore God shall also 
send them the operation of error, that they may 
believe a lie, that they all may be judged who 
have not believed the truth, but consented to 
unrighteousness.”’* For when he (Antichrist) 
is come, and of his own accord concentrates in 
his own person the apostasy, and accomplishes 
whatever he shall do according to his own will 
and choice, sitting also in the temple of God, 
so that his dupes may adore him as the Christ ; 
wherefore also shall he deservedly “be cast into 
the lake of fire:’’? [this will happen according 
to divine appointment], God by His prescience 
foreseeing all this, and at the proper time send- 
ing such a man, “that they may believe a lie, 
that they all may be judged who did not believe 
the truth, but consented to unrighteousness ;” 
whose coming John has thus described in the 
Apocalypse: “And the beast which I had seen 
was like unto a leopard, and his feet as of a 
bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion; 
and the dragon conferred his own power upon 
him, and his throne, and great might. And one 
of his heads was as it were slain unto death ; 
and his deadly wound was healed, and all the 
world wondered after the beast. And they wor- 
shipped the dragon because he gave: power to 
the beast ; and they worshipped the beast, say- 
ing, Who is like unto this beast, and who is able 
to make war with him? And there was given 
unto him a mouth speaking great things, and 
blasphemy and power was given to him during 
forty and two months. And he opened his 
mouth for blasphemy against God, to blaspheme 
His name and His tabernacle, and those who 
dwell in heaven. And power was given him 
over every tribe, and people, and tongue, and 
nation. And all who dwell upon the earth wor- 
shipped him, [every one] whose name was not 
written in the book of the Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world. If any one have ears, 
let him hear. If any one shall lead into cap- 
tivity, he shall go into captivity. If any shall 
slay with the sword, he must be slain with the 
sword. Here is the endurance and the faith of 
the saints.”3 After this he likewise describes 
his armour-bearer, whom he also terms a false 
prophet: “He spake as a dragon, and exercised 
all the power of the first beast in his sight, and 
caused the earth, and those that dwell therein, 
to adore the first beast, whose deadly wound was 
healed. And he shall perform great wonders, 
so that he can even cause fire to descend from 
heaven upon the earth in the sight of men, and 
he shall lead the inhabitants of the earth astray.” 4 


alee Se 


1 2 Thess. ii, 10-12. 
2 Rev. xix. 20, 

3 Rev. xiii. 2, etc 

4 Rev. xiii. 11, etc. 


Let no one imagine that he performs these 
wonders by divine power, but by the working 


of magic. And we must not be surprised if, 
since the demons and apostate spirits are at his 
service, he through their means performs won- 
ders, by which he leads the inhabitants of the 
earth astray. John says further: “And he shall 
order an image of the beast to be made, and 
he shall give breath to the image, so that the 
image shall speak ; and he shall cause those to 
be slain who will not adore it.” He says also: 
“ And he will cause a mark [to be put] in the 
forehead and in the right hand, that no one may 
be able to buy or sell, unless he who has the 
mark of the name of the beast or the number 
of his name; and the number is six hundred 
and sixty-six,” 5 that is, six times a hundred, six 
times ten, and six units. [He gives this] as a 
summing up of the whole of that apostasy which 
has taken place during six thousand years. 

3. For in as many days as this world was 
made, in so many thousand years shall it be 
concluded. And for this reason the Scripture 
says: “Thus the heaven and the earth were 
finished, and all their adornment. And God 
brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day the 
works that He had made ; and God rested upon 
the seventh day from all His works.”° ‘This is 
an account of the things formerly created, as 
also it is a prophecy of what is to come. For 
the day of the Lord is as a thousand years ;7 
and in six days created things were completed : 
it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an 
end at the sixth thousand year. 

4. And therefore throughout all time, man, 
having been moulded at the beginning by the 
hands of God, that is, of the Son and of the 
Spirit, is made after the image and likeness of 
God: the chaff, indeed, which is the apostasy, 
being cast away; but the wheat, that is, those 
who bring forth fruit to God in faith, being 
gathered into the barn. And for this cause 
tribulation is necessary for those who are saved, 
that having been after a manner broken up, and 
rendered fine, and sprinkled over by the patience 
of the Word of God, and set on fire {for purifi- 
cation], they may be fitted for the royal banquet. 
As a certain man of ours said, when he was 
condemned to the wild beasts because of his 
testimony with respect to God: “I am the 
wheat of Christ, and am ground by the teeth of 
the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure 
bread of God.’ ® 
SE GEE ian 2 os Masten Ne erent ewe SF 


5 Rev. xiii. 14, etc. 

6 Gen. ii, 2. 

7 2 Pet. iii. 8. ; 

8 This is quoted from the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans, ch, 
iv. It is found in the two Greek recensions of his works, and also in 
the Syriac. See pp. 75 and 103 of this volume. The Latin transla. 
tion is here followed: the Greek of Ignatius would give “ the wheat 
of God,” and omits “of God” towards the end, as quoted by 
Eusebius. 


558 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


CHAP. XXIX.—ALL THINGS HAVE BEEN CREATED | what happened to them, the wrath against the 


FOR THE SERVICE OF MAN. THE DECEITS, WICK- 
EDNESS, AND APOSTATE POWER OF ANTICHRIST, 
THIS WAS PREFIGURED AT THE DELUGE, AS AFTER- 
WARDS BY THE PERSECUTION OF SHADRACH, 
MESHACH, AND ABEDNEGO. 


1. In the previous books I have set forth the 
causes for which God permitted these things to 
be made, and have pointed out that all such 
have been created for the benefit of that human 
nature. which is saved, ripening for immortality 
that which is [possessed] of its own free will 
and its own power, and preparing and rendering 
it more adapted for eternal subjection to God. 
And therefore the creation is suited to [the wants 
of ] man; for man was not made for its sake, but 
creation for the sake of man. Those nations, 
however, who did not of themselves raise up 
their eyes unto heaven, nor returned thanks to 
their Maker, nor wished to behold the light of 
truth, but who were like blind mice concealed 
in the depths of ignorance, the word justly reck- 
ons “as waste water from a sink, and as the 
turning-weight of a balance —in fact, as noth- 
ing ;”* so far useful and serviceable to the just, 
as stubble conduces towards the growth of the 
wheat, and its straw, by means of combustion, 
serves for working gold. And therefore, when 
in the end the Church shall be suddenly caught 
up from this, it is said, “There shall be tribula- 
tion such as has not been since the beginning, 
neither shall be.” ? For this is the last contest 
of the righteous, in which, when they overcome, 
they are crowned with incorruption. 

2. And there is therefore in this beast, when 
he comes, a recapitulation made of all sorts of 
iniquity and of every deceit, in order that all 
apostate power, flowing into and being shut up 
in him, may be sent into the furnace of fire. 
Fittingly, therefore, shall his name possess the 
number six hundred and sixty-six, since he sums 
up in his own person all the commixture of 
wickedness which took place previous to the 
deluge, due to the apostasy of the angels. For 
Noah was six hundred years old when the deluge 
came upon the earth, sweeping away the rebel- 
lious world, for the sake of that most infamous 
generation which lived in the times of Noah. 
And [Antichrist] also sums up every error of 
devised idols since the flood, together with the 
slaying of the prophets and the cutting’ off of 
the just. For that image which was set up by 
Nebuchadnezzar had indeed a height of sixty 
cubits, while the breadth was six cubits; on ac- 
count of which Ananias, Azarias, and Misaél, 
when they did not worship it, were cast into a 
furnace of fire, pointing out prophetically, by 





I Isa, xl..15. 
2 Matt. xxiv. 2x. 





righteous which shall arise towards the [time of 
the] end. For that image, taken as a whole, 
was a prefiguring of this man’s coming, decree- 
ing that he should undoubtedly himself alone 
be worshipped by all men. Thus, then, the six 
hundred years of Noah, in whose time the deluge 
occurred because of the apostasy, and the num- 
ber of the cubits of the image for which these 
just men were sent into the fiery furnace, do 
indicate the number of the name of that man_ 
in whom is concentrated the whole apostasy of 
six thousand years, and unrighteousness, and 
wickedness, and false prophecy, and deception ; 
for which things’ sake a cataclysm of fire shall 
also come [upon the earth]. 


CHAP. XXX.——ALTHOUGH CERTAIN AS TO THE 
NUMBER OF THE NAME OF ANTICHRIST, YET WE 
SHOULD COME TO NO RASH CONCLUSIONS AS TO 
THE NAME ITSELF, BECAUSE THIS NUMBER IS CAPA- 
BLE OF BEING FITTED TO MANY NAMES. REASONS 
FOR THIS POINT BEING RESERVED BY THE HOLry 
SPIRIT. ANTICHRIST’S REIGN AND DEATH. 


1. Such, then, being the state of the case, and 
this number being found in all the most approved 
and ancient copies? [of the Apocalypse], and 
those men who saw John face to face bearing 
their testimony [to it]; while reason also leads 
us to conclude that the number of the name of 
the beast, [if reckoned] according to the Greek 
mode of calculation by the [value of] the letters 
contained in it, will amount to six hundred and 
sixty and six; that is, the number of tens shall 
be equal to that of the hundreds, and the num- 
ber of hundreds equal to that of the units (for 
that number which [expresses]. the digit six 
being adhered to throughout, indicates the reca- 
pitulations of that apostasy, taken in its full 
extent, which occurred at the beginning, during 
the intermediate periods, and which shall take 
place at the end),—JI do not know how it is 
that some have erred following the ordinary 
mode of speech, and have vitiated the middle 
number in the name, deducting the amount of 
fifty from it, so that instead of six decads they 
will have it that there is but one. [I am in- 
clined to think that this occurred through the 
fault of the copyists, as is wont to happen, since 
numbers also are expressed by letters; so that 
the Greek letter which expresses the number 
sixty was easily expanded into the letter Iota of 
the Greeks.]+ Others then received this read- 





3 év maou Tots crovdaios Kai apxaiots avrrypddots, This pas- 
sage is interesting, as showing how very soon the autographs cf the 
New Testament must have perished, and various readings crept into 
the mss. of the canonical books. 

4 That is, 2 into EI, according to Harvey, who considers the whole 
of this clause as an evident interpolation. Tt does not occur in the 

reek here preserved by Eusebius (Ast. Ecci., v. 8). 


IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


559 





ing without examination ; some in their simpli- 
city, and upon their own responsibility, making 
use of this number expressing one decad ; while 
some, in their inexperience, have ventured to 
seek out a name which should contain the erro- 
neous and spurious number. Now, as regards 
those who have done this in simplicity, and with- 
out evil intent, we are at liberty to assume that 
pardon will be granted them by God. But as 
for those who, for the sake of vainglory, lay it 
down for certain that names containing the spu- 
rious number are to be accepted, and affirm that 
this name, hit upon by themselves, is that of 
him who is to come; such persons shall not 
come forth without loss, because they have led 
into error both themselves and those who con- 
fided in them. Now, in the first place, it is loss 
to wander from the truth, and to imagine that 
as being the case which is not; then again, as 
there shall: be no light punishment [inflicted] 
upon him who either adds or subtracts anything 
from the Scripture,t under that such a person 
must necessarily fall. Moreover, another dan- 
ger, by no means trifling, shall overtake those 
who falsely presume that they know the name of 
Antichrist. For if these men assume one [num- 
ber], when this [Antichrist] shall come having 
another, they will be easily led away by him, as 
supposing him not to be the expected one, who 
must be guarded against. 

2. These men, therefore, ought to learn [what 
really is the state of the case], and go back to 
the true number of the name, that they be not 
reckoned among false prophets. But, knowing 
the sure number declared by Scripture, that is, 
six hundred sixty and six, let them await, in the 
first place, the division of the kingdom into ten ; 
then, in the next place, when these kings are 
reigning, and beginning to set their affairs in or- 
der, and advance their kingdom, [let them learn ] 
to acknowledge that he who shall come claiming 
the kingdom for himself, and shall terrify those 
men of whom we have been speaking, having a 
name containing the aforesaid number, is truly 
the abomination of desolation. This, too, the 
apostle affirms: ‘When they shall say, Peace 
and safety, then sudden destruction shall come 
upon them.”? And Jeremiah does not merely 
point out his sudden coming, but he even in- 
dicates the tribe from which he shall come, 
where he says, “We shall hear the voice of 
his swift horses from Dan; the whole earth 
shall be moved by the voice of the neighing of 
his galloping horses: he shall also come and 
devour the earth, and the fulness thereof, the 
city also, and they that dwell therein.” 3 This, 
too, is the reason that this tribe is not reckoned 
OS i 


1 Rey. xxii. 19. 
2 x Thess. v. 3. 
3 Jer. viii. 16. 








in the Apocalypse along with those which are 
saved.te 

3. It is therefore more certain, and less haz- 
ardous, to await the fulfilment of the prophecy, 
than to be making surmises, and casting about 
for any names that may present themselves, in- 
asmuch as many names can be found possessing 
the number mentioned ; and the same question 
will, after all, remain unsolved. For if there are 
many names found possessing this number, it will 
be asked which among them shall the coming 
man bear. It is not through a want of names 
containing the number of that name that I say 
this, but on account of the fear of God, and zeal 
for the truth: for the name Zvanthas (EYAN- 
@A3S) contains the required number, but I make 
no allegation regarding it. Then also Laveinos 
(AATEINOS) has the number six hundred and 
sixty-six ; and it is a very probable [solution], 
this being the name of the last kingdom [of the 
four seen by Daniel]. For the Latins are they 
who at present bear rule:5 I will not, however, 
make any boast over this [coincidence]. estan 
too, (TEITAN, the first syllable being written 
with the two Greek vowels « and :), among all 
the names which are found among us, is rather 
worthy of credit. For it has in itself the pre- 
dicted number, and is composed of six letters, 
each syllable containing three letters ; and [the 
word itself] is ancient, and removed from ordi- 
nary use; for among our kings we find none 
bearing this name Titan, nor have any of the 
idols which are worshipped in public among the 
Greeks and barbarians this appellation. Among 
many persons, too, this name is accounted divine, 
so that even the sun is termed “Titan” by those 
who do now possess [the rule]. This word, too, 
contains a certain outward appearance of ven- 
geance, and of one inflicting merited punishment 
because he (Antichrist) pretends that he vindi- 
cates the oppressed.° And besides this, it is 
an ancient name, one worthy of credit, of royal 
dignity, and still further, a name belonging to a 
tyrant. Inasmuch, then, as this name “Titan” 
has so much to recommend it, there is a strong 
degree of probability, that from among the many 
[names suggested], we infer, that perchance he 
who is to come shall be called “Titan.” We 
will not, however, incur the risk of pronouncing 
positively as to the name of Antichrist ; for if it 
were necessary that his name should be distinctly 
revealed in this present time, it would have been 
announced by him who beheld the apocalyptic 
vision. For that was seen no very long time 





4 Rev. vii. 5-7. [The Danites (though not all) corrupted the 
Hebrew church and the Levitical priesthood, by image-worship, 
(Judg. xviii.), and forfeited the blessings of the old covenant. ] 

5 [A very pregnant passage, as has often been noted. But let us 
imitate the pious reticence with which this section concludes. } F 

6 Massuet here quotes Cicero and Ovid in proof of the sun being 
termed Tztax. The Titans waged war against the gods, to avenge 
themselves upon Saturn. 


560 





since, but almost in our day, towards the end of 
Domitian’s reign. ' 

4. But he indicates the number of the name 
now, that when this man comes we may avoid 
him, being aware who he is: the name, however, 
is suppressed, because it is not worthy of being 
proclaimed by the Holy Spirit. For if it had been 
declared by Him, he (Antichrist) might perhaps 
continue for along period. But now as “he was, 
and is not, and shall ascend out of the abyss, and 
goes into perdition,’‘ as one who has no ex- 
istence ; so neither has his name been declared, 
for the name of that which does not exist is not 
proclaimed. But when this Antichrist shall have 
devastated all things in this world, he will reign 
for three years and six months, and sit in the 
temple at Jerusalem; and then the Lord will 
come from heaven in the clouds, in the glory of 
the Father, sending this man and those who fol- 
low him into the lake of fire; but bringing in 
for the righteous the times of the kingdom, that 
is, the rest, the hallowed seventh day; and re- 
storing to Abraham the promised inheritance, in 
which kingdom the Lord declared, that “ many 
coming from the east and from the west should 
sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” ? 


CHAP. XXXI.— THE PRESERVATION OF OUR BODIES 
IS CONFIRMED BY THE RESURRECTION AND AS- 
CENSION OF CHRIST : THE SOULS OF THE SAINTS 
DURING THE INTERMEDIATE PERIOD ARE IN A 
STATE OF EXPECTATION OF THAT TIME WHEN 


THEY SHALL RECEIVE THEIR PERFECT AND CON- | 


SUMMATED GLORY. 


1. Since, again, some who are reckoned among 
the ofthodds go beyond the pre-arranged plan 
for thé exaltation of the just, and are ignorant 
of the methods by which they are disciplined 
beforehand for incorruption, they thus entertain 
heretical opinions. For the heretics, despising 
the handiwork of God, and not admitting the 
salvation of their flesh, while they also treat the 
promise of God contemptuously, and pass be- 
yond God altogether in the sentiments they 
form, affirm that immediately upon their death 
they shall pass above the heavens and the Demi- 
urge, and go to the Mother (Achamoth) or to 
that Father whom they have feigned. Those 
persons, therefore, who disallow a resurrection 
affecting the whole man (umiversam reprobant 
resurrectionem), and as far as in them lies 
remove it from the midst [of the Christian 
scheme], how can they be wondered at, if again 
they know nothing as to the plan of the resur- 
rection? For they do not choose to under- 
stand, that if these things are as they say, the 
Lord Himself, in whom they profess to believe, 
did not rise again upon the third day; but 





i Rey. xvii. 8. 
2 Matt. viii, rx, 





IRENAZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





immediately upon His expiring on the cross, 
undoubtedly departed on high, leaving His body 
to the earth. But the case was, that for three 
days He dwelt in the place where the dead were, 
as the prophet says concerning Him: “ And the 
Lord remembered His dead saints who slept 
formerly in the land of sepulture ; and He de- 
scended to them, to rescue and save them.’’3 
And the Lord Himself says, “ As Jonas remained 
three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, 
so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the 
earth.” 4 Then also the apostle says, ‘ But when 
He ascended, what is it but that He also de- 
scended into the lower parts of the earth?” 
This, too, David says when prophesying of Him, 
“And thou hast delivered my soul from the 
nethermost hell ;””® and on His rising again the 
third day, He said to Mary, who was the first to 
see and to worship Him, “Touch Me not, for I 
have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to 
the disciples, and say unto them, I ascend unto 
My Father, and unto your Father.’”’7 

2. If, then, the Lord observed the law of the 
dead, shat He might become the first-begotten 
from the dead, and tarried until the third day 
‘in the lower_parts of the earth ;”® then after- 
wards rising in the flesh, so that He even showed 
the print of the nails to His disciples,? He thus 
ascended to the Father ;— [if all these things 
occurred, I say], how must these men not be 
put to confusion, who allege that “the lower 
parts ” refer to this world of ours, but that their 
inner man, leaving the body here, ascends into 
the super-celestial place? For as the Lord 
“went away in the midst of the shadow of 
death,” *° where the souls of the dead were, yet 
afterwards arose in the body, and after the resur- 
rection was taken up [into heaven], it is mani- 
fest that the souls of His disciples also, upon 
whose account the Lord underwent these things, 
shall go away into the invisible place allotted to 
them by God, and there remain until the resur- 
rection, awaiting that event; then receiving 
their bodies, and rising in their entirety, that is 


bodily, just as the Lord arose, they shall come 
thus into the presence of God. “For no dis- 
ciple is above the Master, but every one that is 
perfect shall be as his Master.” ** As our Master, 
therefore, did not at once depart, taking flight 
[to heaven], but awaited the time of His resur- 
rection prescribed by the Father, which had 
been also shown forth through Jonas, and rising 
again after three days was taken up [to heaven] 





3 See the note, book iii. xx. 4, 
4 Matt. xi. 40. 

5 Eph. iv. 9. 

6 Ps. Ixxxvi. 23. 

7 John xx. 17. 

8 Eph. iv. 9. 

9 John xx. 20, ay. 

10 Ps, xxiii. 4. 

11 Luke vi. 40, 


IRENZZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


561 





So ought we also to await the time of our resur- 
rection prescribed by God and foretold by the 
prophets, and so, rising, be taken up, as many 
a8 “sh Lord shall account worthy of this [privi- 
ege ].! 


CHAP. XXXII.—IN THAT FLESH IN WHICH THE 
SAINTS HAVE SUFFERED SO MANY AFFLICTIONS, 
THEY SHALL RECEIVE THE FRUITS OF THEIR 
LABOURS } ESPECIALLY SINCE ALL CREATION 
WAITS FOR THIS, AND GOD PROMISES IT TO 
ABRAHAM AND HIS SEED. 


* 

1. Inasmuch, therefore, as the( opinions of cer- 
tain [orthodox persons ] are derivettfrom heretical 
discourses, they are both ignorant of God’s dis- 
pensations, and of the mystery of the resurrec- 
tion of the just, and of the [earthly] kingdom 
which is the commencement of incorruption, by 
means of which kingdom those who shall be 
worthy are accustomed gradually to partake of 
the divine nature (capere Deum?) ; and it is 
necessary to tell them respecting those things, 
that it behoves the righteous first to receive the 
promise of the inheritance which God promised 
to the fathers, and to reign in it, when they rise 
again to behold God in this creation which is 
renovated, and that the judgment should take 
place afterwards. For it is just that in that very 
creation in which they toiled or were afflicted, 
being proved in every way by suffering, they 
should receive the reward of their suffering ; 
and that in the creation in which they were slain 
because of their love to God, in that they should 
be revived again; and that in the creation in 
“which they endured servitude, in that they should 
reign. For God is rich in all things, and all 
things are His. It is fitting, therefore, that the 
creation itself, being restored to its primeval 
condition, should without restraint be under the 
dominion of the righteous ; and the apostle has 
made this plain in the Epistle to the Romans, 
when he thus speaks: “For the expectation of 
the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the 
sons of God. For the creature has been sub- 
jected to vanity, uot willingly, but by reason of 
him who hath subjected the same in hope; 
since the creature itself shall also be delivered 
from the bondage of corruption into the glorious 
liberty of the sons of God.” 3 

2. Thus, then, the promise of God, which He 
gave to Abraham, remains stedfast. For thus 
He said: “Lift up thine eyes, and look from 
this place where now thou art, towards the north 


oe 


1 The five following chapters were omitted in the earlier editions, 
but added by Feuardentius. Most MsS., too, did, not contain them. 
It is pinewns A that the scribes of the middle ages rejected them on 
account of their inculcating millenarian notions, which had been long 
extinct in the Church. Quotations from these five chapters have 
been collected by Harvey from Syriac and Armenian Mss. lately come 
to light. 

FOr, “ gradually to comprehend God.” 
3 Rom. viii. 19, etc. 





and south, and east and west. For all the earth 
which thou seest, I will give to thee and to thy 
seed, even for ever.’4 And again He says, 
“ Arise, and go through the length and breadth 
of the land, since I will give it unto thee;’5 
and [yet] he did not receive an inheritance in 
it, not even a footstep, but was always a stranger 
and a pilgrim therein.© And upon the death of 
Sarah his wife, when the Hittites were willing to 
bestow upon him a place where he might bury 
her, he declined it as a gift, but bought the 
burying-place (giving for it four hundred talents 
of silver) from Ephron the son of Zohar the 
Hittite? Thus did he await patiently the prom- 
ise of God, and was unwilling to appear to re- 
ceive from men, what God had promised to give 
him, when He said again to him as follows: “I 
will give this land to thy seed, from the river of 
Egypt even unto the great river Euphrates.” ® 
If, then, God promised him the inheritance of 
the land, yet he did not receive it during all the 
time of his sojourn there, it must be, that to- 
gether with his seed, that is, those who fear 
God and believe in Him, he shall receive it at 
the resurrection of the just. For his seed is the 
Church, which receives the adoption to God 
through the Lord, as John the. Baptist said: 
“For God is able from the stones to raise up 
children to Abraham.’’9 Thus also the apostle 
says in the Epistle to the Galatians: “ But ye, 
brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of the 
promise.” And again, in the same Epistle, he 
plainly declares that they who have believed in 
Christ do receive Christ, the promise to Abraham 
thus saying, “The promises were spoken to 
Abraham, and to his seed. Now He does not 
say, And of seeds, as if [He spake] of many, 
but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” ™ 
And again, confirming his former words, he says, 
“Even as Abraham: believed God, and it was 
accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye 
therefore, that they which are of faith are the 
children of Abraham. But the Scripture, fore- 
seeing that God would justify the heathen through 
faith, declared to Abraham beforehand, That in 
thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they 
which are of faith shall be blessed with faithful 
Abraham.” 2 Thus, then, they who are of faith 
shall be blessed with faithful Abraham, and these 
are the children of Abraham. Now God made 
promise of the earth to Abraham and his seed ; 
yet neither Abraham nor his seed, that is, those 
who are justified by faith, do now receive any 


EEE 


4 Gen. xiii. 13, 14. 

5 Gen. xiii. 17, ; 

6 Acts vii. 5; Heb. xi. 13. 
7 Gen. xxiil. 11. 

8 Gen. xv. 13. 

9 Luke iii. 8. 

to Gal. iv. 28. 

It Gal. iii. 16. 

12 Gal. iii. 6, ete. 


562 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





inheritance in it; but they shall receive it at the 
resurrection of the just. For God is true and 
faithful ; and on this account He said, “ Blessed 
are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” * 


CHAP. XXXII]. — FURTHER PROOFS OF THE SAME 
PROPOSITION, DRAWN FROM THE PROMISES MADE 
BY CHRIST, WHEN HE DECLARED THAT HE WOULD 
DRINK OF THE FRUIT OF THE VINE WITH HIS 
DISCIPLES IN HIS FATHER’S KINGDOM, WHILE AT 
THE SAME TIME HE FROMISED TO REWARD 
THEM AN HUNDRED-FOLD, AND TO MAKE THEM 
PARTAKE OF BANQUETS. THE BLESSING PRO- 
NOUNCED BY JACOB HAD POINTED OUT THIS 
ALREADY, AS PAPIAS AND THE ELDERS HAVE 
INTERPRETED IT. 


1. For this reason, when about to undergo 
His sufferings, that He might declare to Abra- 
ham and those with him the glad tidings of the 
inheritance being thrown open, [Christ], after 
He had given thanks while holding the cup, and 
had drunk of it, and given it to the disciples, 
said to them: “ Drink ye all of it: this is My 
blood of the new covenant, which shall be shed 
for many for the remission of sins. But I say 
unto you, I will not drink henceforth of the fruit 
of this vine, until that day when I will drink it 
new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” ?_ Thus, 
then, He will Himself renew the inheritance of 
the earth, and will re-organize the mystery of the 
glory of [His] sons; as David says, “He who 
hath renewed the face of the earth.”3 He 
promised to drink of the fruit of the vine with 
His disciples, thus indicating both these points : 
the inheritance of the earth in which the new 
fruit of the vine is drunk, and the resurrection 
of His disciples in the flesh. For the new flesh 
which rises again is the same which also received 
the new cup. And He cannot by any means be 
understood as drinking of the fruit of the vine 
when settled down with his [disciples] above in 
a super-celestial place ; nor, again, are they who 
drink it devoid of flesh, for to drink of that 
which flows from the vine pertains to flesh, and 
not spirit. 

2. And for this reason the Lord declared, 
“When thou makest a dinner or a supper, do 
not call thy friends, nor thy neighbours, nor thy 
kinsfolk, lest they ask thee in return, and so repay 
thee. But call the lame, the blind, and the poor, 
and thou shalt be blessed, since they cannot 
recompense thee, but a recompense shall be 
made thee at the resurrection of the just.” 4 
And again He says, “ Whosoever shall have left 
lands, or houses, or parents, or brethren, or chili- 
dren because of Me, he shall receive in this 
ee ete GR ee ee ee 


t Matt. v. 5. 

2 Matt. xxvi. 27. 

3 Ps. civ. 30. 

4 Luke xiv. r2, rg. 

















world an hundred-fold, and in that to come he 
shall inherit eternal life.’5 For what are the 
hundred-fold [rewards] in this world, the enter- 
tainments given to the poor, and the suppers for 
which a return is made? ‘These are [to take 
place] in the times of the kingdom, that is, upon 
the seventh day, which has been sanctified, in 
which God rested from all the works which He 
created, which is the true Sabbath of the right- 
eous, which they shall not be engaged in any 
earthly occupation; but shall have a table at 
hand prepared for them by God, supplying them 
with all sorts of dishes. 

3. The blessing of Isaac with which he blessed 
his younger son Jacob has the same meaning, 
when he says, “ Behold, the smell of my son is 
as the smell of a full field which the Lord has 
blessed.”’® But “the field is the world.”7 And 
therefore he added, “God give to thee of the 
dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, 
plenty of corn and wine. And let the nations 
serve thee, and kings bow down to thee ; and be 
thou lord over thy brother, and thy father’s sons 
shall bow down to thee: cursed shall be he 
who shall curse thee, and blessed shall be he 
who shall bless thee.”*® If any one, then, does 
not accept these things as referring to the ap- 
pointed kingdom, he must fall into much contra- 
diction and contrariety, as is the case with the 
Jews, who are involved in absolute perplexity. 
For not only did not the nations in this life serve 
this Jacob; but even after he had received the 
blessing, he himself going forth [from his home], 
served his uncle Laban the Syrian for twenty 
years ;9 and not only was he not made lord of 
his brother, but he did himself bow down before 
his brother Esau, upon his return from Mesopo- 
tamia to his father, and offered many gifts to 
him.’? Moreover, in what way did he inherit 
much corn and wine here, he who emigrated to 
Egypt because of the famine which possessed 
the land in which he was dwelling, and became 
subject to Pharaoh, who was then ruling over 
Egypt? The predicted blessing, therefore, be- 
longs unquestionably to the times of the king- 
dom, when the righteous shall bear rule upon 
their rising from the dead ;'' when also the crea- 
tion, having been renovated and set free, shall 
fructify with an abundance of all kinds: of food, 
from the dew of heaven, and from the fertility 
of the earth: as the who saw John, the 
disciple of the Lord, dthat they had heard 












5 Matt. xix. 29; Luke xviii. 29, 30. 

6 Gen. xxvii. 27, etc. 

7 Matt. xiii. 38. 

8 Gen. xxvii. 28, 29. 

9 Gen. xxxi. 41. 

to Gen. xxxiii, 3. ‘ 

_ *! From this to the end of the section there is an Armenian ver- 
sion extant, to be found in the SpzezZ. Solesm. i. p. 1, edited by M. 
Pitra, Paris 1852, and which was taken by him from an Armenian Ms. 
in the Mechitarist Library at Venice, described as being of the 
twelfth century. , 


IRENZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


563 


I I ee 


from him how the Lord used to teach in regard 
to these times, and say: The days will come, 
in which vines shall grow, each having ten thou- 
sand branches, and in each branch ten thousand 
twigs, and in each true ' twig ten thousand shoots, 
and in each one of the shoots ten thousand 
clusters, and on every one of the clusters ten 
thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed 
will give five and twenty metretes of wine. And 
when any one of the saints shall lay hold of a 
cluster, another shall cry out, “I am a better 
cluster, take me ; bless the Lord through me.” 
In like manner [the Lord declared] that a grain 
of wheat would produce ten thousand ears, and 
that every ear should have ten thousand grains, 
and every grain would yield ten pounds (guingue 
bilibres) of clear, pure, fine flour; and that all 
other fruit-bearing trees,3 and seeds and grass, 
would produce in similar proportions (secundum 
congruentiam tis conseguentem) ; and that all 
animals feeding Saat on the productions of 
the earth, should [in those days] become peace- 
ful and harmonious among each other, and be 
in perfect subjection to man. 

4. And these-things are borne witness to in 
writing by apis) the hearer of John, and a 
companion of=Polycarp, in his fourth book ; for 
there were five books compiled (cvvreraypéva) 
by him.* And he says in addition, “ Now these 
things are credible to believers.” And he says 
that, ‘‘ when the traitor Judas did not give credit 
to them, and put the question, ‘How then can 
things about to bring forth so abundantly be 
wrought by the Lord?’ the Lord declared, ‘ They 
who shall come to these [times] shall see.’” 
When prophesying of these times, therefore, 
Esaias says: ‘‘'The wolf also shall feed with the 
lamb, and the leopard shall take his rest with 
the kid ; the calf also, and the bull, and the lion 
shall eat together; and a little boy shall lead 
them. The ox and the bear shall feed together, 
and their young ones shall agree together; and 
the lion shall eat straw as well as the ox. And 
the infant boy shall thrust his hand into the asp’s 
den, into the nest also of the adder’s brood ; 
and they shall do no harm, nor have power to 
hurt anything in my holy mountain.” And again 
he says, in recapitulation, “Wolves and lambs 
shall then browse together, and the lion shall eat 
straw like the ox, and the serpent earth as if it 
were bread ; and they shall neither hurt nor an- 
noy anything in my holy mountain, saith the 
Lord.”5 I am quite aware that some persons 
endeavour to refer these words to the case of 
savage men, both of different nations and various 





1 This word “ true” is not found in the Armenian. 

2 Or, following Arm. vers., “ But if any one shall lay hold of an 
holy cluster.” : n 

3 The Arm. vers. is heré followed; the old Latin reads, “‘ Et re- 
liqua autem voma.” : 
1 4 [See PP: 151-154, this volume. | 

5 sa. xl 6, etc. 











habits, who come to believe, and when they have 
believed, act in harmony with the righteous. 
But although this is [true] now with regard to 
some men coming from various nations to the 
harmony of the faith, nevertheless in the resur- 
rection of the just [the words shall also apply] 
to those animals mentioned. For God is rich 
in all things. And it is right that when the crea- 
tion is restored, all the animals should obey and 
be in subjection to man, and revert to the food 
originally given by God (for they had been origi- 
nally subjected in obedience to Adam), that is, 
the productions of the earth. But some other 
occasion, and not the present, is [to be sought] 
for showing that the lion shall [then] feed on 
straw. And this indicates the large size and rich 
quality of the fruits. For if that animal, the 
lion, feeds upon straw [at that period], of what 
a quality must the wheat itself be whose straw 
shall serve as suitable food for lions? 


CHAP. XXXIV.— HE FORTIFIES HIS OPINIONS WITH 
REGARD TO THE TEMPORAL AND EARTHLY KING- 
DOM OF THE SAINTS AFTER THEIR RESURRECTION, 
BY THE VARIOUS TESTIMONIES OF ISAIAH, EZE- 
KIEL, JEREMIAH, AND DANIEL; ALSQ BY THE 
PARABLE OF THE SERVANTS WATCHING, TO WHOM 
THE LORD PROMISED THAT HE WOULD MINISTER. 


1. Then, too, Isaiah himself has plainly de- 
clared that there shall be joy of this nature at 
the resurrection of the just, when he says; “ The 
dead shall rise again ; those, too, who are in the 
tombs shall arise, and those who are in the earth 
shall rejoice. For the dew from Thee is health 
to them.” ® And this again Ezekiel also says: 
“ Behold, I will open your tombs, and will bring 
you forth out of your graves ; when I will draw my 
people from the sepulchres, and I will pyt breath 
in you, and ye shall live; and I will place you 
on your own land, and ye shall know that I am 
the Lorp.”7 And again the same speaks thus: 
“These things saith the Lorp, I will gather 
Israel from all nations whither they have been 
driven, and I shall be sanctified in them in the 
sight of the sons of the nations: and they shall 
dwell in their own land, which I gave to my ser- 
vant Jacob. And they shall dwell in it in peace ; 
and they shall build houses, and plant vineyards, 
and dwell in hope, when I shall cause judgment 
to fall among all who have dishonoured them, 
among those who encircle them round about ; 
and they shall know that I am the Lorp their 
God, and the God of their fathers.”* Now I 
have shown a short time ago that the church is 
the seed of Abraham; and for this reason, that 
we may know that He who in the New Testa- 
ment “raises up from the stones children unto 








6 Isa. xxvi. 19. 
? Ezek. xxxvii. 12, etc. 
8 Kzek. xxviii. 25, 26. 


564 





IREN4ZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


Abraham,” ! is He who will gather, according to| Him.”® And lest the promise named should 


the Old Testament, those that shall be saved 
from all the nations, Jeremiah says: “ Behold, 
the days come, saith the Lor», that they shall 
no more say, The Lorp liveth, who led the chil- 
dren of Israel from the north, and from every 
region whither they had been driven; He will 
restore them to their own land which He gave 
to their fathers.” ? 





2. That the whole creation shall, according to 


be understood as referring to this time, it was 
declared to the prophet: “ And come thou, and 
stand in thy lot at the consummation of the 
days.” 9 

3. Now, thatthe promises were not announced 


to rophets and the fathers alone, but to the 
| Churche$ united to these from the nations, whom 
so the 


Spirit terms “the islands” (both be- 
cause they are established in the midst of turbu- 


God’s will, obtain a vast increase, that it may |ience, suffer the storm of blasphemies, exist as 4 
bring forth and sustain fruits such [as we have | harbour of safety to those in peril, and are the 
mentioned], Isaiah declares: “And there shall | refuge of those who love the height [of heaven], 
be upon every high mountain, and upon every | and strive to avoid Bythus, that is, the depth of 
prominent hill, water running everywhere in that | error), Jeremiah thus declares: “ Hear the word 
day, when many shall perish, when walls shall | of the Lorp, ye nations, and declare it to the 
fall. And the light of the moon shall be as the | isles afar off; say ye, that the Lorn will scatter 
light of the sun, seven times that of the day, | Israel, He will gather him, and keep him, as one 
when He shall heal the anguish of His. people, | feeding his flock of sheep. For the Lord hath 
and do away with the pain of His stroke.’’3 | redeemed Jacob, and rescued him from the hand 
Now “the pain of the stroke” means that in-|of one stronger than he. And they shall come 
flicted at the beginning upon disobedient man |and rejoice in Mount Zion, and shall come to 
in. Adam, that is, death; which [stroke] the | what is good, and into a land of wheat, and wine, 
Lord will heal when He raises us from the dead, | and fruits, of animals and of sheep; and their 
and restores the inheritance of the fathers, as|soul shall be as a tree bearing fruit, and they 


Isaiah again says: “ And thou shalt be confident 
in the Lorp, and He will cause thee to pass over 
the whole earth, and feed thee with the inherit- 
ance of Jacob thy father.”4 This is what the 
Lord declared : “ Happy are those servants whom 
the Lord when He cometh shall find watching. 
Verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Him- 
self, and make them to sit down [to meat], and 
will come forth and serve them. And if He 
shall come in the evening watch, and find them 
so, blessed are they, because He shall make 
thém sit down, and minister to them; or if this 
be in the second, or it be in the third, blessed 
are they.”’5 Again John also says the very same 
in the Apocalypse : “ Blessed and holy is he who 
has part in the first_resurrection.”° Then, too, 
Isaiah has declared the timé when these events 





shall occur; he says: “And I said, Lord, how 
long? Until the cities be wasted without inhab- 
itant, and the houses be without men, and the 
earth be left a desert. And after these things 
the Lorp shall remove us men far away (donge 
nos factet Deus homines), and those who shall 





remain shall multiply upon the earth.’7 Then 
Daniel also says this very thing: 
kingdom and dominion, and the 


shall hunger no more. At that time also shall 
the virgins rejoice in the company of the young 
men: the old men, too, shall be glad, and I will 
turn their sorrow into joy ; and I will make them 
exult, and will magnify them, and satiate the 
souls of the priests the sons of Levi; and my 
people shall be satiated with my goodness,” 
Now, in the preceding book! I have shown that 
ali the disciples of the Lord are Levites and 
priests, they who used in the temple to profane 
the Sabbath, but are blameless. Promises of 
such a nature, therefore, do indicate in the clear- 
est manner the feasting of that creation in the 
kingdom of the righteous, which God promises 
that He will Himself serve. 

4. Then again, speaking of Jerusalem, and of 
Him reigning there, Isaiah declares, “Thus saith 
the Lorp, Happy is he who hath seed in Zion, 
and servants in Jerusalem. Behold, a righteous 
king shall reign, and princes shall rule with judg- 
ment.” "3 And with regard to the foundation on 
which it shall be rebuilt, he says: “Behold, I 
will lay in order for thee a carbuncle stone, and 
sapphire for thy foundations ; and I will lay thy 


“And the | ramparts with jasper, and thy gates with crystal, 
greatness of| and thy wall with choice stones: and all thy 


those under the heaven, is given to the saints | children shall be taught of God, and great shall 


of the Most High God, whose kingdom is ever- 
lasting, and all dominions shall serve and obey 





1 Matt. iii. 9. 

2 Jer, xxiii. 7, 6. 
3 Isa. xxx, 25, 26, 
4 Isa. lvili. 14. 

5 Luke xii. 37, 38. 
© Rev. xx. 6. 

7 Isa. vi. 11. 


be the peace of thy children ; and in righteous- 
ness shalt thou be built up.”" And yet again 


ES 


8 Dan, vii. 27. 
9 Dan. xii. 13. 


to dr. XXxi. Io, etc. 
11 : 


IREN/EUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


565 


does he say the same thing: “Behold, I make | tercourse and communion with the holy angels, 


Jerusalem a rejoicing, and my people [a joy] ; 
for the voice of weeping shall be no more heard 
in her, nor the voice of crying. Also there shall 
not be there any immature [one], nor an old 
man who does not fulfil his time: for the youth 
shall be of a hundred years ; and the sinner shall 
die a hundred years old, yet shall be accursed. 
And they shall build houses, and inhabit them 
themselves ; and shall plant vineyards, and eat 
the fruit of them themselves, and shall drink 
wine. And they shall not build, and others 
inhabit ; neitner shall they prepare the vineyard, 
and others eat. For as the days of the tree of 
life shall be the days of the people in thee ; for 
the works of their hands shall endure.” ! 


CHAP. XXXV.— HE CONTENDS THAT THESE TESTI- 
MONIES ALREADY ALLEGED CANNOT BE UNDER- 
STOOD ALLEGORICALLY OF CELESTIAL BLESSINGS, 
BUT THAT THEY SHALL HAVE THEIR FULFILMENT 
AFTER THE COMING OF ANTICHRIST, AND THE 
RESURRECTION, IN THE ‘TERRESTRIAL JERUSALEM. 
TO THE FORMER PROPHECIES HE SUBJOINS OTHERS 
DRAWN FROM ISAIAH, JEREMIAH, AND THE APOC- 
ALYPSE OF JOHN. 


1. If, however, any shall endeavour to alleg- 
orize [prophecies] of this kind, they shall not 
be found consistent with themselves in all points, 
and shall be confuted by the teaching of the 
very expressions [in question]. For example: 
“When the cities” of the Gentiles “shall be 
desolate, so that they be not inhabited, and the 
houses so that there shall be no men in them, 
and the land shall be left desolate.”? “For, 
behold,” says Isaiah, “the day of the Lorp 
cometh past remedy, full of fury and wrath, to 
lay waste the city of the earth, and to root sin- 
ners out of it.”3 And again he says, “ Let him 
be taken away, that he behold not the glory of 
God.”* And when these things are done, he 
says, ‘God will remove men far away, and those 
that are left shall multiply in the earth.”’5 “And 
they shall build houses, and shall inhabit them 
themselves: and plant vineyards, and eat of 
them themselves.”°® For all these and other 
words were unquestionably spoken in reference 
to the resurrection of the just, which takes place 
after the coming of Antichrist, and the destruc- 
tion of all nations under his rule ; in [the times 
of] which [resurrection] the righteous shall 
reign in the earth, waxing stronger by the sight 
of the Lord: and through Him they shall be- 
come accustomed to partake in the glory of God 
the Father, and shall enjoy in the kingdom in- 


— 





I Tsa, 
® Isa. 


Ixv. 18. 
vi. 31. 

3 Isa. xiii. 9. 

4 Isa. xxvi. 10. 
5 Isa. vi. 12. 

6 sa, Ixv, 2t. 








and union with spiritual beings; and [with re- 
spect to] those whom the Lord shall find in the 
flesh, awaiting Him from heaven, and who have 
suffered tribulation, as well as escaped the hands 
of the Wicked one. For it is in reference to 
them that the prophet says : “ And those that are 
left shall multiply upon the earth.” And Jere- 
miah 7 the prophet has pointed out, that as many 
believers as God has prepared for this purpose, 
to multiply those left upon earth, should both be 
under the rule of the saints to minister to this 
Jerusalem, and that [His] kingdom shall be in 
it, saying, “ Look around Jerusalem towards the 
east, and behold the joy which comes to thee 
from God Himself. Behold, thy sons shall come 
whom thou hast sent forth: they shall come in a 
band from the east even unto the west, by the 
word of that Holy One, rejoicing in that splen- 
dour which is from thy God. O Jerusalem, put 
off thy robe of mourning and of affliction, and 
put on that beauty of eternal splendour from thy 
God. Gird thyself with the double garment of 
that righteousness proceeding from thy God ; 
place the mitre of eternal glory upon thine head. 
For God will show thy glory to the whole earth 
under heaven. For thy name shall for ever be 
called by God Himself, the peace of righteous- 
ness and glory to him that worships God. Arise, 
Jerusalem, stand on high, and look towards the 
east, and behold thy sons from the rising of the 
sun, even to the west, by the word of that Holy 
One, rejoicing in the very remembrance of God. 
For the footmen have gone forth from thee, 
while they were drawn away by the enemy. 
God shall bring them in to thee, being borne 
with glory as the throne of a kingdom. For 
God has decreed that every high mountain shall 
be brought low, and the eternal hills, and that 
the valleys be filled, so that the surface of the 
earth be rendered smooth, that Israel, the glory — 
of God, may walk in safety. The woods, too, 
shall make shady places, and every sweet-smell- 
ing tree shall be for Israel itself by the command 
of God. For God shall go before with joy in 
the light of His splendour, with the pity and 
righteousness which proceeds from Him.” 

2. Now all these things being such as they 
are, cannot be understood in reference to super- 
celestial matters; “for God,” it is said, “will 
show to the whole earth that is under heaven thy 
glory.”’ But in the times of the kingdom, the 
earth has been called again by Christ [to its 
pristine condition], and Jerusalem rebuilt after 
the pattern of the Jerusalem above, of which the 
prophet Isaiah says, “ Behold, I have depicted 
thy walls upon my hands, and thou art always in 





7 The long quotation following is not found in Jeremiah, but in 
the apocryphal book of Baruch, chap. iv. 36, etc., and the whole of 
ap. Vv. 


566 


my sight.”* And the apostle, too, writing to the 
Galatians, says in like manner, “ But the Jerusa- 
lem which is above is free, which is the mother 
of us all’? He does not say this with any 
thought of an erratic Aion, or of any other 
power which departed from the Pleroma, or of 
Prunicus, but of the Jerusalem which has been 
delineated on [God’s] hands. And in the Apoc- 
alypse John saw this new [Jerusalem] descend- 
ing upon the new earth.3 For after the times of 
the kingdom, he says, “I saw a great white 
throne, and Him who sat upon it, from whose 
face the earth fled away, and the heavens ; and 
there was no more place for them.”* And he sets 
. forth, too, the things connected with the general 
resurrection and the judgment, mentioning “ the 
dead, great and small.” “The sea,” he says, “ gave 
up the dead which it had in it, and death and hell 
delivered up the dead that they contained ; and 
the books were opened. Moreover,” he says, 
“the book of life was opened, and the dead were 
judged out of those things that were written in 
the books, according to their works ; and death 
and hell were sent into the lake of fire, the second 
death.” 5 Now this is what is called Gehenna, 
which the Lord styled eternal fire.° “ And if any 
one,” it is said, “was not found written in the 
book of life, he was sent into the lake of fire.” 7 
And after this, he says, “I saw a new heaven 
and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth 
have passed away ; also there was no more sea. 
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming 


down from heaven, as a bride adorned for her | 


husband.” “And I heard,” it is said, “a great 
voice from the throne, saying, Behold, the taber- 
nacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with 
them ; and they shall be His people, and God 
Himself shall be with them as their God. And 
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes ; 
and death shall be no more, neither sorrow, nor 
crying, neither shall there be any more pain, 
because the former things have passed away.” ® 
Isaiah also declares the very same: “For there 
shall be a new heaven anda new earth; and 
there shall be no remembrance of the former, 
neither shall the heart think about them, but 
they shall find in it joy and exultation.”9 Now 
this is what has been said by the apostle: “ For 
the fashion of this world passeth away.” '° To 
the same purpose did the Lord also declare, 
“ Heaven and earth shall pass away.” "!, When 
these things, therefore, pass away above the earth, 





T Isa, xlix. 16, 

2 Gal. iv. 26, 

3 Rev. xxi. 2. 

4 Rev. xx, 11. 

5 Rev. xx, 12-14, 
6 Matt. xxv. 4z. 
7 Rev, xx. 15. 

8 Rey. xxi. 1-4. 
9 Isa Ixv. 17, 18. 
107, Cor. ‘vil. 31. 
11 Matt. xxvi. 35. 








IRENAZUS AGAINST HERESIES. 


Noe ee 





John, the Lord’s disciple, says that the new 
Jerusalem above shall [then] descend, as a bride 
adorned for her husband ; and that this is the 
tabernacle of God, in which God will dwell with 
men. Of this Jerusalem the former one is an 
image — that Jerusalem of the former earth in 
which the righteous are disciplined beforehand 
for incorruption and prepared for salvation. And 
of this tabernacle Moses received the pattern 
in the mount ; * and nothing is capable of being 
allegorized, but all things are stedfast, and true, 
and substantial, having been made by God for 
righteous men’s enjoyment. For as it is God 
truly who raises up man, so also does man truly 
rise from the dead, and not allegorically, as I 
have shown repeatedly. And as he rises actually, 
so also shall he be actually disciplined before- 


hand for incorruption, and shall go forwards 


and flourish in the times of the kingdom, in order 

that he may be capable of receiving the glory 
of the Father. Then, when all things are made 

new, he shall truly dwell in the city of God. For 

it is said, “ He that sitteth on the throne said, 

Behold, I make all things new. And the Lord 

says, Write all this; for these words are faithful 

and true. And He said to me, They are done.” *3 

And this is the truth of the matter. 


CHAP. XXXVI.— MEN SHALL BE ACTUALLY RAISED : 
THE WORLD SHALL NOT BE ANNIHILATED ; BUT, 
THERE SHALL BE VARIOUS MANSIONS FOR THE 
SAINTS, ACCORDING TO THE RANK ALLOTTED TO 
EACH INDIVIDUAL. ALL THINGS SHALL BE SUB- 
JECT TO GOD THE FATHER, AND SO SHALL HE 
BE ALL IN ALL. 


1. For since there are real men,so must there 
also be a real establishment (p/antattonem), that 
they vanish not away among non-existent things, 
but progress among those which have an actual 
existence. For neither is the substance nor the 
essence of the creation annihilated (for faithful 
and true is He whovhas established it), but “ the 
Jashion of the world passeth away ;”’ 4 that is, 
those things among which transgression has oc- 
curred, since man has grown old in them. And 
therefore this [present] fashion has been formed 
temporary, God foreknowing all things; as I 
have pointed out in the preceding book,'s and 
have also shown, as far as was possible, the cause 
of the creation of this world of temporal things. 
But when this [present] fashion [of things] 
passes away, and man has been renewed, and 
flourishes in an incorruptible state, so as to pre- 
clude the possibility of becoming old, [then] 
there shall be the new heaven and the new 
earth, in which the new man shall remain [con- 


= 


12 Ex, xxv. 40. 

13 Rey. xxi. 5, 6. 
34 x Cor. vii. 31. 
38 Lib. iv. 5, 6, 


IRENAUS AGAINST HERESIES. 





tinually], always holding fresh converse with 
God. And since (07, that) these things shall 
ever continue without end, Isaiah declares, “ For 
as the new heavens and the new earth which I 
do make, continue in my sight, saith the Lorp, 
so shall your seed and your name remain.” ! 
And as the presbyters.say, Then those who are 
deemed worthy of an abode in heaven shall go 
there, others shall enjoy the delights of paradise, 
and others shall possess the splendour of the 
city ; for everywhere the Saviour? shall be seen 
according as they who see Him shall be worthy. 

2. [They say, moreover], that there is this 
distinction between the habitation of those who 
produce an hundred-fold, and that of those who 
produce sixty-fold, and that of those who pro- 
duce thirty-fold: for the first will be taken up 
into the heavens, the second will dwell in para- 
dise, the last will inhabit the city; and that it 
was on this account the Lord declared, “In My 
Father’s house are many mansions.”3 For all 
things belong to God, who supplies all with a 
suit ing-place ; even as His Word says, 
that a share is allotted to all by the Father, 
according as each person is or shall be worthy. 
And this is the couch on which the guests shall 
recline, having been invited to the wedding.+ 
The presbyters, the disciples of the apostles, 


affirm that this is the gradati d arrangement. 


of those who are saved, and that they advance 
through steps of this nature ; also that they as- 
cend through the Spirit to the Son, and through 
the Son to the Father, and that in due time the 
Son will yield up His work to the Father, even 
as it is said by the apostle, “For He must reign 
till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The 
last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.’’5 
For in the times of the kingdom, the righteous 
man who is upon the earth shall then forget to 
die. “ But when He saith, All things shall be 
subdued unto Him, it is manifest that He is 


1 Isa. Ixvi. 22. : 

2 Thus in a Greek fragment; in the Old Latin, Dexs. 
3 yobs xiv. 2. 

4 Matt. xxi. xo. 

5 1 Cor. xx. 25, 26. 





567 


excepted who did put all things under Him. 
And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, 
then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto 
Him who put all things under Him, that God 
may be all in all.’’® 

3. John, therefore, did distinctly foresee the 
first “ resurrection of the just,” 7 and the inherit- 
ance in the kingdom of the earth; and what 
the prophets have prophesied concerning it har- 
monize [with his vision]. For the Lord also 
taught these things, when He promised that He 
would have the mixed cup new with His disci- 
ples in the kingdom. The apostle, too, has 
confessed that the creation shall be free from 
the bondage of corruption, [so as to pass] into 
the liberty of the sons of God.’ And in all these 
things, and by them all, the same God the Father 
is manifested, who fashioned man, and gave 
promise of the inheritance of the earth to the 
fathers, who brought it (the creature) forth [from 
bondage] at the resurrection of the just, and ful- 
fils the promises for the kingdom of His Son; 
subsequently bestowing in a paternal manner 
those things which neither the eye has seen, nor 
the ear has heard, nor has [thought concerning 
them] arisen within the heart of man.9 For 
there is the one Son, who accomplished His 
Father’s will ; and one human race also in which 
the mysteries of God are wrought, “which the 
angels desire to look into ;”?° and they are not 
able to search out the wisdom of God, by means of 
which His handiwork, confirmed and incorpo- 
rated with His Son, is brought to perfection ; that 
His offspring, the First-begotten Word, should 
descend to the creature (/facturam), that is, to 
what had been moulded ( g/asma), and that it 
should be contained by Him; and, on the other 
hand, the creature should contain the Word, and 
ascend to Him, passing beyond the angels, and 
be made after the image and likeness of God. 


6 x Cor. xv. 27, 28. 

7 Luke xiv. 14. 

8 Rom. viii. 21. 

9 x Cor. ii. 9; Isa. Ixiv. 4. 

lo x Pet. i. 12. 

11 Grabe and others suppose that some part of the work has been 
lest, so that the above was not its original conclusion. 


FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOST WRITINGS OF IRENAUS. 





I. 


I apjure thee, who shalt transcribe this book,’ 
by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by His glorious 
appearing, when He comes to judge the living 
and the dead, that thou compare what thou hast 
transcribed, and be careful to set it right accord- 
ing to this copy from which thou hast tran- 
scribed’; also, that thou in like manner copy 
down this adjuration, and insert it in the tran- 
script. 

II. 

These? opinions, Florinus, that I may speak 
in mild terms, are not of sound doctrine ; these 
opinions are not consonant to the Church, and 
involve their votaries in the utmost impiety ; 
these opinions, even the heretics beyond the 
Church’s pale have never ventured to broach ; 
these opinions, those presbyters who preceded 
us, and who were conversant with the apostles, 
did not hand down to thee. For, while I was 
yet a boy, I saw thee in Lower Asia with Poly- 
carp, distinguishing thyself in the royal court,3 
and endeavouring to gain his approbation. For 
I have a more vivid recollection of what occurred 
at that time than of recent events (inasmuch as 
the experiences of childhood, keeping pace with 
the growth of the soul, become incorporated 
with it) ; so that I. can even describe the place 
where the blessed Polycarp used to sit and dis- 
course — his going out, too, and his coming in 
—his general mode of life and personal appear- 
ance, together with the discourses which he 
delivered to the people; also how he would 
speak of his familiar intercourse with John, and 
with the rest of those who had seen the Lord ; 
and how he would call their words to remem- 
brance. Whatsoever things he had heard from 
them respecting the Lord, both with regard to 


1 This fragment is quoted by Eusebius, Ast. Eccl., v. 20. It 
occurred at the close of the lost treatise of Irenzeus entitled De 
Ogdoade. 

2 This interesting extract we also owe to Eusebius, who (zt suf.) 
took it from the work De Ogdoade, written after this former friend of 
Irenzeus had lapsed to Valentinianism. Florinus had previously held 
that God was the author of evil, which sentiment Irenzus opposed in 
@ treatise, now lost, called mepi wovapyxias. 

Comp. p. 32, this volume, and Phil. iv. a2, 


568 











His miracles and His teaching, Polycarp having 
thus received [information] from the eye-wit- 
nesses of the Word of life, would recount them 
all in harmony with the Scriptures. These 
things, through God’s mercy which was upon 
me, I then listened to attentively, and treasured 
them up not on paper, but in my heart; and [ 
am continually, by God’s grace, revolving these 
things accurately in my mind. And I can bear 
witness before God, that if that blessed and apos- 
tolical presbyter had heard any such thing, he 
would have cried out, and stopped his ears, 
exclaiming as he was wont to do: “O good 
God, for what times hast Thou reserved me, 
that I should endure these things?” And he 
would have fled from the very spot where, sitting 
or standing, he had heard such words. This 
fact, too, can be made clear, from his Epistles 
which he despatched, whether to the neighbour- 
ing Churches to confirm them, or to certain of 
the brethren, admonishing and exhorting them. 


III. 


For ¢ the controversy is not merely as regards 
the day, but also as regards the form itself of 
the fast.5 For some consider themselves bound 
to fast one day, others two days, others still 
more, while others [do so during] forty: the di- 
urnal and the-nocturnal hours they measure out 
together as their [fasting] day. And this vari- 
ety among the observers [of the fasts] had not 
its origin in our time, but long before in that of 
our predecessors, some of whom probably, being 
not very accurate in their observance of it, 





4 See pp. 31 and 312, of this volume. We are indebted again to 
Eusebius for this valuable fragment from the Epistle of Irenzus to 
Victor Bishop of Rome (7st. Eccl., v.24; copied also by Nicephorus, 
iv. 39). It appears to have been a synodical epistle to the head of the 
Roman Church, the historian saying that it was written by Irenzus, 
“in the name of (€« rpoowmov) those brethren over whom he ruled 


throughout Gaul.” Neither are these expressions to be limited to the 


Church at Lyons, for the same authority records & 23) that it was 
the testimony ‘‘of the dioceses throughout Gaul, which Irenzus 
superintended”’ (Harvey). 
. 3 According to Harvey, the early paschal controversy resolved 
itself into two particulars: (a) as regards the precise day on which 
our Lord’s resurrection should be celebrated; (6) as regards the cus- 
tom of the fast preceding it. 

6 Both reading and punctuation are here subjects of controversy. 


We have followed Massuet and Harvey. 


FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOST WRITINGS OF IRENAUS. 


569 


ee ee 


handed down to posterity the custom as it had, 
through simplicity or private fancy, been [intro- 
duced among them]. And yet nevertheless all 
these lived in peace one with another, and we 
also keep peace together. Thus, in fact, the 
difference [in observing] the fast establishes 
the harmony of [our common] faith. And the 
presbyters preceding Soter in the government of 
the Church which thou dost now rule—I mean, 
Anicetus and Pius, Hyginus and Telesphorus, 
and Sixtus —did neither themselves observe it 
[after that fashion], nor permit those with them ? 
to do so. Notwithstanding this, those who did 
not keep [the feast in this way] were peacefully 
disposed towards those who came to them from 
other dioceses in which it was [so] observed, 
although such observance was [felt] in more 
decided contrariety [as presented] to those who 
did not fall in with it; and none were ever cast 
out [of the Church] for this matter. On the 
contrary, those presbyters who preceded thee, 
and who did not observe [this custom], sent the 
_Eucharist to those of other dioceses who did 
observe it3 And when the blessed” Polycar 

was sojourning in Rome in the time of Anicetus, 
although a slight controversy had arisen among 
them as to certain other points, they were at 
once well inclined towards each other [with re- 
gard to the matter in hand], not willing that any 
quarrel should arise between them upon this 
head. For neither could Anicetus persuade 
Polycarp to forego the observance [in his own 
way], inasmuch as these things had been always 
[so] observed by John)the disciple of our Lord, 
and by other apostlés*with whom he had been 
conversant ; nor, on the other hand, could Poly- 
carp succeed in persuading Anicetus to keep 
[the observance in his way], for he maintained 
that he was bound to adhere to the usage of the 
presbyters who preceded him. And in this state 
of affairs they held fellowship with each other ; 
and Anicetus conceded to Polycarp in the Church 















the celebration of the Eucharist, by way of show- 
ing him respect; so that they parted in peace 
one from the other, maintaining peace with the 
whole Church, both those who did observe [this 
custom] and those who did not.* 


IV. 
As5 long as any one has the means of doing 





1 “The observance of @ day, hough not everywhere the same, 
showed unity, so far as faith in the Lord’s resurrection was con- 
cerned,” — Wis ; f 

2 Following the reading of Rufinus, the ordinary text has per 
avrovs, 1.¢., after them. , i 

3 This practice was afterwards forbidden by the Council of Laodi- 
cea [held about a.p, 360]. : : akon: 

4 It was perhaps in reference to this pleasing episode in the annals 
of the Church, that the Council of Arles, A.D. 314, decreed that the 
holy Eucharist should be consecrated by any foreign bishop present 
at its celebration. “ c id 

S Quoted by Maximus Bishop of Turin, A.D. 422, Serm. vil. de 
Eleemos., as bons the Epistle to Pope Victor. It is also found in 
some other ancient writers. 


good to his neighbours, and does not do so, he 
shall be reckoned a stranger to the love of the 
Lord.® 

v 


The? will and the energy of God is the effec- 
tive and foreseeing cause of every time and place 
and age, and of every nature. The will is the 
reason (Adyos) of the intellectual soul, which 
[reason] is within us, inasmuch as it is the fac- 
ulty belonging to it which is endowed with free- 
dom of action. The will is the mind desiring 
[some object], and an appetite possessed of in- 
telligence, yearning after that thing which is 
desired. 

VI. 


Since ® God is vast, and the Architect of the 
world, and omnipotent, He created things that 
reach to immensity both by the Architect of the 
world and by an omnipotent will, and with a 
new effect, potently and efficaciously, in order 
that the entire fulness of those things which have 
been produced might come into being, although 
they had no previous existence — that is, what- 
ever does not fall under [our] observation, and 
also what lies before our eyes. And so does He 
contain all things in particular, and leads them 
on to their own proper result, on account of 
which they were called into being and produced, 
in no way changed into anything else than what 
it (the end) had originally been by nature. For 
this is the property of the working of God, not 
merely to proceed to the infinitude of the under- 
standing, or even to overpass [our] powers of 
mind, reason and speech, time and place, and 
every age ; but also to go beyond substance, and’ 
fulness or perfection. 


VII. 


This ° [custom], of not bending the knee upon 
Sunday, is a symbol of the resurrection, through 
which we have been set free, by the grace of 
Christ, from sins, and from death, which has been 
put to death under Him. Now this custom 
took its rise from apostolic times, as the blessed 
Irenzeus, the martyr and bishop of Lyons, de- 
clares in his treatise On Easter, in which he 
makes mention of Pentecost also; upon which 
[feast] we do not bend the knee, because it is 


6 One of the ss, reads here rod @eov, of God, : 

7 Also quoted by Maximus Turinensis, Of, ii. 152, who refers it 
to Irenzeus’s Sermo de Fide, which work, not being referred to by 
Eusebius Oro causes Massuet to doubt the authenticity of the 
fragment. Harvey, however, accepts it. ; 

8 We owe this fragment also to Maximus, who quoted it from the 
same work, de Fide, written by Irenzus to Demetrius, a deacon of 
Vienne. ‘This and the last fragment were first printed by Feuarden- 
tius, who obtained them from Faber; no reference, however, bein 
given as to the source from whence the Latin version was derived. 
The Greek of this Fragment vi. is not extant. ; 

9 Taken from a work (Quas. e¢ Resp. ad Othod.) ascribed to 
Justin Martyr, but certainly written after the Nicene Council. It is 
evident that this is not an exact quotation from Irenzus, but a sum- 
mary of his words. The ‘‘ Sunday” here referred to must be Easter 
Sunday. Massuet’s emendation of the text has been adopted, é#’ 
avrov for én’ avtar. 


670 FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOST WRITINGS OF IRENAUS. 


of equal significance with the Lord’s day, for the 
reason already alleged concerning it. 


VIII. 


For! as the ark [of the covenant] was gilded 
within and without with pure gold, so was also 
the body of Christ pure and resplendent ; for it 
was adorned within by the Word, and shielded 
without by the Spirit, in order that from both 
[materials] the splendour of the natures might 
be clearly shown forth. E 


IX. 


Ever?, indeed, speaking well of the deserving, 
but never ill of the undeserving, we also shall 
attain to the glory and kingdom of God. 


x 


It is indeed proper to God, and befitting His 
character, to show mercy and pity, and to bring 
salvation to His creatures, even though they be 
brought under danger of destruction. “For 
with Him,” says the Scripture, “is propitia- 
tion.” 3 

XI. 

The business of the Christian is nothing else 
than to be ever preparing for death (peAerav 
arobvycKev). 


XII. 


We therefore have formed the belief that [our] 
bodies also do rise again. For although they go 
to corruption, yet they do not perish; for the 
earth, receiving the remains, preserves them, 
even like fertile seed mixed with more fertile 
ground. Again, as a bare grain is sown, and, 
germinating by the command of God its Creator, 
rises again, clothed upon and glorious, but not 
before it has died and suffered decomposition, 
and become mingled with the earth; so [it is 
seen from this, that] we have not entertained a 
vain belief in the resurrection of the body. But 
although it is dissolved at the appointed time, 
because of the primeval disobedience, it is placed, 
as it were, in the crucible of the earth, to be re- 
cast again ; not then as this corruptible [body], 
but pure, and no longer subject to decay: so 
that to each body its own soul shall be restored ; 
and when it is clothed upon with this, it shall 
not experience sorrow, but shall rejoice, continu- 
ing permanently in a state of purity, having for 
its companion a just consort, not an insidious 


1 Cited by Leontius of Byzantium, who flourished about the year 
A.D 600; but he does not mention the writing of Irenzeus from which 
it is extracted. Massuet conjectures that it is from the De Ogdoade, 
addressed to the apostate Florinus. 

2 This fragment and the next three are from the Paradllela of 
John of Damascus. Frag. ix. x. xii. seem to be quotations from the 
treatise of Irenzeus on the resurrection. No. xi. is extracted from his 
Miscellaneous Dissertations, a work mentioned by Eusebius, BiBAtov 
wt dtarefewr Scaddpwy. 

3 Ps, cxxx. 7. 














one, possessing in every respect the things per- 
taining to it, it shall receive these with perfect 
accuracy ;4 it shall not receive bodies diverse 
from what they had been, nor delivered from 
suffering or disease, nor as [rendered ] glorious, 
but as they departed this life, in sins or in right- 
eous actions: and such as they were, such shall 
they be clothed with upon resuming life ; and 
such as they were in unbelief, such shall they be 
faithfully judged. 
XIII. 

Fors when the Greeks, having arrested the 
slaves of Christian catechumens, then used force 
against them, in order to learn from them some 
secret thing [practised] among Christians, these 
slaves, having nothing to say that would meet 
the wishes of their tormentors, except that they 
had heard from their masters that the divine 
communion was the body and blood of Christ, 
and imagining that it was actually flesh and 
blood, gave their inquisitors answer to that effect. 
Then these latter, assuming such to be the case 
with regard to the practices of Christians, gave 
information regarding it to other Greeks, and 
sought to compel the martyrs Sanctus and Blan- 
dina to confess, under the influence of torture, 
[that the allegation was correct]. To these men 
Blandina replied very admirably in these words : 
“ How should those persons endure such [accusa- 
tions], who, for the sake of the practice [of 
piety |, did not avail themselves even of the flesh 
that was permitted [them to eat]?” 


XVI. 


How ® is it possibie to say that the serpent, 
created by God dumb and irrational, was en- 
dowed with reason and speech? For if it had 
the power of itself to speak, to discern, to under- 
stand, and to reply to what was spoken by the 
woman, there would have been nothing to prevent 
every serpent from doing this also. If, however, 
they say again that it was according to the divine 
will and dispensation that this [serpent] spake 
with a human voice to Eve, they render God the 
author of sin. Neither was it possible for the 
evil demon to impart speech to a speechless 
nature, and thus from that which is not to pro- 
duce that which is; for if that were the case, he 
never would have ceased (with the view of lead- 
ing men astray) from conferring with and deceiv- 
ing them by means of serpents, and beasts, and 
birds. From what quarter, too, did it, being a 
beast, obtain information regarding the injunc- 


4 This sentence in the original seems incomplete; we have followed 
the conjectural restoration of Harvey. 

5 “This extract is found in CEcumenius upon x Pet. c. iii. p. 198; 
and the words used by him indicate, as Grabe has justly observed, 
that he only candeneed, a longer passage.” — Harvey. 

6 From the Contemplations of Anastasius Sinaita, who flourished 
A.D. 685. Harvey doubts as to this fragment being a genuine pro- 
duction of Irenzeus; and its whole style of reasoning confirms the 
suspicion. 


FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOST WRITINGS OF IRENAUS. 571 





tion of God to the man given to him alone, and 
in secret, not even the woman herself being 
aware of it? Why also did it not prefer to make 
its attack upon the man instead of the woman? 
And if thou sayest that it attacked her as being 
the weaker of the two, [I reply that], on the 
contrary, she was the stronger, since she appears 
to have been the helper of the man in the trans- 
gression of the commandment. For she did by 
herself alone resist the serpent, and it was after 
holding out for a while and making opposition 
that she ate of the tree, being circumvented by 
craft; whereas Adam, making no fight whatever, 
nor refusal, partook of the fruit handed to him 
by the woman, which is an indication of the 
utmost imbecility and effeminacy of mind. And 
the woman indeed, having been vanquished in 
the contest by a demon, is deserving of pardon ; 
but Adam shall deserve none, for he was worsted 
by a woman, — he who, in his own person, had 
received the command from God. But the wo- 
man, having heard of the command from Adam, 
treated it with contempt, either because she 
deemed it unworthy of God to speak by means 
of it, or because she had her doubts, perhaps 
even held the opinion that the command was 
given to her by Adam of his own accord. The 
serpent found her working alone, so that he was 
~ enabled to confer with her apart. Observing her 
then either eating or not eating from the trees, 
he put before her the fruit of the [forbidden] 
tree. And if he saw her eating, it is manifest 
that she was partaker of a body subject to cor- 
ruption. “For everything going in at the mouth, 
is cast out into the draught.”' If then corrupti- 
ble, it is obvious that she was also mortal. But 
if mortal, then there was certainly no curse ; nor 
was that a [condemnatory] sentence, when the 
voice of God spake to the man, “ For earth thou 
art, and unto earth shalt thou return,”? as the 
true course of things proceeds [now and always]. 
Then again, if the serpent observed the woman 
not eating, how did he induce her to eat who 
never had eaten? And who pointed out to this 
accursed man-slaying serpent that the sentence 
of death pronounced against them by God would 
not take [immediate] effect, when He said, “For 
in the day that ye eat thereof, ye shall surely 
die?” And not this merely, but that along with 
the impunity 3 [attending their sin] the eyes of 
those should be opened who had not seen until 
then? But with thé opening [of their eyes] re- 
ferred to, they made entrance upon the path of 
death. 


ie ee 


1 Matt. xv. 17. 

2 Gen. iii. 19. ; 

3 The Greek reads the barbarous word aOpiéia, which Massuet 
thinks is a corruption of 4@avacia, immortality. We have, however, 
followed the conjecture of Harvey, who would substitute amAngia, 
which seems to agree better with the context. 








XV. 


When,‘ in times of old, Balaam spake these 
things in parables, he was not acknowledged ; 
and now, when Christ has appeared and fulfilled 
them, He was not believed. Wherefore [Ba- 
laam], foreseeing this, and wondering at it, ex- 
claimed, “ Alas! alas! who shall live when God 
brings these things to pass?” $ 


XVI. 


Expounding again the law to that generation 
which followed those who were slain in the 
wilderness, he published Deuteronomy ; not as 
giving to them a different law from that which 
had been appointed for their fathers, but as re- 
capitulating this latter, in order that they, by 
hearing what had happened to their fathers, 
might fear God with their whole heart. 


XVII. 


By these Christ was typified, and acknowl- 
edged, and brought into the world ; for He was 
prefigured in Joseph: then from Levi and Judah 
He was descended according to the flesh, as 
King and Priest ; and He was acknowledged by 
Simeon in the temple: through Zebulon He 
was believed in among the Gentiles, as says the 
prophet, “the land of Zabulon ;” °® and through 
Benjamin [that is, Paul] He was glorified, by 
being preached throughout all the world. 


XVIII. 


And this was not without meaning; but that 
by means of the number of the ten men,’ he 
(Gideon) might appear as having Jesus for a 
helper, as [is indicated] by the compact entered 
into with them. And when he did not choose 
to partake with them in their idol-worship, they 
threw the blame upon him: for “ Jerubbaal” 
signifies the judgment-seat of Baal. 


XIX. 


“Take unto thee Joshua (‘Iycotv) the son of 
Nun.” 9 For it was proper that Moses should 
lead the people out of Egypt, but that Jesus 
(Joshua) should lead them into the inheritance. 
Also that Moses, as was the case with the law, 
should cease to be, but that Joshua (‘Inaoir), as 
the word, and no untrue type of the Word made 





4 This and the eight following fragments may be referred to the 
Miscellaneous Dissertations of our author; see note on Frag. ix. 
They are found in three mss, in the Imperial Collection at Paris, on 
the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, and Ruth. 

5 Num, xxiv. 23. 

6 Isa. ix. 1. : 

7 Compare the statement of Clemens Romanus (page 6 of this 
volume), where, speaking of St. Paul, he says: * After preaching both 
in the east and west . . . . having taught righteousness to the whole 
world, and come to the extreme limit of the west.” 

8 See Judg. vi. 27. Itis not very clear how Irenzus makes out 
this allegory, but it is thought that he refers to the initial letter in the 
name ’Iygods, which stands for tex in the Greek enumeration. Com- 
pare the Efzstle of Barnabas, cap. 1x. Pp. 143, of this volume. 

9 Num, xxvii, 18. 


572 


FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOST WRITINGS OF IRENAUS. 





flesh (évuroordrov), should be a preacher to the 
people. Then again, [it was fit] that Moses 
should give manna as food to the fathers, but 
Joshua wheat ; * as the first-fruits of life, a type 
of the body of Christ, as also the Scripture de- 
clares that the manna of the Lord ceased when 
the people had eaten wheat from the land.’ 


XX. 


“ And3he laid his hands upon him.”4 The 
countenance of Joshua was also glorified by the 
imposition of the hands of Moses, but not to 
the same degree [as that of Moses]. Inas- 
much, then, as he had obtained a certain degree 
of grace, [the Lord] said, “And thou shalt 
confer upon him of thy glory.’”5 For [in this 
case] the thing given does not cease to belong 
to the giver. 

XXI. 

But he does not give, as Christ did, by means 
of breathing, because he is not the fount of the 
Spirit. 

XXII. 

“Thou shalt not go with them, neither shalt 
thou curse the people.”® He does not hint at 
anything with regard to the people, for they all 
lay before his view, but [he refers] to the mys- 
tery of Christ pointed out beforehand. For as 
He was to be born of the fathers according to 
the flesh, the Spirit gives instructions to the 
man (Balaam) beforehand, lest, going forth in 
ignorance, he might pronounce a curse upon the 
people.? Not, indeed, that [his curse] could 
take any effect contrary to the will of God; but 
[this was done] as an exhibition of the provi- 
dence of God which He exercised towards 
them on account of their forefathers. 


XXITI. 


-“ And he mounted upon his ass.”8 The ass 
was the type of the body of Christ, upon whom 
all men, resting from their labours, are borne as 
in a chariot. For the Saviour has taken up the 
burden of onrsims.7 Now the angel who ap- 
peared to Balaam Was the Word Himself; and 
in His hand He held a sword, to indicate the 
power which He had from above. 





1 Harvey conceives the reading here (which is doubtful) to have 
been tov véov otrov, the new wheat; and sees an allusion to the 
wave-sheaf of the new corn offered in the temple on the morning of 
our Lord’s resurrection. 

2 Josh. v. 12. 

3 Massuet seems to more than doubt the genuineness of this 
{ragment and the next, and would ascribe them to the pen of Apolli- 
naris, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, a contemporary of Irenzeus. 

darvey passes over these two fragments. 

4 Num. xxvii. 23. 

5 Num. xxvii. 20, 

6 Num. xxii. 12. 

7 The conjectural emendation of Harvey has been adopted here, 
but the text is yery corrupt and uncertain. 

3 Num. xxii. 22, 23 
_ .9 From one of the mss. Stieren would insert év r@ iS{w odpart, 
in His own body; see x Pet. ii. 24. 


XXIV. 


“God is not as a man.”?° He thus shows 
that all men are indeed guilty of falsehood, 
inasmuch as they change from one thing to 
another (peradepdpevor) ; but such is not the 
case with God, for He always continues true, 
perfecting whatever He wishes. 


XXV. 


“To inflict vengeance from the Lord on 
Midian.” ** For this man (Balaam), when he 
speaks no longer in the Spirit of God, but con- 
trary to God’s law, by setting up a different law 
with regard to fornication,” is certainly not then 
to be counted as a prophet, but as a soothsayer. 
For he who did not keep to the commandment 
of God, received the just recompense of his 


own evil devices.%3 
XXVI. 


Know" thou that. every man is either empty 
or full. For if he has not the Holy Spirit, he 
has no knowledge of the Creator; he has not 
received Jesus Christ the Life; he knows not 
the Father who is in heaven; if he does not live 
after the dictates of reason, after the heavenly 
law, he is not a sober-minded person, nor does 
he act uprightly: such an one is empty. If, on 
the other hand, he receives God, who says, “I 
will dwell with them, and walk in them, and I 
will be their God,” ‘5 such an one is not empty, 
but full. 

XXVITI. 


The little boy, therefore, who guided Samson 
by the hand,’° pre-typified John the Baptist, who 
showed to the people the faith in Christ. And 
the house in which they were assembled signi- 
fies the world, in which dwell the various heathen 
and unbelieving nations, offering sacrifice to their 
idols. Moreover, the two pillars are the two 
covenants. The fact, then, of Samson leaning 
himself upon the pillars, [indicates] this, that 
the people, when instructed, recognized the 
mystery of Christ. 

XXVIII. : 


“And the man of God said, Where did it 
fall? And he showed him the place. And he 
cut down a tree, and cast it in there, and the 
iron floated.” 17 This was a sign that souls should 
be borne aloft (dvaywyjs Yvyév) through the 
instrumentality of wood, upon which He suffered 
who can lead those souls aloft that follow His 
ascension. ‘This event was also an indication of 


to Num. xxiii. 19. 

11 Num. xxxi. 3. 

12 Num. xxxi, 16. 

13 Num, xxxi, 8. ‘ 

A It is not certain from what work of Irenzeus this extract is 
derived; Harvey thinks it to be from his work mepi émoryuys, i.e, 
concerning Knowledge. 

15 Lev. xxvi. 12. 

16 Judg. xvi. 26. 

17 2 Kings vi. 6. Comp. book v. chap, xvii. 4. 


FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOST WRITINGS OF IRENAUS. 


573 





the fact, that when the holy soul of Christ de- 
scended [to Hades], many souls ascended and 
were seen in their bodies. For just as the 
wood, which is the lighter body, was submerged 
in the water; but the iron, the heavier one, 
floated: so, when the Word of God became 
one with flesh, by a physical and hypostatic 
union, the heavy and terrestrial [part], having 
been rendered immortal, was borne up into 
heaven, by the divine nature, after the resurrec- 
tion. 
XXIX. 


The? Gospel according to Matthew was writ- 
ten to the Jews. For they laid particular stress 
upon the fact that Christ [should be] of the 
seed of David. Matthew also, who had a still 
greater desire [to establish this point], took par- 
ticular pains to afford them convincing proof 
that Christ is of the seed of David; and there- 
fore he commences with [an account of] His 
genealogy. 

XXX. 


“The axe unto the root,” ¢ he says, urging us 
to the knowledge of the truth, and purifying 
us by means of fear, as well as preparing [us] 
to bring forth fruit in due season. 


XXXI. 


Observe’ that, by means of the grain of 
mustard seed in the parable, the heavenly doc- 
trine is denoted which is sown like seed in the 
world, as in a field, [seed] which has an inherent 
force, fiery and powerful. For the Judge of the 
whole world is thus proclaimed, who, having 
been hidden in the heart of the earth in a tomb 
for three days, and having become a great tree, 
has stretched forth His branches to the ends of 
the earth. Sprouting out from Him, the twelve 
apostles, having become fair and fruitful boughs, 
were made a shelter for the nations as for the 
fowls of heaven, under which boughs, all having 
taken refuge, as birds flocking to a nest, have 
been made partakers of that wholesome and 
celestial food which is derived from them. 


XXXII-° 


Josephus says, that when Moses had been 
brought up in the royal palaces, he was chosen 
as general against the Ethiopians ; and having 
roved victorious, obtained in marriage the 
daughter of that king, since indeed, out of her 


ee Ene 


1 Matt. xxvii. 52. 

2 Edited by P. Possin, 
See book iii. chap. xi. 8. 

3 From the same Catena. 

4 Matt, iii, xo. ‘ : 

5 First edited in Latin by Corderius, afterwards in Greek by 
' Grabe, and also by Dr. Cramer in his Catena on St, Luke, : 

6 Massuet’s i acent xxxii. is here passed over; it 1s found in 


book iii. chap. xviii, 7. 


in a Catena Patrum on St. Matthew. 


Compare book y. chap. xvii. 4. 


aes for him, she delivered the city up to 
im.7 

Why was it, that when these two (Aaron and 
Miriam) had both acted with despite towards 
him (Moses), the latter alone was adjudged 
punishment?’ First, because the woman was 
the more culpable, since both nature and the 
law place the woman in a subordinate condition 
to the man. Or perhaps it was that Aaron was 
to a certain degree excusable, in consideration 
of his being the elder [brother], and adorned 
with the dignity of high priest. Then again, 
inasmuch as the leper was accounted by the law 
unclean, while at the same time the origin and 
foundation of the priesthood lay in Aaron, [the 
Lord] did not award a similar punishment to 
him, lest this stigma should attach itself to the 
entire [sacerdotal] race; but by means of his 
sister’s [example] He awoke his fears, and 
taught him the same lesson. For Miriam’s pun- 
ishment affected him to such an extent, that no 
sooner did she experience it, than he entreated 
[Moses], who had been injured, that he would 
by his intercession do away with the affliction. 
And he did not neglect to do so, but at once 
poured forth his supplication. Upon this the 
Lord, who loves mankind, made him understand 
how He had not chastened her as a judge, but 
as a father; for He said, “If her father had spit 
in her face, should she not be ashamed? Let 
her be shut out from the camp seven days, and 
after that let her come in again.” 9 


XXXII. 


Inasmuch ”° as certain men, impelled by what 
considerations I know not, remove from God the 
half of His creative power, by asserting that He 
is merely the cause of quality resident in matter, 
and by maintaining that matter itself is uncreated, 
come now let us put the question, What is at 
any time ... is immutable. Matter, then, is 
immutable. But if matter be immutable, and 
the immutable suffers no change in regard to 
quality, it does not form the substance of the 
world. For which reason it seems to them su- 
perfluous, that God has annexed qualities to 
matter, since indeed matter admits of no possi- 
ble alteration, it being in itself an uncreated 
thing. But further, if matter be uncreated, it 
has been made altogether according to a certain 


a 


7 See Josephus’ A ntiqutties, book ii, chap. x., where we read 
that this king’s daughter was called Tharbis. Immediately upon the 
surrender of this city (Saba, afterwards called Meroé) Moses mar- 
ried her, and returned to Egypt. Whiston, in the notes to his trans- 
lation of Josephus, says, ‘* Nor, perhaps, did St. Stephen refer to 
anything else when he said of Moses, before he was sent by God ta 
the Israelites, that he was not only learned in all the wisdom of the 
Egyptians, but was also mighty in words and in deeds” (Acts vii. 22). 

8 Num. xii. 1, etc. 

9 Num. xii. 14. 

10 Harve eeauiders this fragment to be a part of the work of 
Irenzeus referred to by Photius under the title De Untverso, or dt 
Substantia. Mundi. It is to be found in Codex 301: of the Bodleiay 
Library, Oxford. 


574. FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOST WRITINGS OF IRENEUS. 





quality, and this immutable, so that it cannot be 
receptive of more qualities, nor can it be the 
thing of which the world is made. But if the 
world be not made from it, [this theory] entirely 
excludes God from exercising power on the 
creation [of the world]. 


XXXIV. 


“ And« dipped himself,” says [the Scripture], 
“seven times in Jordan.”? It was not for 
nothing that Naaman of old, when suffering from 
leprosy, was purified upon his being baptized, 
but [it served] as an indication to us. For as 
we are lepers in sin, we are made clean, by 
means of the sacred water and the invocation 
of the Lord, from our old transgressions ; being 
spiritually regenerated as new-born babes, even 
as the Lord has declared: “ Except a man be 
born again through water and the Spirit, he shall 
not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” 3 


XXXV. 


If the corpse of Elisha raised a dead man,‘ 
how much more shall God, when He has quick- 
ened men’s dead bodies, bring them up for 
judgment? 

XXXVI. 

True 5 knowledge, then, consists in the under- 
standing of Christ, which Paul terms the wisdom 
of God hidden in a mystery, which “the natural 
man receiveth not,” ® the doctrine of the cross ; 
of which if any man “ taste,” 7 he will not accede 
to the disputations and quibbles of proud and 
puffed-up men,® who go into matters of which 
they have no perception.? For the truth is un- 
sophisticated (4axnuaricros) ; and “the word is 
nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart,” ?° as 
the same apostle declares, being easy of compre- 
hension to those who are obedient. For it ren- 
ders us like to Christ, if we experience “the 
power of his resurrection and the fellowship 
of His sufferings.” '* For this is the affinity ? of 
the apostolical teaching and the most holy “ faith 





t This and the next fragment first appeared in the Benedictine 
edition reprinted at Venice, 1734. They were taken from a ms. Ca- 
tena on the book of Kings in the Coislin Collection, 

2 2 Kings v. 14. 

3 John iii. 5. 

4 2 Kings xiii. 21. 

5 This extract and the next three were discovered in the 
by [Christopher Matthew] Pfaff, a learned Lutheran, in the Royal 
Library at Turin. The mss. from which they were taken were ete 
catalogued nor classified, and have now disappeared from the collec- 
tion. It is impossible to say with any degree of probability from what 
treatises of our author these four fragments have been culled. For a 
full account of their history, see Stieren’s edition of Irenzus, vol. ii. 
p. 381. [But, in all candor, let Pfaff himself be heard. His little 
work is full of lcaraing. and I have long possessed it as a treasure to 
which I often recur, Pfaff's /reneez Fragmenta was published at The 
Hague, 1715.] 

t Cor. ti. 14. 

7 x Pet. it. 3, 

Six Timovicca, 5; 

9 Col. ii, 18. 

to Rom. x. 8; Deut. xxx, I4. 

11 Phil. iii. ro. : 
12 Harvey’s conjectural emendation, émmAoxi for émAoyy, has 
been adopted here. 


ear 171 








delivered unto us,” "3 which the unlearned receive, 
and those of slender knowledge have taught, 
not “ giving heed to endless genealogies,” '4 but 
studying rather [to observe] a straightforward 
course of life ; lest, having been deprived of the 
Divine Spirit, they fail to attain to the kingdom 
of heaven. For truly the first thing is to deny 
one’s self and to follow Christ ; and those who 
do this are borne onward to perfection, having 
fulfilled all their Teacher’s will, becoming sons 
of God by spiritual regeneration, and heirs of the 
kingdom of heaven; those who seek which first 
shall not be forsaken. 


XXXVII. 


Those who have become acquainted with the 
secondary (i.e., under Christ) constitutions of 
the apostles,"s are aware that the Lord instituted 
a new oblation in the new covenant, according 
to [the declaration of ] Malachi the prophet. 
For, “from the rising of the sun even to the 
setting my name has been glorified among the 
Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered 
to my name, and a pure sacrifice ;” *© as John 
also declares in the Apocalypse: “The incense 
is the prayers of the saints.” 7 Then again, Paul 
exhorts us “to present our bodies a living sacri- 
fice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your 
reasonable service.” '® And again, “ Let us offer 
the sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of the 
lips.” 19 Now those oblations are not according 
to the law, the handwriting of which the Lord 
took away from the midst by cancelling it ;2° 
but they are according to the Spirit, for we must 
worship God “in spirit and in truth.”2* And 
therefore the oblation of the Eucharist is not a 
carnal one, but a spiritual ; and in this respect it 
is pure. For we make an oblation to God of 
the bread and the cup of blessing, giving Him 
thanks in that He has commanded the earth to 
bring forth these fruits for our nourishment. 
And then, when we have perfected the oblation, 
we invoke the Holy Spirit, that He may exhibit 
this sacrifice, both the bread the body of Christ, 
and the cup the blood of Christ, in order that 
the receivers of these antitypes ? may obtain re- 
mission of sins and life eternal. Those persons, 
then, who perform these oblations in remem- 


eee 

13 Jude 3. 

142 Lim. ia 

1S rais Sevtépats tov amogréAwy Siatéteot. Harvey thinks that 
these words imply, “‘ the formal constitution, which the apostles, act- 
ing under the impulse of the Spirit, though still ina secondary capacity, 
gave to the Church.” 

16 Mal. i. rr. 

17 Rey. vy. 8. The same view of the eucharistic oblation, etc., is 
found in book iy. chap. xvii.: as also in Justin Martyr; see 7rypho, 
cap. xli, sufra in this volume, 

18 Rom, xii. 1. 

19 Heb. xiii. 15. 

20 Col. ii. 14. 

21 John iv. 24. q 

22 Harvey explains this word dvtitvmwy as meaning an ‘exact 
counterpart.” He refers to the word where it occurs in Contra Hae- 
veses, lib. 1, chap. xxiv. (p. 349, this vol.) as confirmatory of his view. 


FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOST WRITI 





brance of the Lord, do not fall in with Jewish 
views, but, performing the service after a spirit- 
ual manner, they shall be called sons of wisdom. 


XXXVIII. 


_ The* apostles ordained, that “we should not 
judge any one in respect to meat or drink, or i 
regard to a feast day, or the new moons, or t 
sabbaths.”? Whence then these contention? 
whence these schisms? We keep the feast, 


away these better things, faith and love 
have heard from the prophetic words |thaf these 
feasts and fasts are displeasing to the 


XXXIX. 

Christ, who was called the Son of 
the ages, was manifested in the fulness¥ of time, 
in order that He might cleanse us_ through His 
oe aan the power of sin, pre- 
fiting us as pure sons to His Father, if we yield 
ourselves obediently to the chastisement of the 
Spirit. And in the end of time He shall come 
to do away with all evil, and to reconcile all 
things, in order that there may be an end of 


all impurities. 
XL. 


“And he found the jaw-bone of an ass.” © 
It is to be observed that, after [Samson had 
committed] fornication, the holy Scripture no 
longer speaks of the things happily accomplished 
by him in connection with the formula, “The 
Spirit of the Lord came upon him.” 7 For thus, 
according to the holy apostle, the sin of fornica- 
tion is perpetrated against the body, as involy- 
ing also sin against the temple of God.* 


XLI. 


This? indicates the persecution against the 
Church set on foot by the nations who still con- 
tinue in unbelief. But he (Samson) who suf- 
fered those things, trusted that there would be 
a retaliation against those waging this war. But 
retaliation through what means? First of all, 
by his betaking himself to the Rock '° not cog- 


Bonen ae ee 


1 Taken apparently from the Epistle to Blastus, de Schismate. 
Compare a similar passage, lib. iv. chap, xxxiil. 7. 

2 Col ii. 16. 

3 Isa. i. 14. ‘ 

4 “ From the same collection at Turin. The passage seems to be 
of cognate matter with the treatise De Resurrec. Pfaff referred it 
either to the duadéfers Suddopoe or to the érideréts amorToALKov 
knpvyuatos.” — HARVEY, 7 

5 This and the four following fragments are taken from MSS. in 
the Vatican Library at Rome. They are apparently quoted from the 
homiletical expositions of the historical books already referred to. 

6 Judg. xv. 15. 

7 Judg. xiv. 6-19. 

8 x Cor. iii. 16, 17. , 

9 ‘These words were evidently written during a season of perse- 
cution in Gaul; but what that persecution was, it 1s useless to con- 
jecture. 

To Judg. xv. 11. 



























$ OF IRENAUS. 575 


nizable tg’the senses ; '* secondly, by the finding 
w-bone of an ass. Now the type of the 
ne is the body of Christ. 


XLII. 


/ Speaking always well of the worthy, but never 
ill of the unworthy, we also shall attain to the 
glory and kingdom of God. 


XLIII. 


In » these things there was signified by proph- 
ecy that the people, having become transgress- 
ors, shall be bound by the chains of their own 
sins. But the breaking of the bonds of their 
own accord indicates that, upon repentance, 
they shall be again loosed from the shackles of 
sin, 

XLIV. 


It *3 is not an easy thing for a soul, under the 
influence of error, to be persuaded of the con- 
trary opinion. 

XLV. 

« And ‘4 Balaam the son of Beor they slew with 
the sword.” '5 For, speaking no longer by the 
Spirit of God, but setting up another law of for- 
nication contrary to the law of God,’° this man 
shall no longer be reckoned as a prophet, but as 
a soothsayer. For, as he did not continue in 
the commandment of God, he received the just 
reward of his evil devices. 


XLVI. 


“The '7 god of the world ;’’*® that is, Satan, 
who was designated God to those who believe 


not. 
XLVII. 


The '9 birth of John [the Baptist] brought the 
dumbness of Zacharias to an end. For he did 
not burden his father, when the voice issued 
forth from silence ; but as when not believed it 
rendered him tongue-tied, so did the voice 
sounding out clearly set his father free, to whom 
he had both been announced and born. Now 
the voice and the burning light *° were a precur- 
sor of the Word and the Light. 


11 That is, when he fled to the rock Etam, he typified the true 
believer taking refuge in the spiritual Rock, Christ. 

12 Most probably from a homily upon the third and fourth chapters 
of Ezekiel, It is found repeated in Stieren’s and Migne’s edition as 
Fragment xlviii. extracted from a Catena on the Book of Judges. 

13 We give this brief fragment as it appears in the editions of 
Stieren, Migne, and Harvey, who speculate as to its origin. They 
seem to have overlooked the fact that it is the Greek original of the 
old Latin, non facile est ab errore apprehensam resipiscere ant- 
mam, —a sentence found towards the end of book iii. chap. 1. 

14 With the exception of the initial text, this fragment is almost 
identical with No. xxv. 

15 Num, xxxi. 8. 

16 Rev. ii. 14. i aye 

17 From the Catena on St. Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians, 
edited by Dr. Cramer, and reprinted by Stieren. 

18 2 Cor. iv. 4. ‘ , ; 

19 Extracted from a MS. of Greek theology in the Palatine Library 
at Vienna. The succeeding fragment in the editions of Harvey, 
Migne, and Stieren, is omitted, as it is merely a transcript of book 
iii, ch. x. 4. 

20, John v. 35- 





876 FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOST WRITINGS OF IRENEUS. 





XLVIII. 


As: therefore seventy tongues are indicated 
by number, and from? dispersion the tongues 
are gathered into one by means of their inter- 
pretation ; so is that ark declared a type of the 
body of Christ, which is both pure and immacu- 
late. For3 as that ark was gilded with pure 
gold both within and without, so also is the 
body of Christ pure and resplendent, being 
adorned within by the Word, and shielded on 
the outside by the Spirit, in order that from both 
[materials] the splendour of the natures might 
be exhibited together. 












XLIX. 


Now?‘ therefore, by means of this which has 
been already brought forth a long time since, 
the Word has assigned an interpretation. W, 
are convinced that there exist [so to speak] two 
men in each one of us. The one is confessedly 
a hidden thing, while the other stands apparent ; 
one is corporeal, the other spiritual; although 
the generation of both may be compared \o 
that of twins. For both are revealed to th 
world as but one, for the soul was not anterior 
to the body in its essence ; nor, in regard to its 
formation, did the body precede the soul: but 
both these were produced at one time; and 
their nourishment consists in purity and sweet- 
ness. 





L. 


For 5 then there shall in truth be a common 
joy consummated to all those who believe unto 
life, and in each individual shall be confirmed 
the mystery of the Resurrection, and the hope 
of incorruption, and the commencement of the 
cternal kingdom, when God shall have destroyed 
death and the devil. For that human nature and 
flesh which has risen again from the dead shall 
die no more ; but after it had been changed to 
incorruption, and made like to spirit, when the 
heaven was opened, [our Lord] full of glory 
offered it (the flesh) to the Father. 


LI. 


‘Now,° however, inasmuch as the books of these 
men may possibly have escaped your observation, 





! This fragment commences a series derived from the Nitrian 
Collection of Syriac mss. in the British Museum. 

2 The Syriac text is here corrupt and obscure. 

3 See No, viii., which is the same as the remainder of 
ment. 

4 The Syriac ms. introduces this quotation as follows: “ From the 
holy Irenazus Bp. of Lyons, from the first section of his interpretation 
of the Song of Songs,’ 

5 This extract is introduced as follows: 
Lyons, who was a contemporary of the disciple of the apostle, Polycarp 
Bishop of Smyrna, and martyr, and for this reason is held in just esti- 
mation, wrote to an Alexandrian to the effect that it is right, with 
wespect to the feast of the Resurrection, that we should celebrate it 
upon the first day of the week,” This shows us that the extract must 
have been taken from the work 4 gazust Schism addressed to Blastus, 

6 From the same ms. as the preceding fragment It is thus intro- 
duced: ‘ And Irenzeus Bp. of Lyons, to Victor Bp. of Rome, concern- 
ing Florinus, a presbyter, who was a partisan of the error of Valentinus, 
and published an abominable book, thus wrote.” 


this frag- 


“For Irenzeus Bishop of 





but have come under our notice, I call your at- 
tention to them, that for the sake of your reputa- 
tion you may expel these writings from among 
you, as bringing disgrace upon you, since their 
author boasts himself as being one of your com- 
pany. For they constitute a stumbling-block to 
many, who simply and unreservedly receive, as 
coming from a presbyter, the blasphemy which 
they utter against God. Just [consider] the 
writer of these things, how by means of them he 
does not injure assistants [in divine service] 
only, who happen to be prepared in mind for 
blasphemies against God, but also damages those 
among us, since by his books he imbues their 
minds with false doctrines concerning God. 


LII. 


' The? sacred books acknowledge with regard \ 
to Christ, that as He is the Son of man, so is the 
same Being not a [mere] man; and as He is 
flesh, so is He also spirit, and the Word of God, 
and God. And as He was born of Mary in the 
last times, so did He also proceed from God as 
the First-begotten of every creature ; and as He 
ngered, so did He satisfy [others]; and as 
He thirsted, so did He of old cause the Jews 
to drink, for the “ Rock was Christ ’’® Himself: 
thus does Jesus now give to His believing people 
power to drink spiritual waters, which spring u 

to life eternal.? And as He was the son of David, 
so was He also the Lord of David. And as He 
was from Abraham, so did He also exist before 
Abraham.'° And as He was the servant of God, 
so is He the Son of God, and Lord of the universe. 
And as He was spit upon ignominiously, so also 
did He breathe the Holy Spirit into His disci- 
ples." And as He was saddened, so also did He 
give joy to His people. And as He was capable 
of being handled and touched, so again did He, 
in a non-apprehensible form, pass through the 
midst of those who sought to injure Him,? and 
entered without impediment through closed 
doors.3 And as He slept, so did He also rule 
the sea, the winds, and the storms. And as He 
suffered, so also is He alive, and life-giving, and 
healing all our infirmity. And as He died, so is 
He also the Resurrection of the dead. He suf- 
fered shame on earth, while He is higher than 
all glory and praise in heaven; who, “though 
He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth 
by divine power ;” '* who “descended into the 
lower parts of the earth,” and who “ascended 
up above the heavens ;”'5 for whom a manger 





‘7 This extract had already 
gtum Solesmense, p. 6. 
8 1 Cor, x. 4. 
9 John iv. 14. 
to John viii. 58. 
11 John xx. 22, 


12 John viii. 59. 
ohn xx. 26. 


been printed by M. Pitra in his Spicile 


13 
14 2 Cor, xiil. 4. 
15 Eph. iv. g, re. 


FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOST WRITINGS OF IRENAUS. 


577 


seeps ae a Ea ae SES aa 


sufficed, yet who filled all things ; who was dead, 
yet who liveth for ever and ever. Amen. 


LIII. 


With ' regard to Christ, the law and the proph- 
ets and the evangelists have proclaimed that He 
was born of a virgin, that He suffered upon a 
beam of wood, and that He appeared from the 
dead ; that He also ascended to the heavens, and 
was glorified by the Father, and is the Eternal 
King ; that He is the perfect Intelligence, the 
Word of God, who was begotten before the light ; 
that He was the Founder of the universe, along 
' with it (light), and the Maker of man; that He 
is All in all: Patriarch among the patriarchs ; 
Law in the laws; Chief Priest among priests ; 
Ruler among kings ; the Prophet among proph- 
ets ; the Angel among angels; the Man among 
men; Son in the Father; God in God; King 
to all eternity. For it is He who sailed [in the 
ark] along with Noah, and who guided Abraham ; 
who was bound along with Isaac, and was a 
Wanderer with Jacob; the Shepherd of those 
who are saved, and the Bridegroom of the 
Church ; the Chief also of the cherubim, the 
Prince of the angelic powers ; God of God; Son 
of the Father ; Jesus Christ ; King for ever and 
ever. Amen. 

LIV. 


The? law and the prophets and evangelists 
have declared that Christ was born of a virgin, 
and suffered on the cross; was raised also from 
the dead, and taken up to heaven; that He was 
glorified, and reigns for ever. He is Himself 
termed the Perfect Intellect, the Word of God. 
He is the First-begotten,3 after a transcendent 
manner, the Creator of man; All in all; Patri- 
arch among the patriarchs; Law in the law; 
the Priest among priests; among kings Prime 
Leader ; the Prophet among the prophets ; the 
Angel among angels ; the Man among men ; Son 
in the Father ; God in God; King to all eter- 
nity. He was sold with Joseph, and He guided 
Abraham ; was bound along with Isaac, and wan- 
dered with Jacob; with Moses He was Leader, 
and, respecting the people, Legislator. He 
preached in the prophets; was incarnate of a 
virgin; born in Bethlehem ; received by John, 
and baptized in Jordan; was tempted in the 
desert, and proved to be the Lord. He gath- 
ered the apostles together, and preached the 
kingdom of heaven; gave light to the blind, 
and raised the dead ; was seen in the temple, 


a a a a 


I This extract from the Syriac is a shorter form,of the next frag- 
ment, which seems to be interpolated in some places. The latter is 
from an Armenian ms. in the Mechitarist Library at Venice. 

2 This fragment is thus introduced in the Armenian copy: “ From 
St. Irenzus, bishop, follower of the apostles, on the Lord’s resurrec- 
tion.” 

3 The Armenian text is confused here; we have adopted the con- 
fectural emendation of Quatremere, 








but was not held by the people as worthy of 
credit ; was arrested by the priests, conducted 
before Herod, and condemned in the presence 
of Pilate; He manifested Himself in the body, 
was suspended upon a beam of wood, and raised 
from the dead ; shown to the apostles, and, hav- 
ing been carried up to heaven, sitteth on the 
right hand of the Father, and has been glori- 
fied by Him as the Resurrection of the dead. 
Moreover, He is the Salvation of the lost, the 
Light to those dwelling in darkness, and Redemp- 
tion to those who have been born ; the Shepherd 
of the saved, and the Bridegroom of the Church ; 
the Charioteer of the cherubim, the Leader of 
the angelic host ; God of God ; Jesus Christ our 
Saviour. 
LV. 


“Then 4 drew near unto Him the mother of 
Zebedee’s children, with her sons, worshipping, 
and seeking a certain thing from Him.” These 
people are certainly not void of understanding, 
nor are the words set forth in that passage of 
no signification: being stated beforehand like a 
preface, they have some agreement with those 
points formerly expounded. 

“Then drew near.” Sometimes virtue excites 
our admiration, not merely on account of the 
display which is given of it, but also of the occa- 
sion when it was manifested. I may refer, for 
example, to the premature fruit of the grape, or 
of the fig, or to any fruit whatsoever, from which, 
during its process [of growth], no man expects 
maturity or full development ; yet, although any 
one may perceive that it is still somewhat imper- 
fect, he does not for that reason despise as use- 
less the immature grape when plucked, but he 
gathers it with pleasure as appearing early in the 
season ; nor does he consider whether the grape 
is possessed of perfect sweetness; nay, he at 
once experiences satisfaction from the thought 
that this one has appeared before the rest. Just 
in the same way does God also, when He per- 
ceives the faithful possessing wisdom though still 
imperfect, and but a small degree of faith, over- 
look their defect in this respect, and therefore 
does not reject them ; nay, but on the contrary, 
He kindly welcomes and accepts them as pre- 
mature fruits, and honours the mind, whatsoever 
it may be, which is stamped with virtue, although 
not yet perfect. He makes allowance for it, as 
being among the harbingers of the vintage,° and 
esteems it highly, inasmuch as, being of a readier 
disposition than the rest, it has forestalled, as it 
were, the blessing to itself. 





4 From an Armenian Ms. in the Library of the Mechitarist Con- 
vent at Vienna, edited by M. Pitra, who considers this fragment as 
of very doubtful authority. It commences with this heading: * From 
the second series of Homilies of Saint Irenzeus, follower of the Apos- 
tles; a Homily upon the Sons of Zebedee.” 

5 Matt. xx. 20. 

6 That is, the wine which flows from the grapes before they are 
trodden out, ; 


578 FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOST WRITINGS OF IRENAZUS. 


Abraham therefore, Isaac, and Jacob, our 
fathers, are to be esteemed before all, since they 
did indeed afford us such early examples of vir- 
tue. How many martyrs can be compared to 
Daniel? How many martyrs, I ask, can rival 
the three youths in Babylon, although the mem- 
ory of the former has not been brought before 
us so conspicuously as that of the latter? These 
were truly first-fruits, and indications of the 
[succeeding] fructification. Hence God has 
directed their life to be recorded, as a model 
for those who should come after. 

And that their virtue was thus accepted by 
God, as the first-fruits of the produce, hear what 
He has Himself declared: “As a grape,” He 
says, “I have found Israel in the wilderness, and 
as first-ripe figs your fathers.”* Call not there- 
fore the faith of Abraham merely blessed because 
he believed. Do you wish to look upon Abra- 
ham with admiration? Then behold how that 
one man alone professed piety when in the 
world six hundred had been contaminated with 
error. Dost thou wish Daniel to carry thee 
away to amazement? Behold that [city] Baby- 
lon, haughty in the flower and pride of impious- 
ness, and its inhabitants completely given over 
to sin of every description. But he, emerging 
from the depth, spat out the brine of sins, and 
rejoiced to plunge into the sweet waters of piety. 
And now, in like manner, with regard to that 
mother of Zebedee’s children, do not admire 
merely what she said, but also the time at which 
she uttered these words. For when was it that 
she drew near to the Redeemer? Not after the 
resurrection, nor after the preaching of His 
name, nor after the establishment of His king- 
dom ; but it was when the Lord said, “Behold, 
we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall 
be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes ; 
and they shall kill Him, and on the third day 
He shall rise again.” ? 


I Hos. ix. ro. 
2 Matt. xx. 18. 





These things the Saviour told in reference to 
His sufferings and cross; to these persons He 
predicted His passion. Nor did He conceal 
the fact that it should be of a most ignominious 
kind, at the hands of the chief priests. This 
woman, however, had attached another meaning 
to the dispensation of His sufferings. The Sav- 
iour was foretelling death; and she asked for 
the glory of immortality. The Lord was assert- 
ing that He must stand arraigned before impious 
judges; but she, taking no note of that judg- 
ment, requested as of the judge: “Grant,” she 
said, “that these my two sons may sit, one on 
the right hand, and the other on the left, in Thy 
glory.” In the one case the passion is referred 
to, in the other the kingdom: is understood. 
The Saviour was speaking of the cross, while 
she had in view the glory which admits no suf- 
fering. This woman, therefore, as I have already 
said, is worthy of our admiration, not merely 
for what she sought, but also for the occasion of 
her making the request. 

She did indeed suffer, not merely as a pious 
person, but also asa woman. For, having been 
instructed by His words, she considered and 
believed that it would come to pass, that the — 
kingdom of Christ should flourish in glory, and 
walk in its vastness throughout the world, and 
be increased by the preaching of piety. She 
understood, as was [in fact] the case, that He 
who appeared in a lowly guise had delivered 
and received every promise. I will inquire upon 
another occasion, when I come to treat upon 
this humility, whether the Lord rejected her 
petition concerning His kingdom. But she 
thought that the same confidence would not be 
possessed by her, when, at the appearance of 
the angels, He should be ministered to by the 
angels, and receive service from the entire heay- 
enly host. ‘Taking the Saviour, therefore, apart 
in a retired place, she earnestly desired of Him 
those things which transcend every human 
nature. 


AO es ed bien G5 G19 wel bs 


Tue American editor omitted in the proper place (p. 315, note 4, after what is said by the 


translator) to insert this important note: viz., — 


[On this matter of quotations from anonymous authors of the apostolic times, not infrequently made by Irenzeus, consult the important 


tractate of Dr. Routh, in his Religuze Sacra, vol. i. pp. 45-68.] 






INDEXES | 


*s « \ 


7 


- 


4 on Pe: ' 





THE 


Abel, 6, 55, 89. 

Abraham, 7, 9, 13, 142. 

Adultery, 35, 108, 143. 

Aftlictions of Christ, 139. 

Alms-giving, 16, 148. 

Angels, 68, 88, 118, 148. 

Anger, 17, 35) 54- 

Animals, cloven-footed, 144. 
ruminant, 143. 
forbidden or allowed as food to 

Israel, spiritual significance of, 


143. 

Antichrist, 34, 138. 

Antioch, church at, 48, 85, 91, 96, 
100, 129. 

Antiochians, supposed Epistle of Ig- 
natius to them, wherein he speaks 
of his bonds, of the true doctrine 
concerning Christ against the 
views of the early heretics, and 
exhorts them to certain duties, 
110, 112. 

Apostates, 68, 71, 82-83. 

Apostles, ordinances as to the minis- 
try, 16, 17, 18, 66, 84. 


Baptism prefigured in Old Testament, 


144. 
Barnabas, who he was, 133. 
his Epistle, wherein he warns his 
readers against Judaism, and 
seeks to explain some Jewish 
customs, 137-149. 
Believers, a spiritual temple, 147; 
what Christ is to them, II, 14, 
MLS, 18, 33. 
Benediction, forms. of, 15, 21, 30, 43, 
58, 72, 85, 92, 96. 
Birds, allowed as food to Israel, 143. 
Bishop, subjection to him, 17, § ; 
though youthful, to be obeyed, 60. 
Bishop to be consulted in all things, 
0, 62, 79, 89. 
to be honoured, 90, 95. 
duties of, 69, 85, 90, 94, 96. 
Blessings, divine, how obtained, 13, 
14, 21,-28, 29. 
to be sought, 28, 149. | 
Brazen serpent, 145. 
Burrhus of Ephesus, 50. 


Cain, 6. 
Catholic, 39, 40, 42) 9°- 


APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 


INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 


Chastisement, 47. 

Christ, H%s person, 9, 52, 55, 
62, 64, 70, 71, 76, 81, 
88, 94, 145. 

fis sufferings, 9, 64, 66, 70, 71, 83, 
84, 86, 88, 89, 139, 140, 142, 145. 
fits resurrection, U1, 33, 71, 87. 
fis second coming, 11, 33, 64, 87. 
the source of blessings, 14, 84. 
Chastity, 34, 148. 
Christians, heirs of the covenant, 145. 
true and false, 55, 61. 
manners of, 26; their relation to 
the world, 27. 
called children, 153. 

Church, order in the, 16. 17,90: order 
of ministers in, 16; the :egard 
Moses had for order in, 17; the 
regard the apostles had for order 
in, 18; this order disturbed by 
the wicked, 17-20. 

Circumcision, spiritual meaning of, 
142-143. 

Clement, introductory notice of, 1-3. 

his first epistle, 5-21. 
Commandments, of God, 33, 148. 
Confession of sin, 19. 

of Christ, AT, 55: 83, 129. 

Conformity to Christ, so. 

Corinthians, Epistle of Clement to, 
wherein he commends them, 5; 
shows the effects of envy among 
them, 5, 6, 18; exhorts them to 
repentance, 7; to humility, 9, II, 
15; to peace, 16; to good works, 
14; to Church order, 16-17; to 
brotherly love, 18, 19. 

Covenant, the, lost by the Jews, .139; 
who are heirs of, 145. 

Covetousness, 35. 

Crocus of Ephesus, 50. 

Cross, the, of Christ prefigured in 
Old Testament, 144. 

the glory of, 56. 


, 6I- 
4, 86, 87, 


Damas, bishop of Magnesia, 59, 60. 
Danaids, martyrdom of, 6. 
Daniel, 60, 61. 

Darkness, the way of, 149. 
David, his humility, ro. 

Deacons, 34, 61, 69, 72, 85, 89, 95. 
Devil, snares of the, 30, 55, 


117-119, 148. 


83, 


Diognetus, Epistle to, wherein the 
writer shows why he wrote it, 
25; the vanity of idols, 25; the 
superstitions of the Jews, 26; 
the manifestation of Christ, 27; 
the state of the world before 
Christ came, 28; why Chris 
came so late, 28; the beanies 
He brings, 29; the importance 
of divine knowledge, 29. 

Dirce, martyrdom of, 6. 

Doctrines, false, 34, 53, 56, 62, 68, 71, 
83, 88, 146. 

profound, 68. 

Ruben cess: 9, 20, 54, 62, 81, 95, 

I 


of deacons, etc., 34, 81. 
of presbyters, etc., 34, 90. 
relative, 81, 90. 
Duties of husbands and wives, 34, 35, 


81, 9 5; 
of the Christian flock, 35, 95. 


Ebionite, 83. 

Enoch, 7. 

Envy, 67; its effects on Corinthian 
Church, 6,17, 18; onthe Church 
in all ages, 6, 17. 

Ephesians, Epistle of Ignatius to, 
49-58; he commends them, 49, 
52; exhorts them to unity, 50; 
to various duties, 55, 57; warns 
against false teachers and doc 
trines, 52; Syriac version of Epis- 
tle, 101-102. 

Esther, her example, 20. 

Eucharist, 16, 17, 55, 76-77, 81, 89, 


Evil deeds, 6. 

desires, 35. 

speaking, 17. 
Example of Christ, 9, 35, 54. 
Examples of love, 19, 20. 


Faith, 8, 13, 14, 29, 53> 55» 64, 66, 84, 
86, 8 


, 89. 

Falsehood, 56. 

Fasting, 34; the acceptable, 138; a 
type of Christ, 141. 

Fathers exhorted, 81. 

Fear of God, 54, 69 

Fish, Israel may not eat, spiritual 
significance of, 143. 


58x 


582 


Goat, the, sent away, 14!. 
God, His character, 10, 11-12, 13, 16, 


80. 
how to draw near and serve Him, 
12) 14, 20, 34. ; 
imitators of, 13; of faith in, 35, 
Good deeds, 13, 95- 
Gospel superior to law, 63, 146, 147. 
Grace, 63, 92. 
Graces, Christian, 35, 81. 
Grief, 35. 


Happiness, 28. ¥ 

Harmony in the Church, 61; in the 
universe, 10. 

Heretics, views of early, 


4, 56, 62, 
63) 68, 71, 80, 81, 


, 89, 138, 


149. 

Hea dees of Antioch, Epistle of 
Ignatius to him, wherein he is ex- 
horted to earnestness and mod- 
eration, cautioned against false 
teachers, instructed as to certain 
duties, and pointed out as the 
fature bishop of Antioch, 114- 


IIS. 
Holy Spirit, 5, 17, 43, 52, Px 56, 57; 
- $3, 85, 92, IOI, 140, 140. 
Holiness, 13, 42, 43, 53, 67, 108. 
Humility enjoined, 9, 11, 15, 533 of 
Christ, 9; of saints, 9, 10, 20. 
Husbands, duty of, 26, 35, 95, III, 
148. 
Hyssop, 142. 


Idols, vanity of, 25, 56, 129. 

Ignatius, mentioned by Polycarp, 35, 
36; introductory note to his Epis- 
tles, 45, 48. 

Epistle to the Ephesians, 49, 58. 

Epistle to the Magnesians, 59, 65. © 

Epistle to the Trallians, 66, 72. 

Epistle to the Romans, 73s 78. 

Epistle to the Philadelphians, 79, 
85. 

Epistle to the Smyrnzans, 86, 92. 

Epistle to Polycarp, 93, 96. 

In them he speaks of his bonds, 
50, 58, 59, 70, 72, 75, 91; his de- 
sire for martyrdom, 49, 74, 75, 76, 
g6; seeks the prayers of the 
Churches, 53, 54, 77; speaks of 
his need of humility, 67; of his 
knowledge, 64, 68. 

Syriac versions of his Epistles to 
Polycarp, Ephesians, Romans, 
98, 104. 

Account of his martyrdom, 129- 
131; condemned by Trajan, 48; 
sails to Smyrna, 130; writes to 
the Churches, 130; is brought to 
Rome, 130; is devoured by wild 
beasts at Rome, 131; appears in 
a vision after death, 131. 

Spurious Epistles of, 105-126; In- 
troductory note, 105-106; to the 
Tarsians, 107; to the Antiochi- 
ans, Ito; to Hero, a deacon of 
Antioch, t14; to the Philippians, 
116; from Maria the Proselyte, 
120; to Mary at Neapolis, 122; 
to John the Apostle, 124; a 
second Epistle to John, 125; 
to the Virgin Mary, 126. 

Imitators of the Creator, 10, 28; of 
Christ, 50, 69, 76. 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS: 


INDEX 
Impure thoughts, 111, 149. 
Isaac, 13. 


Jacob, 12, 13. 
James the Just, 69, 155. 


Jews not heirs of covenant, 138-139 
superstitions of, 26. 
observances of, 62, 82. 
Jewish sacrifices abolished, 137. 
John the Apostle, Epistles of Igna- 
tius to him, 124-125. 





Josiah, 60. 

iene teachers, 63, 71, 82. 
udas, 40, 117, 153-154. 

Judith, 20. 

Judged in the flesh, 85, 108. 

Justification, 13, 63, 64. 


Kingdom of God looked for, 43, 76, 
reg cn 
Knowledge, 29, 64, 68, 137- 


Law of Christ, 138. 

Life, 29, 76, 89. 

Light, way of, 148. 

Lot, his example, 8. 

Lord’s day, 63. 

Love commended, 19, 55- 
brotherly, 18, 19, 55- 
Moses an example of, 19, 
other examples of, 19. 
to God, 18, 89, 137. 

Luxury abjured, 13, 27, 63, 82. 


Magnesians, Epistle of Ignatius to, 
59-65; wherein he shows the 
honour and submission due by 
them to their bishop, 61-64; 
warns against Judaism, 63, and 
false doctrine, 62. 

Magus, Simon, 82. 

Marriage, 26, 81, 95. 

Martyrdom of Polycarp, 37, 44. 

of Ignatius, 129, 130. 

Martyrs, 6, 39, 74- 

Maries, the, in the Gospels, 155. 

Mary at Neapolis, spurious Epistle, 
122. 

Maria the Proselyte, her spurious 
letter to Ignatius, 120. 

Mary, the Virgin, spurious letter of 

' Ignatius, and her reply, 126. 

Mathetes, his Epistle to Diognetus, 


23, 30. 
Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels .ac- 
cording to Papias, 154-155. 
Messengers of Magnesian Church, 


59- 
to be sent to Antioch, 96. 

Millennium, questionable traditions 
of, 153. 

Ministers, order of, in Church, 16, 17, 
50, 61, 64. 

Moses, .6, 10, 144-146; quelling 
strife, 16; his love for Israel, 
19. 

Mystery of circumcision, 142-143. 

Mysteries, three, hid from Satan, 57, 
102. 


Noah, 7. 
Nicolaitans, 71, 83. 





| Obedience to God, 8, 11, 12, 50, 61. 
to Christ, 15, 51, - 3 


OF SUBJECTS. 


Office-bearers of Church at Ephesus, 
50; at Magnesia, 59; at Phila- 
delphia, 85. 

Onesimus, bishop of Ephesus, 49. 

Order in the Church, 16, 17, 90. 


Papias, fragments of, 151. 


| Patience, 35 


Paul and Peter, martyrdom of, 11. 
Peace, 10; of universe, 10; of Church, 


19. 

Philadelphians, Epistle of Ignatius 
to them, consisting chiefly of 
exhortations to unity, 79, 85. 

Philippians, Epistle of Polycarp to 
them, consisting of commenda- 
tions of them, and exhortations 
to Christian duties, 33-36. 

Spurious Epistle of Ignatius to 
them, wherein he declares the 
unity of the Godhead, also facts 
in the history of Christ; shows 
the malignity, folly, inconsis- 
tency, and ignorance of Satan, 
and concludes with exhortations, 
116-119. ee 

Pheenix, the, 12. 

Polybius, bishop of Tralles, 66, 67. 

Polycarp. Introductory notice, 31, 
his Epistle, 33; his humility, 333 4 
his praise of Paul, 35; he is be- 
trayed, 40; he refuses to revile 
Christ, 41; confesses Christ, 41; 
his last prayer, 42; in the fire, 
42; his body burned, 43. 

mentioned by Ignatius, 58, 92; 
Epistle of Ignatius to him, con- 
sisting of counsels as to his 
work, 93-96; Syriac version of 
the. same, 99. 


| Prayer, 34, 53, 82. 


Prayers requested, 58, 65, 82. 
Presbyters, duties of, 17, 34, 72. 


Presbytery, submission to, 50, 51, 67, 


89; its function, 

Priestly office, contention regarding, 
16, 17, 18. 

Prophets, the, speak of Christ, 140; 
to be esteemed, 82. 

Purification, 138, 142. 

Purity of heart, 12. 

of conduct, 95. 


Quintus the apostate, 40. 


Rahab, her example, 8. 
Red heifer, 142. 

Repentance, 7, 53, 147. - 
Reprobate men, various classes of, © 


149. 
Resurrection, Christ’s, 11, 12, 33; 70, 
87. aS 
our, II, 12, 34. 
Revelation, inspiration of. the, 155. 
Righteous, the, their sufferings, 17, 
18; we should cleave ‘to them, 


40. 
Romans, Epistle of Ignatius to, 
. wherein he expresses “his desire 
for martyrdom, and. his reasons 
for the same, 73, 78. « 
Syriac version of the same, 103-104. 
Sabbath, the true, 146; -how to be 
kept, 63. 
Sacrifices, Jewish, abolished, 137. 
Sadness, 20. « LS) 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS: 


INDEX 


OF SUBJECTS. 583 


a eee eee eee eee ee 


Saints, examples of, 7, 9, 10. 
their reward, 8, 14. 

Salutations to Churches, etc., 5, 33, 
39) 65, 72, 735 77s 85, 91, 96, 104, 
109, 112, 114, 119, 123, 137, 149. 

Salvation, 14, 28, 55, 59, 82, 139. 

Samuel, 60, 121. 

Satan, his malignity, folly, inconsis- 
tency, ignorance, 57, 102, 117, 
118, 138, 148. 

Schismatics, how to be dealt with, 


20, 80. 

Sedition in Church of Corinth, 8, 
20. 

to be avoided, rr. 

Self-conceit condemned, 15. 

Self-restraint enjoined, 94. 

Sheep and shepherd, é 80, 84, 110, 
120, 140, 147. 

Silence (Sige), 62. 

Sinners, 149. y 

Sins confessed, 19, 55, 149. 

Slaves, duty of, 94, 95, 99, 114. 

Smyrnzans, Epistle of Ignatius to, 
8@-92; wherein he states inci- 
dents in the history of. Christ, 
87; gives views of early here- 
tics, 83, and enjoins submission 
to their bishop, 89, go. 

+ Strife, its effects, 5, 6, 17. 

. Submission to Christ, go. 

to one another, rs. 


of authors of sedition, 11. 
Sufferings of Christ, 76. See Christ. 
of men, 6, 39, 129. 
Superstitions, of Jews, 26. 
Swine not allowed as food to Israel, 
143. 


Tarsians, spurious Epistle of Igna- 
tius to, wherein he speaks: of 
his sufferings, the true doctrine 
concerning Christ as against pre- 
vailing errors, and exhorts to 
duties, 108-109. 
Teachers, false, 11, 52, 53, 56, 89. 
fate of such, 56. 

Temple, Jewish view of, 147. 
the true, 147. 

Temptation, 34, 55. 

Testament given to Moses and ‘o 
* us, 84, 146. 

Thoughts, silent, 55. 

Tower, Jewish Church compared to, 
147. 

Traditions, Jewish, 15. 

Trallians, Epistle of Ignatius to, 66- 
72; wherein he commends them, 
and exhorts them to be subject 
to their spiritual rulers, 67; 
.warns them against heretics, 68 
-71; shows the reality of the 
history given us. of Christ, 70, 
71. 


Trees, the similitude of, 30, 144. 
Tribulation, patience in, 35. 


Unbelievers, 88. 

Unity, exhortations to, 50, 51, 57, 62, 
64, 72, 80, 81, go. 

Unity of Godhead, 116. 


Valens the presbyter, 35. 
Vice forsaken and virtue followed, 
_ 34 35) 148. 

Vine, 153. 

Virgins exhorted, 34, 81, 100. 

Virgin Mary, 57, 71; spurious letter 
of Ignatius to her, and her re- 
ply, 126. 

Vision seen by Polycarp, 40. 


Water of baptism prefigured in Old 
Testament, 144. 
Way, the, of light, 148. 
oe darkness, 149. 
Widows, 34, 82, 94. 
Wives, duties of, 34, 81, 95, 100. 
Works, good, 13, 14, 95. 
evil, 149. 
World, relations of Christians to, 27 
its state before Christ’s coming, 
8 , 


28... 
Worship of God, 55, 62, 81. 
Youthful piety, 60. 


Gen. i. 26 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 


PAGE 


é » 14,140 
i. 26,27, 14, 110, 140 
i, 28. . 14,140, 141 
rye Ta fe ee 


His 23) oy stew 
SIG 1Qan eave a 
17. 3-8. 3 

Lie fre tiene: 
MP sin ay Seis 7 
Nut sy el et WE le 
ix.6. . s+ 
xii, 1-3. age i) 


xiii. 14-16. 7 
XIVar A eae ce fe 
XV. fy (Cee ees 

xv. Pe data ah 
KVMS oy ogee eae BAO 
xvii. 26, 27 143 
Xvili. 27 9, 64 
xix. 24. 8, 110 


XX 2 2 ce oes 8 
KXIM EZ. cee pee RS. 
XXV. 21, 23 
EXVI. 41 os eee 6 
XXVIC4AM oe see OT 
XXVIII. 14. 
RXXNVLS soto 6 
xlviii. 11. 
xl viii. 18, 
MIX, 10! eee) ve OS 


ag Oe: 


ae BT cc ch aeite 10 
Ti: TO. Se. 2 10, 64 
XN eee 19 
xvi. 8 60 

XVI.) 14 

XE. 0. : 14 
xxiv. Iv. 146 
xxxi. 18 "139, 146 
xxxii.7,9 «19,139,146 
EXXG 72 cee ee 146 
xxxli. 32 19 
XXXII Teer aes 1 4O 
xxxiv. 28 139 
Lev. xi. 143 
XX. 24 . 140 
Num. xii. 3. "54, os 

2 Sy DP Ape ah salt) 
xii,to. . “ ie 
xii, 14, 15 tp6 
RVI <s Wiewen LIS 
584 





INDEX OF TEXTS. 





PAGE 
Num. xvi. 1,31. - 60 
Kvil 33) Far. fe 6 
xvii. ey See 
XVilly 27 eanemeets 18 
xxi. 6-9 . . 87,145 
Deut. iv. 1 ites) al 43 
VAT? scmagl sie e 140 
vi. Peart 3 89 
ix. 12. 19 130, 146 
x. 16 . are £42 
xiii. 6, ga « 80 
XiVe0g hr = 1¥6) 
xxvii, 15. . + 145 
XXXII O} Oe LS 
xxxii. 15, « 5 56 
Joshuiiy 3 5 a: 
1 Sam. iii, tr. « oe NES) 
Vill ities. 3/00) 
XDD EL cians 00 
XVHiTOpe ek. .O2 
Zi Sally Viledore ee. 1 Oe 
xviii, 14) . . 60 
XX. 22, + » 60 
1 Kings iii, 16. . . 60 
xviii. 8. . 6 
2 Kings xxii. xxiii. . 60 
1 Chron. xvii. 16u.. 4. 64 
2 Chron. xx. 7 . 5 7 
< XXViy 201. 60 
XXXl04;05. 13 
Esther vii. viii. . . 20 
Jobi.1 eae. -O 
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Vo IC) wick 5 
V. 1752/6009) ems 20 
BL 2,'Sistueuee «21S 
lV 4h Seems nO 
XV.I§ + 6 6 6 1S 
KiKi 25, 2050 cee 12 
XXX. 19 . eres OF. 
XXx1, 13, 15.5 6) ¢) USK 
xxxii.8,9 . . . 60 
xxxvili, II. 2. 10 
Psst tee ms 243 
i. 3-6. + + 144 
ii. 7, 8 ‘ears 16 

TAO Oem Ai eS Ae 
Hii, @ 2 0 ol 8 ey 
Wy Gis. its ease aS 
of ae CN at ee 
ViiI2. 2 6 6 6 63 


Ps. vii. gs +o 
xii. 3-5 - 
xviil. 25, 26. 
XVill. 44. - 
xix. I-3. . 
xxii. 6-8. . 
xxii. 17, 19. 
XXil 21) cs 
Xxi729 61 < 
RXiVeri es 
EXVi 7. 
Xxxi. 18 o> 
xxxii, 1,2 . 

xxxii. 10, 

xxxiv. 11-13 

Xxxiv. 11-17 

XXXVii. 35-37 

xii iOuure 

xiii. 2. 

1,14, 15. 

1. 16-23 . 

li, 1-17 


cxviii. 19, 20 
cxviii. 22, 24 
Cxix. bere 
cxix. Py oe 
cxix. 83. . 
cxix. 120. 
CXXX.3 . « 
CXXXIEZ a 
CXxxix. 7-10 
CXXXIX. 15 « 
cxli. ‘é ae 
Prov.i.6. 5 . 
5 be 

1.23; 31, 


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ii, 21, 22. 
iii. 12. 

iii. 34. 
Vilage 

ix. 1 
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Prov. 


xvill. 9 
xviil, 17 
XX2775 
xxii. 29 
xxiii. 24 
xxiv. 21. 
KEV fies 

Song of Sol. i. 3, 4 

ii. 15 

Isa: 1:2) 10° cs 

i.6-9 ... 
i, I-14. 

OO oe saree 
i. 16, 18, 20 
iii.9 . 

Verge a ar bts 
eden to ke 


© 0:6 (6 3» © 56. @ Set fe 


Vi20 Seo 6 

vi. 3 : 

WH. 3405 

Nill Ia cy 

XViT eo hate 
xxvi. BO ice ie 
xxviii. 10: .° 4 
xxix. 1G ce caer 
xxxiii. I : 
xxxiii. 1-18 ; 
SEXKVS 4 cece 
x1..70) -“aaosa ce 
Xl l20 sone 
xi. 1 Sa tees 
xli. . s . ° 
<I f6750 ee 
xlin) 260. Go. 
Xlv..7> 5 es 
xlv. 2,3 0. > 
xlix. 6 ita eS 
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AACR cs ay 
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liii. +, ome 
Ivi. 10 ee 8 @ 


o “a 8 ee fe (6 6 


2 ue po Se, We) ve 2: ep top @. 8) 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS: INDEX OF TEXTS. 585 


PAGE PAGE coer PAGE 
T38 teii24 1. 1. . 33/2 eb 
Isa. lviii. 4,5... ie Matt. xii. 33... $5 Ac a ti Feb ee arity meet 2 
ahs : ’ : ; ; ; aig $° : ; : ‘ 9 ix. I e ° e e 5 Gal, 1. I e e . e 3 
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cy og 148 a: agin ee ct 42 xxvi.14 . 2 6 84 io 4 
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Sk Reema oe xxii. 4 nee § aT i. hoe ale ase 3 
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Wiig. 5 . . 138 xxiv. 25... 51 ee arceey 14 ae i. ‘ = : 
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ix. RMT Uh hea ae 8 xxvi. 24 2. re SiS a oa rr ey 20 fe eri 
1%;25,26. . 142 xxvi. 39 Loc fe Wa ee ae at ch tog 
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2 nak 2 es 62, 70 vili.32. 2 2. . 69 E Bi hek ts eee 
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Babak 311 Te eee yp cde) Ohh et Sik 18 ig teiees Gs 
ae + poy ii.32. . . 89 Bos ot ee 80 iii. 2Oe 6 + « 29 
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flow “as a ; ; i a xxiv. 39 a iS a eM vie cd 5 K Y : ‘ iv. 15 e ° e ° 18 
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586 THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS: INDEX OF TEXTS.” 





PAGE PAGE 
aTim.i.16. .. . “50 5 2 Pet. ii.6-Q «© oie (f 
Ui 18 sleet | 91 : 8 iii. 3,4 0 ot oer 
i EO ct cites of 3A 6 fil, 8. eee 4G 
ii, 24,2596 © 554 4 ili. 97.3) «One 
ii: 20 alien) CO : ii, 151) 0) 2 oomeson 
His’) o) “ste e OF a 1 John iii. 7 . oe SS 
‘46. o 2 80 . TS ee ee 2 
iv. Backs) 00s 64 ° iv. 9 an en fee e me 35 
iv; 20) 6) seem ck Jude 3.>. «+ « «7 34 
Titsicc2e cei sheek ete er Le Rev. 1.7 . sy 6d oEO7, 
1G oe oe Set GS VAQ'e! cn 5) ole iesO 
lis Gover os) eerie xix. 7 2) ot vO 
ii, T4ce ol cl ie 20, 08 XX1)5 940 se eae 
HiT, oro) et een) 45 xxii, 12. + + 14 


Mee) a tl Sats ea! 
Philem. 8,9. » + + 5§0 
Heb. i. 3, 4) 5) 7913 + 15 

fi, 12. « 0 «© IQl 


‘JUSTIN MARTYR. 


INDEX OF SUBJECTS, 


Adrian, Emperor; his Epistle in be- 
half of the Christians, 186. 

Advents of Christ, 210, 221, 253-254. 

Eschylus on the unity of God, 290. 

Amen, 186 : 

Analogies, heathen, to Christ’s doc- 
trine, 169. 

to Christ’s history, 170. 
to the Sonship of Christ, 170. 

Anaximander and Anaximenes, 274. 

Angels, how they transgressed, 190, 
238 ; their freedom, 250, 269, 301 ; 
who taught them, 164. - 

Antoninus, Emperor, Epistle in be- 
half of the Christians, 186. 

Apostles, 175, 179. 

Archelaus, the Athenian, 274. 

Argument, the, of Justin’s Apology 
stated, 170. 

Aristotle, opinions of, 275. 

Atheism, 164. 

Aurelius, 187. 


Baptism, Christian, 183, 201, 216. 
its imitation by demons, 183. 
Birds, the two,’in Lev: xiv., 301. 


Chariton, examination of, by the Pre- 
fect Rusticus, 305. 

Chastity, 167. 

Children, exposed, 172. 

Christ Jesus, 170, 177, 190, 219, 236- 
238, 253, 205, 301. ; 

shown to:be God, from His appear- 

ances ‘to Abraham, 222-225; ob- 
jection met, that He ate, 225; 
from visions to Jacob, 225; from 
His interviews with Moses, 226; 
from the testimony of Proverbs, 


228; bs : “ : 
called the Lord of Hosts, 212, 241, 


320T.° Area, ‘ 
discngaisiied from the Father, 264. 
called the Word, 164, .166, 170, 
174, 192, 263-264. ; 
the Son of God, 164, 166, 170, 178, 
182, 190, 216; 219, 250, 257, 258, 
6 , 


263- 
His-thumanity, 170, 174, 179, 193) | 


266, 219, 228, 231, 241, 301. 
His early history, 237-238, 250. - 


Christ Jesus, crucified, 166, 173, 174, 


179, 222, 247-251. 

His work, 179. 

blood of, 173, 200, 222, 228. 

His cross, symbols of, 181, 242- 
244, 247- 

the curse He endured, 246-248. 

His advent foretold, 173, 175, 
260. 

His appearances before His com- 
ing in the flesh, 262-263. 

His titles in Scripture, 190, 262. 

His first and second coming, 209, 
210, 221, 253-254- 

testimony of Scripture regarding 
Him: of Moses, 173, 221, 223, 
236; of David, 175, 176,211, 212, 
213, 220, 235, 240, 241, 248, 252; 
of Isaiah, 174, 179, 200, 236-237, 
241; of Micah, 174; of Zepha- 
niah, 175; of Zechariah, 221. 

His teaching, 167, 168, 246. 

the Holy Spirit received by Him, 


243. 
figures of: Joshua, 255-258, 265; |. 


Noah, 268-269; Mosaic laws, 
214-216: ' oe 

called Jacob, Israel, and Son of 
man, 248, 262. 

His reign and majesty, 176, 178, 
179, 209, 236, 267. 


- not a magician, 172. 


compared to Socrates, I19I. 

His resurrection 252-253, 298. 

His rejection by the Jews, 175, 
179, 253) 267. 

of faith in, 191, 199, 257, 260: 

salvation alone in, 207, 216-217. 


Christians, Apologies for, by Justin 


Martyr, 164-193. 

their treatment at the hands of the 
heathen world, 170, 182, 188, 191, 
253-254. . 

testimonies of Roman emperors as 

. to, 186-187. 

accused of atheism, 164. 

inquiry into charges against them 
demanded, 163-165. 

charges refuted; shown they..do 
not worship idols, 169, 171.‘ 

worship God, 164, 165. 


Christians, their moral life, 165-166, 
172, 189, 192. 
their worship, 185. 
their treatment at the hands of the 
Jews, 203, 214, 246-247, 256. 
blamed for not observing the law, 
199, 203; for not submitting to 
be circumcised, 206, 208, 256. 
-have the true righteousness, 209. 
shown to be called like Abraham, 
258; promised as ‘seed to the 
patriarchs, 259; are the true 
Israel 261, 267; are the sons of 
God, 261 sort At 
Church, Jacob’s marriage a figure of, 
266-267. 
Circumcision, 202, 203, 206, 208, 245, 


256. 
Continence of Christians, 172. 
Corruption, 301. 
Crescens, his prejudices, 189. 
Cross, symbols of the, 181, 242, 244, 


247. 
Curse, the, 246-248. 


Death, 165, 192. 

Deeds, evil, their punishment, «65; 
their detection, 166 

Demons, 167, 190, 192; their imita- 
tion of divine things, 181, 182, 
183-184; cause persecution, 182. 

Devil as a roaring lion against Christ, 


251. 
aS plots against us, 300. 
Devils, 181, 182, 184, 185, 238. 
distort the truth, 233, 234. 
Dialogue of Justyn Martyr with Try- 
pho the Jew, 194-270. 
Divinations, 168165 
Dream-senders, 168-169. 


Elijah, 219. 

Emperors, Roman, testimony to 
Christians, 186-187. 

Epicurus, opinions of, 192-193, 274- 


27 5. 
Eucharist, 185, 


| Euripides, on future judgment, 291° 


on false gods, 292, 293. 


Fables, heathen, 233: 
587 


588 





Faith in Christ, 191, 199, 257, 260. 

Fasting, 202. 

Fate, 177-178. 

Forgiveness of sin, 200, 217. 

Eoreknow!ecee of God, 178. 

Forerunner of Christ, 220-221. 

Free-will in man and angels, 249- 
250, 270, 301. 


Gentiles, 180; conversion of, 253, 
260, 264, 265. 
Goats, 301. 
God, 164-166, 172, 177-178, 190, 197, 
198, 199, 200, 300. 
His care for men, 172. 
how He appeared to Moses, 184. 
how known, 246-247. 
not give His glory to another, 


230. 
His righteousness, 245-246. 
what He decreed concerning 


Christ, 250. 
~ His namelessness, 281. 

rejected by the Jews, 262-263. 

His unity and sole government, 
treatise by Justin Martyr on, 
290-293. 

testimonies to unity from: Greek 
poets: A®schylus, 290; Sopho- 
cles, 290; Philemon and Or- 
pheus, 290. 

opinions of Greek philosophers 
as to, 274-275. 

Gods, false, 171, 181, 233 
Greeks, Justin’s Discourse to, 271- 
_ 2743; wherein he justifies his de- 
parture from Greek customs, 
271-272; exposes the Greek the- 
ogony, 271; follies of Greek 
mythology, 272; the shameless 
practices of the Greeks, 274; 
calls upon them to study the 
divine word, 272. 

Justin’s Hortatory Address to, 
273-289; wherein he shows that 
their poets are unfit to be reli- 
gious teachers, 273-274. 

opinions of their philosophers, as 
Thales, 274; of Pythagoras and 
Epicurus, 274-275; of Plato and 
Aristotle, 275-276. 

what their philosophers and poets 
learned from Moses’ writings, 

276, 277, 278. 


Happiness, 196. 

Hell, 170. 

Heraclitus and Hippasus, 274. 

Hercules, 192. 

Human doctrine, 182, 219. 

Homer, passages from, showing his 
views as to his gods, 273-274; 
his testimony to monotheism, 
280; his obligations to the sacred 
writer, 282-283; his knowledge 
of man’s origin, 286. 

Hystaspes, 169. 


Idols, 165, 171. 

Images, 287. 

Immorality of the heathen, 171, 272. 

Israel applied to Christ, 264; He is 
King of, 267. * 


Jacob, Leah and Rachel figures of 
the Church, 266. 


JUSTIN MARTYR: 


Jews, their treatment of Christ, 175- 

179, 253: ast 

treatment of Christians, 175, 203, 
214, 247. 

blame the Christians for not ob- 
serving the law, 199. 

they violate the eternal, and inter- 
pret that of Moses, 200. 

why circumcision was given, 202. 

why the law was given them, 203. 

why the choice of meats, 204. 

the Sabbaths instituted, and sacri- 
fices and oblations, 205. 


the injury to God from their opin- | . 


ion of the law, 206. 
they boast in vain that they are the 
sons of Abraham, 206, 269. 
in disputations, 256. 
how they treat Scriptures, 176, 232. 
their interpretations, 261. 
their circumcision differs from the 
Christian, 256. 
their hardheartedness, 266. 
salvation for them only in Christ, 
207, 216-217. 
rejecting Christ, they reject God, 
267-268. 
exhorted to repent and be con- 
verted, 258, 268. 
John the Baptist, 220-221. 
Jonah, the sign of, 252. 
does a figure of Christ, 255, 265- 
266. 
Judea, its desolations foretold, 178. 
Judge, the, 180. 
Judgment, future, testimonies of 
Greek writers to, 291. 
Jupiter, 164, 170, 192. 
Justice demanded for Christians, 
163-164. 
Justin Martyr, introductory notice 
of, 159-161. 
his First Apology for Christians, 
163-187. 
his Second Apology, 188-193. 
his Dialogue with Trypho a Jew, 
194-270; he studies philosophy, 
195; his conversion, 195; his 
arguments in favor of Chris- 
tianity as against Judaism, 194- 
270. 
his Discourse to the Greeks, 271- 
272. 
his Hortatory Address to. the 
Greeks, 273-289; spurious, 289. 
on the Sole Government of God, 
290-293. : 
on the Resurrection, 294-299. 
fragments from his lost writings, 
301-302. 
he is examined and condemned by 
the Prefect Rusticus, 305. 


Kingdom,’ Christians look for, 166. 
Knowledge, 196. 


Lamb, a type of Christ, 214. 
Law, the, 199, 200, 203, 214-216, 
Life, 198 

Lord’s Day, 186. 

Lucius, the philosopher, 163. 


Magi, 237-238. 
Man, his creation, 165, 228, 250; cor- 
ruption of, 301. 
origin of Homer's opinion of, 286, 


INDEX, OF SUBJECTS. 


Marcion, 171, 182. 
Marcus Aurelius, the emperor, his 
testimony of the Christians, 187. 
Marriages, impure, 167. 
Martyr pone holy martyrs at Rome, 
0 _ 
Meats, choice of, why prescribed to 
Israel, 204. 
Menander, 171; his views of God, 
292. 
Millennium, 236-240. 
Mithras, mysteries of, 234. 
Monotheism, testimonies to: of Or- 
pheus, 279; of the Sibyl, 280; 
of Homer, 280, 282; of Pythag- 
oras, 280; of Plato, 281, 282, 283. 
Moses predicts Christ's coming, 17 
God appears to, 184-185, 223-22 
foretells Christ’s cross, 224. 
his antiquity proved by Greek 
writers, 277-278. 
heathen oracles testify of, 278. 
training and inspiration of, 278. 
es indebted to, 182, 283, 284, 


286. 
Homer indebted to, 284. 
Mosaic laws, figures of things which 
pertain to Christ, 214-215, 216. 
Mythology, heathen, its origin, 181. © 
Greek, the follies of, 272. 


Names of God and Christ, 190, 262. 
Necromancy, 168-169. 
Noah, a figure of Christ, 268, 269. 


Obedience, civil, 168. 

Oracles, heathen, 169; testify of 
Moses, 278 

Orpheus, his testimony to Mono 
theism, 279, 290. 


Patience, 168, ‘ 

Peripatetics, 195. 

Philemon, testifies to a future judg- 
ment, 291; shows how God 1s 
appeased, me 

Philosophers, 164-165, 177. 

have not true knowledge, 288. 

Greek, their opinions of God, 274, 
275+ : 

opinions as to resurrection, 296. 

their indebtedness to Moses, 182, 
278-280, 288-289. 

Philosophy, 195. 

Phylactery, 218. 

Plato, 165, 169, 177, 183, 275, 276, 
281;. ambiguity of, 282; self- 
contradictory, 282; his agree- 
ment with Homer, 282-283; his 
knowledge of God’s eternity, 
283; indebted to Moses, 182, 
183, 284, 285, 286; to the proph- 
ets, 283-284; his knowledge of 
judgment,. 284; his doctrine of 
form, 285-286; of the heavenly 
gift, 286-287; of the beginning 
of time, 287; of the universe, 
206. 

Platonists, 195- 

Polytheism, 181, 190, 192. 

Prayers, 186, 257. . 

Prophecy, different modes of, 175. 

certainly fulfilled, 180. 

concerning Christ, 173-375, 210- 
216, 220, 221-225, 235-238, 240~ 
242.5 ROT Fake 


JUSTIN MARTYR: 





Prophets, Hebrew, 173; use the past 
tense, 176-177; truth learned 
from them, 198. 

Psalms that speak of Christ, 176, 
211, 212-213, 228, 235, 240, 241, 
248-252. 

Punishment, everlasting, 165, 166, 
169, 172, 191, 300. 

Pythagoras, opinions of, 274-275, 
280-281. 

Pythagorean, 195. 


Repentance, 167, 258. 
Responsibility, human, 177, 190. 
Resurrection, treatise of Justin on, 
294-299. 
objections to, 294, 295; not impos- 
sible, 295. 
arguments for; Christ has risen, 


298. 
Christ’s, 178, 298. 
Righteousness, 201, 208, 209, 217, 
245-246. 
Rusticus, the prefect, examines Chris- 
tians, 305-306. 


Sabbath, why instituted, 204, 207, 
301-302. 

Sacraments, the, 185. 

Sacrifices, why instituted, 205. 


Salvation, 207, 216-217, 

Satan, 172; blasphemes, 300. 

Saturn, 192. 

Scriptures, 198, 199, 232, 234-235, 
245; searched, 232. 

Semo, the inscription, 171, 187. 

Septuagint, history of, 278-279. 

treatment of, by Jews, 234. 

Sibyl, the, 169, 280, 288-289. 

Simon, the Samaritan, 171-172, 182, 
193. 

Sins, forgiven, 200. 

Six, the number, 301-302. 

Socrates, 191. 

Sophocles, on unity of God, 290; on 
future judgment, 291. 

Souls, 196-197. 

Spirit, Holy, 164, 167, 177, 243. 

Stoics, the, 169, 190, 191, 192. 

Sunday, 185-186. 

Swearing, 168. 


Teachers, Christian, their antiquity, 
inspiration, and harmony, 2 


269. 
Teach, of Christ, 164, 167, 168, 
Thales, his views as to God, 274. 
Theogony, Greek, exposed, 271. 
Titus, the emperor, 163. 
Traditional opinions, 163. 


INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 


589 


Trinity, the, 164, 185. 
Truth, the, 166; known from the 
prophets, 198, 289. 
misrepresented, 183, 184-185. 
7: its pore ae 294. Pp i 
eS O rist, 214-216, 2 — 
OG, 268.00) Slt? 
Unity of God, 290-293. 
Urbicus condemns he Christians to 
death, 188. 


Verissimus the philosopher, 163. 
Vice and virtue, 192. 


Wicket, their punishment, 164-165, 

166, 168. 

Wine, in the Eucharist, unchanged 
but not common, 1865. 

Wisdom, Christ the, 227-228. 

Word, sre is Christ, 164, x60, 170, 
178, 190, 191, 192-193, 263, 272. 

World preserved for sake of Chris- 
tians, 190. 

Worship, weekly, of Christians, 185- 
1 


who is worthy, 232. 
heathen, 171. 


Xenophon, 193. 


PAGE 


Gen. i. 1 See car- R 
i. 207 Fate medics 
i. 26;28'" cis 
ii, Sia ge: ele te 
ii. aA eee 12005 
iii, 15 . 3 
iii. 19 . one 
1.22, % 4228, 
vii. 16. 

vili. 10, 12 
ix. 24-27 . 
Xin Sits 

xi. 6 

xv. 6 

XViii. I, 2 
xviii, 2. 
xviii. 10. 
xviii, routs 
xviii. 13, 14 . 


xviii. 16,17 .224, 


285 
297 
228 
204 
297 
250 
286 
264 
263 
204 
269 
263 
250 
245 
223 
263 
223 
263 


xviii. 20-23, 33: 224 
xV1T 22a 263 
KIC TOs 224 
xix. 16-25 225 
xix. 23. 224 
xix. 24. . 263 
xix. 27, 28 223 
Xxi. Q-12 . 223 
5.5.6) Caras 226 
XXvi. 4. 259 
xxviii. 10-19. 226 
XXVIli. 14. 259 
xxxi, IO-13 . 226 
Xxxll, 22-30 . 226 
XXxil. 24, 30 . 263 
Xxxv. 6-10 226 
XXXV. 7 227 
xlix. 5, 8, ‘9, ‘lo, 

TI, 18,24. = 221 
xlix. 8-12. 221 
xlix. 10. 173 181, 259 
xlix. 24. 42 

Ex. ii. 23 . 256 
iii, 2-4 227 
Mie. 184 
iii. 16 226 
In 2) thee 203 
vi. 29 + 263 
xii. 19 + 260 
XV. 27 a 242 
Xxili. 20, 21 . 236 

59° 


JUSTIN 


INDEX OF TEXTS. 


MARTYR. 


PAGE 


Ex.xxv.9 .. +285, "286 Pe 4b OY Womes MA Oh Bene? a 
XXV. 40. . 286 xix. 5. - «181, 233 
xxviii. 33. 215 xxii. . = bye 52 
xxxil.6. . 204 xxii. 7, 18 175 

Lev. xiv. 49-53- 301 xxii, 16... « 174 

Xxvi. 40, 41 202| = xxii. 16-18 . . . 247 
Num. xi.17.. . 220 XXIV. Gen ee 21S 
xi, 23 - 263 xxiv. 7 . 180, 241, 263 

xiii. 16 236 XXX 2 tse we 270, 

xv. 38. oe Zi XLV. Je os $710 213 

XX Gis nents 153 X1ViiG; 7a unm 224 
XXIV.17 =) ss) 252 xlv. 6-11 . . 229 
xxvii. 18 . +3 aie Tis qa y a home 242 
Deut. tv. 19.3) 5222, 2 vii. 5-9) =) = 213 
vi. 6 Se ofS eee.) ae : rien fee acek® 200 

x. 16 f. 202 Ixviii. 18 spies 243 

xxi. 23 : 247 Ixvili. 19. + 214 
xxvii. 26 . 247 [eesti OB 211 

XXX. 15, 19 . 177 Ixxii. 1, etc. 230 

REX 2c 263 TxxXi27o. = 260 

xxxi. 16-18 . 230 lxxxii. 262 
XXxxil. 6, 20 . 204 xc. 4 . » & 240 
xxxii. 7 ff. . 265 xcvi. I, etc... 176, 235 

Xxxil. 15. . 204 xcvi. § . 222, 238, 296 

xxxli. 16-23 258 xceviii. ie ee) 
xxxiil. 20. . 261 xcix. 213 

xxxii. 22. . 182, 183 xcix. I-7 229 
XXxil. 43 « 264 CK: ae eee A210, 0240 
Xxxili. 13-17 245 (Ge Poa cg ae 263 
Xxxiv. 9 . 220 CXi03) ae - 237 
see i. I ae 5 227 CX. 3, 4 229 
: 206 cx. 4 . 258 

v. Be ad jin 228 CXv. 5. 5 at $8 
Visitscote 228 cxv. 16. sll 2 1250 

1 Sam Veal ane 266 cxvill. 24. . . 249 
vi. 14 266 CXXVILL 3 arpa mee Sf 
XXVill. 12, I 3- 252 exlviii, 1,2. . . 242 

2 Sam. vii. 14 f. 4 6 Prov. viii. 21 ff. . . 228 
1 Kings xix. 11,12 ., 2 vill, 22 ff. . . 264 
xix. 14,18 . Vili. 27 Pere 37, 

obi. Ge eacn 238 Tea. 163) Uoeaai ts Ps a 

Ps. i. 2 176 Bk a? Sea ce 6) 
ih : 242 127 fe ae ate ae yan 7 
Mi 7 ge 244 2st, "261 f. i, + « 181, 269 
Lilandys Sie 247 1. 16, €tCh ue). 77 
digs Gh costs 175 1.:46=20, 5 =. «183 
viii. 3. 250 to2ge * | « 62d0 
xviii. 43 . 208 127m e) we tue re eed, 
XIX! Ss 209 ll. ©), hie) Teaco tment 
xix. I-6 . 230 ii. : Rote, cay eae oF 
xix. 2,¢etc.. . . 176 ii. 9 ff... . .203, 268 


Isa. iii. Q-1 ee 7 eE 200: 
iii. 16 ts 5 - 208 
Wi18; 20.072, i 9) 8203 
v. 18-25 «2 use 200 
Vist ZO'n} Wan foun oy yO 
1 2 irae 3 214 


VIAS: 07s un pa eae 
VisilO}) Fjaren 22s ZOO) 
vii. 10-17... 216, 231 
Vii: 14 95s ce ee 
Vill. 4° = S210, 238 
IX1O)e es sot 4N e360 
Xin ff... <s87 45243 
Xivy. F | . «200,205 
xvii, Go.) -meex 75 
XIX. 248 Gy meeOL 
xxvi. 2,3... . 206 
XXVELy Deyo tess 
xxix. 13. . .219, 269 
SXIKS ula eo 
MXIX:| 14:5  2EO) 208 
XXX. T=See ee aS 
xxxilil. 13-19 . . 234 


AXKVE 75.) ae mere sa 
XEKV. 5) 3. eo.) ogee 
XXXVe Oi eha oT 


XXKIX, Ose ZO 
x), I=17). soe ee 220) 
xlii. 1-4. . .261, 267 
xii. S=13) ee eee an 
xiii; 6, 165... = are 

xii. 6,7) 7.) 22s 207 
SIU Ba OLS 
X]i1s10) fas es OE 
Xlil} 10% e200 
X11 05 case eee 207, 
X1Vs: 2 ays Se 983 
Xv: G7. s) cal eo 


xliv.9-20 . . . 16 
xlv. Af Ae of 180 
xlix. 6,8 . .™.. 260 
SY Mere acer pare sy 
IO G 6 o> Ie 
LiAs Sieweeaie 200 
hinge + + + 203 
li. To ff. ose ZOE 


lii. fe s 6 «© 79 
lii. 15 eae ae 
Hi re F 

ae 1,2.) 215, 256, 268 
lili. 7... 254, 256 


JUSTIN MARTYR: INDEX OF TEXTS. 591 


— 


















ote Baek PAGE PAGE 
Isa. liii. 8. . 216, 229, 258 Jer. xxxi. 27. . . . 261] Matt. iv9,10 . .251, 262|Markxii.jo. . . . 168 
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Kam: ‘iv;20)..) 0.) 6 ISE 
Ezek. iii. 17-19. =. «240 
Xi 22 en EP eOO 


lii.g. . . . . 247 
Mivaet. 3. pao 3 180 


Live} eeme 20S 
Veh Se thew em tse 200,)202 


Vv. 20 .« 2 
v. 28, A hyo « 67 
V. 34) 3 

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vi. "8, 30, 4 , 167 


























5, xiv. 18,20 . . 269 vi. 29, 36. - 168 
Iii, I. . «179, 254 XIV 20s eee ly, “a 56, 22, 4t , 168 TINIE G te 0G 22S] 
Ivit, I=4. 5. . : 203 EVES aoe es 297, V1s119;520 9) 167 berPiad el MA ey) 
Ivili. 1-12 . . . 202 XVI ZO ee need a 21, 25, 26, 33, 168 bp (: ra (| 
Wil? . . .. 174 XXe U2 ko Ok LDS nets ya ele x. 19 - 236 
EVES N TAY a. 207 19-26 . . 205 vii 15,16,19 . 168 xi + 20 






Ixii. 10, toend . 207 


il xxxill, 11-20 . 219 
EXT 2eae 250 


xxxvi. T2)\y esa ee zor 


Wii 20'e 4) ee 8 209 
Wills (221s awe et 






Ixtii. 1-6. . . 207 xxxvii. 7,8. . 180 viii. 11. 236, 259, xviii. f. . . 249 
Ixiii, 15, to end . 207 xliv.3  . . . 258 IX} 23580 ate TG EX.134, 350) 295 
Ixili. 17. . . . 180] Dan. vii.g-28 . . . 210 EX235 6) se e40 
OVI = | 207 vii, 13. . . . 180 xxii, 19. . . 185 
PXIVeO-12.. 0... 178:) FLOS. 1, 11.0. 2 sete 204 xxii. AZ AAs) ve) 28k 
Ixivett. . > « 80 Pale: seo alin xxiii. 46. 0. . 252 


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Ixv. I-3. . .179, 206| Amos vy. 18, to end 

Ixv. i =) 174, 17.5) 247, 
2 


Ixv.8 f.9-12. . 267 
lxv. 17,toend . 239 
Ixvig be. «L755 200 
Pxvigg=11) .), 2). 242 


PAVE PT, stay «4 287 
Ixvi. 24 . 180, 217, ie 


xxiv.32.. . . 2 
Johniii.5 . . . . i 
Mee leG gid 9, 1¢4i3 
X33-35) 06 eee 
Sil 4005. et 200 
xii. 47,48 . . 219 
Actsi.g.. . . « 298 
RVILTx ote pass 224 
Rom.i.28 . . . . 260 
iii. 10 ff... . 208 


























2 a ie Xe 2I eee aay, 
Jerui tsi... . .256, 269 xxii. 17, 19-21 . XV. 15, 16,17 «. 257 
MIO pe 22) ep) ieee GOL xxii. 37. . . 246|1Cor.x.4 ... +. . 200 
Veep eels cialevsh ste 2O8 XXII oy eee) 208 X.20. + + 164 
WiaTnenn eon ae 2O5 xii. 3-14. xxiii. 15 . . 260 | Xb IQs 2s 212 
Wite24, 26. . .° +200 Xisst220. way OO xxiii. 23, 24, 27, 255 | Gal. iii. 13 G0 247 
ix.25f.. ... . 208 Xili07/ eee ere 22. XXIVeKN geese ers iv. 12 ae 272 
ixseOy. = bs) pede ISL | Mal. into, etc, < 0 21208 xxv. 41. . . 236]2 Thess. He: ah 5 2G 
Kees so tee 165 i, IO-I2  . .215, 257 xxvi. 27. - . I 3 ie ; 17 
x18... + « 200 re a oa, oe ERNE xxvi.39 . . . 248|/Heb.iv. . . - 8 
xi.IQ . . . » 234|Matti2r . . . . 174 xxvii. 39- . - 175|1 Pet.iig . . 257 
xvii, 23... + + 200 iii, 11,12 . . 219|Markii.17 . . . . 297|2Pet.ili8 . . . +. 240 
seethiie to Ao) ek ii, 17. | 5 © (251 xii.a§. . . - 294] Rev. xx.4,5. . . . 240 











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‘ 


oo 


Aaron and Miriam, their sin against 
Moses, and its punishment, 573. 
Abel and Cain, the offerings of, 485. 
Abominations, the, practised by the 
Valentinians, 324, etc. 
Abraham, saw the day of Christ, 467, 
469, etc.; vain attempt of Mar- 
cion to exclude him from Christ’s 
salvation, 470, etc.; had faith 
identical with ours, 492; both 


covenants prefigured in, 49 496; 
waited for the promises of God, 


I. 

Uiriaas Basilides’ doctrine of, 350. 

Acceptable year of the Lorc, the, 390. 

Achamoth, an account of, 320; origin 
_of the visible world from, 321, 
etc.; shall at last enter the Ple- 
roma, 325; asserted to be re- 
ferred to in Scripture, 326-328. 

Adam and Eve, the story of, accord- 
ing to the Ophites, 356. 

Adam, the first, made a partaker of 
salvation, 455i his repentance 
signified by the girdle which he 
made, 457; why driven out of 
Paradise, 457; in Paradise, 531; 
sinned on the sixth day of crea- 
tion, 551; death of, 552. 

analogy between the first and the 
second, 454. 

on, the twelfth, the sufferings of, 
not to be deduced from Scrip- 
ture, 387; nor typified by the 
woman with the issue of blood, 


zi 

Kosa the thirty, of Valentinus, 316, 
etc.; English equivalents of the 
Greek names of, 316, note; how 
the thirty are said to be indicated 
in Scripture, 319; the production 
of, 373, etc., 379, etc.; further 
inquiry into and refutation of the 
speculations respecting, 380, 381; 
the theory of, further exposed, 
382, 383, etc.; the twelve apos- 
tles not types of the twelve, 389; 
the thirty, not typified by the 
baptism of Jesus in His thirtieth 
year, 390. 

Agape, 396. 

Atov, meaning of the term, 316. 


IRENAEUS. 


INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 





Aletheia, the Eon so called, 317; 
how her passion is said to be 


indicated in Scripture, 319; of 
Ptolemy, 333; revealed by Tet- 
rad, 337, etc. 


the numerical value of, does not 
square with Valentinianism, 396. 

Anaxagoras, 376. 

Anaximander, 376. 

Angels, the world not made by, 361; 
could not be ignorant of the 
Supreme God, 365. 

of the devil, 524, etc. 
Animal men, the, of the Valentinians, 
, 323s 327-: 

Animals, clean and unclean, 534. 

Anthropos ahd Ecclesia, the /Zons 
so naméd, 317, 333» 355: 

Antichrist, the fies k aE and 
tyranny of the kingdom of, 553, 
$54; concentrates in himself the 
apostasy; 557; the number of the 
name of; 558. 

Antiphanes, the theogony of, 376. 

Apator, 322. 

Apocryphal, Scriptures, the, of the 
Marcosians, 394, 395: 
Apostles, thé twelve, not types of the 

twelve Afons, 389. 
the, did tiot begin to preach till 
endued ‘with the Holy Spirit, 
414; preached one God, 414; 
the doctrine of, 429-436; the 
labours of, lessened by their 
redecessors, 494, 495- 

Aquila and Theodotion, their inter- 
pretation of Isa. vii. 14 referred 
to, 451. | 

Ark of the covenant, 394, §79- 

Autogenes, 353. 

Axe, the, made to float by means of 
wood, 572. 

the, laid at the root, 573. 


Balaam, 571; forbidden to curse 
Israel, 572; his ass a type, 572; 
slain, 572. 

Baptism of Jesus in His thirtieth year 
not a type of the thirty Atons, 


Barbstiotes or Borborians, the, 353. 
Basilides, the doctrines of, 348, etc.; 


absurd notion of, as to the death 
of Jesus, 349; this notion of, re- 

é an 412. 

east, the, 557, 558, etc. 

Bel and the eee 467. 

Bishops, a succession of, in various 
churches, 415, etc.; first, of 
Rome, 416. 

Blandina, the martyr, 570. 

Blood, the, of Christ, redeems, 527, 


28. 
the Christians accused of eating, 
how the calumny originated, 570. 
Bodies, the, of men, temples of the 
Holy Ghost, §32; from the earth, 


44. ; 

Body and soul, the views of heretics 
respecting the future destiny of, 
refuted, 402. 

Bread and wine in the Eucharist, 528. 

Breath of life, the, 


537+ 
Hye 316, 3335 Sheuedity of, 362, 
393: 


Cain, 456; and Abel, the respective 
offerings of, 485. 

Cainites, the doctrines of the, 358. 

Carnal and spiritual, 536, 537. 

Carpocrates, the doctrines of, 350; 
the followers of, practised magic 
and incantations, 350; immo- 
rality of the system of, 350, 351; 
his views of the devil, 351; his 
followers branded with external 
marks, and have images of Jesus, 
etc., 351. 

Centurion, the, of the Gospels, as- 
serted by the Valentinians to be 
the Demiurge, 326, 

Cerdo, the doctrines of, 352. 

Cerinthus, the doctrines of, 351, 352. 

Christ, Valentinus’s views of, 319, 
323, 325) 332) 3343 the origin of, 
according to the Ophites, 354; 
the descent of, opea Jesus, ac- 
cording to the Ophites, 357; the 
apostles of, their preaching, 417; 
and Jesus, the same, the only- 
begotten Son of God, 440-444; 
not, but the Holy Spirit, de- 
scended upon Jesus, 444; and 
Jesus of Nazareth proved from 


$93 


594 


the writings of Paul to be one 

and the same, 445, etc.; did not 

flee away from Jesus at the 

cross, 446; did not suffer in ap- 

pearance merely, 446; assumed 

actual flesh, conceived and born 

of the Virgin, 454, etc.; the 

advent of, foretold, 473; the ad- 

vent of, foreknown and desired 

by righteous men, 474; did not 

aboliek the law, 475; is the end 

of the law, 476; did not abrogate 

the natural precepts of the law, 

but removed the bondage, 477; 

came for the sake of men of all 

ages, 485, etc.; is the treasure 

hid in the field, 496; descended 

into regions beneath the earth, 

499; foreseen and foretold by 

the prophets, 509; the prophets 

referred all their predictions to, 

Str, etc.; alone able to redeem 

us, 526, etc.; took flesh, not 

seemingly, but really, 527; con- 

ferred on our flesh the’ capacity 

of ‘salvation, 527,’ 528; his res- 

urrection a proof of ours, 532, 

etc.; the dead raised by, a proof 

of the resurrection, 539; fitting 

“ that He should take ‘human na- 

ture, and be tempted by the 

devil, 548, etc. ; His victory over 

Satan, 549; temptation of, 549, 

etc.; His‘kingdom eternal, 554, 

55; the resurrection of, 560; 

ow prefigured, 571; testimony 

‘of the sacred books to, 576, 577- 

Christians, calumnies against the, 570. 

Church, the, her gifts, 409; performs 

nothing by incantations or curi- 

ous arts, 409; of Rome, founded 

by Peter “and Paul,°415; the 

catholic, the depositery of truth, 

» “4t6, etc. nial 

Clean and unclean, 534. 

Colorbasus, the doctrines of, 333. 

Commandment, the first and greatest, 


479. 
*Coinmunion with God, 556. 
Cosmocrator, the, 323. .. 
Covenant, the new, 512. ~ 
Covenants, one author and ‘one end 
to both, 472, etc.;:the oneness 
of both proved by Jesus’ reproof 
of ‘customs repugnant to the for- 
mer, 475. ° : 
Created things, made after the image 
_ of invisible things, according to 
‘" the Marcosians, ‘342, etc. 
not images of Atons within the 
’ Pleroma, 366-368 ; ‘not'a shadow 
~*” of the Pleroma, 368, 369. 
Creation, the, of all things out of 
_ nothing-by God, 369, 370. 
Creator, but one, of the world, 369. 
. the, made all thitigs, spiritual and 
-. material, 405, 406; is-the Word 
'. of God, 546. 
the, could not be ignorant of the 
Supreme God, 365. 


_ Day, the, does not square with the 
' theory of Valentinus, 395. 
Day of retribution, the, 390. 


* Dead, the, raised by Christ, a proof 


* of thd resurrection, 539. 


IRENAZUS: 


| Evanthas, 559- asia Jeg [a2 
Eve'and the Virgin Mary compared, |.’ 


Death, the, and life, 537- 5 
Decalogue, the, at first inscribed on 
the hearts of men, 479; not can- 
celled by Christ, 481, 482. 
Demiurge, the, the formation of, ac- 
cording to Valentinus, 322; the 
creator of all things outside the 
Pleroma, 322; ignorant of what 
he created, 322; ignorant of the 
offspring of his mother Acha- 
moth, 323; passes into the 
imoanedabe habitation, 325; in- 
structed by the Saviour, 326; is 
the centurion’ of ‘the Gospels, 
326; views of the heretics re- 
specting, exposed and confuted, 
385, etc.; declared by the heretics 
to be animal, 403; if animal, 
how could he make things spir- 
itual-? 405, 406. 
Devil, views of the Carpocratians 
respecting, 350. 
practised in falsehoods, he tempted 
man, 551; his lie in regard to 
. the government of the world, 


5525" 553+ 
the sons of the, 525. 
Deuteronomy, 571. «> 
Diatheses, the, of Ptolemy, 333- 


Disciples, the true spiritual, 506, etc. |. 
Discriminating: faculty, the, in man, |: 


PED Lake, PRT 
Discbedient, the, are the angels of 
the devil, 524. : 


Duodecad; the, of Valentinus, how }: 


said to be indicated in Scripture, 


312. 3 oh S 
| Dyad, the, of ‘Valentinus, 332. - 


ae ‘things, types of heavenly, 


* 486. aim 
Ebionites, the; 351, 352; refutation 


of, who..disparaged the writings | 


of Paul, 439, etc.; strictures on, 


527. 
Ecclesia, the, of the: Valentinians, | 


323; of Ptolemy, 333. - 


Egyptians, the Israelites commanded: ce 


to spoil the goods: of, an: exposi- 
tion and vindication, 502-504. ' 


Elements; the twenty-four; of Marcus, 


29, etc. ° i 
Elijah, 530. 
Elisha, 545. - Bh age! i. ee 
Elucidation, by the American editor, 

- end of book iii.,-460, 461. : 


Emanations, the, of Valentinus and 


' others; an account of, 316-328, 
332, 333; ete., 339,:etc.; ridicule 
poured: on, 332, 333: “°°, * 

Encratites, the, 35 
Enmity, the, put 
the.serpent, ‘457. at 
Ennoe, 316, 333, etc., 353) 354. 
Enoch, the, translation of; 530. : 


Enthymesis, the, of Sophia or Acha- on 
moth, 318, 322; the absurdity of, | 
383, etc.; the treachery of Judas 


‘not a type of, 387, 388.. 
Error, how often set off, 315. 
Eucharist, the, 485, 527,. 528. 


; 547, etc. 
Eve, the story of, according'to the 
Ophites, 356." <% +n! Se 


Tetwoblk Eve and|: : 


INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 









Faith, the unity of the, in the unt 
versal Church, 330. 

Faith of Abraham, the, the same as 
ours, 332. 

Father, the, the world made by, 
through the Word, 36r. 

the, how no one knows, but the 
Son, 467; reveals the Son, 468. 

Fear produces (according to Valen- 
tinus) animal substances, 323. 

Five, the number, the frequent use 
of, in Scripture, 394, 395- 

Flesh, the, as nourished by the body 
of the Lord, incorruptible, 485; 
made capable of salvation, 527, 
p23; quickened, 537, etc.; saved 

y the Word taking flesh, 541; 
the saints having suffered in, 
shall receive their rewards in, 
561, 562, etc. 

and blood, 534, 535: 

the works of the, 536, etc. 
Florinus, 568; 
Free-will, man endowed with, 518, 


- &19. oi Tans Pid A 
Fruit of: the belly and.of-the loins, 
453-° : ee Oe 


5 : * 2 eck Deine 
Gentiles, the conversion, .of, more 


: difficult. than: that of, the Jews, 
é 495- eet Tie <hipete 
Gideon, a type,:445, pr: re 
Gifts; the, of the. Holy Spirit, 533. 
Gnostics, the hypocrisy and pride of, 


1-439. se ae Ls 
God, ae -one, proved. against Mar- 
cion and others, 359, 360; the 
‘ world made by, 361, 362 ;. created 
-all things- out-of nothing; 369, 
370; not-to be'sought after by 
means. of syllables and letters, 
396, etc.;: many things, the knowl- 
edge of which must;be left in His 
. \ hands; 399, 406; alone-knows all 
-, things,.400; all things -made by, 
405; different -names: of, in the 
‘* ‘Hebrew . Scriptures, 412, . 413° 
- + one, proclaimed by-Christ_ and 
, »the' apostles,’ 447; .the Holy 
Ghost throughout the-Old Testa 
: Ment: mentions but one, 418; ob- 
'. jection to the-.doctrine of one, 
deduced’ from. 2: Cor. iv. 5, an 
swered, 420;...0bjection. from 
Matt. vi. 24, answered, 421; 
proved to be-ane and the same. 
‘the Creator, from the Gospel 
of’ Matthew, 422; from Mark 
‘and Luke, 423; from. John, 426. 
428, etc.; showed Himself to be 
merciful and. mighty to .save 
-after.the- fall of man, 449, etc. 
_: His providential ,rule over the 
*- world, :459; just to punish anc 
‘s- good to:save,.459; but one, whe- 
; 1s the Father, .463;- the. unity or 
proved from Moses, the prophets 
and Christ, 463, 464 ;..immutabl, 
»sand eternal, 465 ;. the.destruction. 
‘ of Jerusalem, derogates nothin, 
:. from His majesty, 465; but one 
announced by. the law and thr: 
prophets;:whom Christ iconfesses 
as His Father,.,466,.etc.; has 
placed man under:}aw for man’s 
sown: beiefit, +478, . etc.z..; needs 





nothing from man, 482, 483; 
formed all things by the Word 
and Spirit, 487-489; declared by 
-the Son, 489; seen by men, yet 
invisible, 490; not the author of 
' sin; $02; the author of both 
testaments, 505; attributes of, 
521; the misery of departure 
from, 523; one and the same, 
inflicts punishments and bestows 
rewards, 523, etc.; His power 
and glory will shine forth in the 
resurrection, 529,:etc.; those 
deceived who feign another, 530, 
etc.; the image of, in which man 


> Was made, 544; unity of, re-af- |. 


firmed, 544; pardons our sins, 
544, 545, etc.; and the Word, 
formed all things by their own 


power, 546, etc.; declared by the |” 


law and manifested in Christ, 

550, etc.; communion with, 556; 

His infinitude, 569; always true 

- - and faithful, 572. 

God of this world, the, 420. 

Gods, the so-called, in the Old Testa- 
ment, 419. 
Good works not necessary for Valen- 

‘tinian heretics, 324. 

Gospels, the four, there can be 
neither more nor fewer, 428; 
symbolized by the four living 

' creatures, 428; respective char- 
acteristics of, 428, 429; those 
who destroy the form of, vain 
and unlearned, 429. 


Government, civil, of God, and to be: 


obeyed, 552, etc. - 
- Grain of mustard seed, the, 573. 


Greater and less, application of the 


__ Phrase, 472, 473. . 
~. Grief, evil spirits said by; Valentinus 
to derive their origin from, 323. 


Heayen, the, of Valentinus, 322. 
-: Heavens, the new, different abodes 
in, 566, 567. i 
IIelena and Simon Magus, 348. 
Henotes, 332. 
. Heresies, of recent origin, 416, 417. 
Heretics, the, resort to Scripture to 
+. support their opinions, 319, 343, 
344; modes of initiation prac- 
tised by, 346-349; deviation of, 
from the truth, 347, etc.; their 
perverse interpretations of Scrip- 
ture, 369; have fallen into an 
abyss of error, 370, etc.; the 
first order of: productions main- 
tained by (viz., A‘ons), indefen- 
_ sible, 373, étc.; borrow their 


systems from the: heathen, 376-| 


379; miracles claimed to be 
wrought by, 407, etc.; blasphe- 
-mous doctrines of, further ex- 
. posed, 408, etc.; follow neither 
Scripture nor. tradition, 415; 
refutation of, from the orderly 
succession of bishops in ‘the 
churches, 415; tossed about by 
every wind of doctrine, 418, 419; 
unlearned, ignorant, and divided 
in opinion, 547; to be avoided, 
ois 5/1547, ete. + ' 
Holy Spirit, the, descended on Jesus 


IRENZEUS: 


at His baptism, not Christ nor 
the Saviour, 444. 

Holy Spirit, gifts of the, 533. 

Homer, laid under couchibation by 
the Valentinians, curious in- 
stances of, 330. 

Hope, 399, 476. 

Horos and Stauros, 318, 319. 


Jaldabaoth, 355. 

I aM THAT I AM, 419. 

Tao, 321. 

Ignorance, human, of divine things, 


399-402. 

Image of God, the, in which man 
‘was created, 544. 

Immorality, the, of the Valentinian 
heretics, 324. 

Initiation, modes of, practised by the 
heretics, 346. 

Intermediate state, the, 560. 

Isaac, the history of, symbolical, 492, 
493; the blessing of, 562. 

Isaiah, his prophecy respecting the 
virgin conceiving, vindicated 
against Theodotion, Aquila, and 
the Ebionites, 451, etc. 


Jacob, the actions of, typical, 493. 
Jerusalem, the destruction of, dero- 
gates nothing from the majesty 
of God, 465, etc. 
Jesus, the significance of the letters 
of the name, 339-393- 
how certain AZons are said to be 
indicated by the name of, 319; 
meaning of the letters of the 
name of, 339; the generation of, 
according to Marcus, 339, 340; 


according to Basilides, was not, 


crucified, but Simon of Cyrene 
in His stead, 349; descent of 
the Christ upon, according to 
. the Ophites, 357; His baptism 
when thirty years old, not atype 
of the thirty AXons, 390; passed 
through every stage of life, to 
“sanctify all, 391; the ministry of, 
extended over ten years, 392; 
lived at least till near fifty ydars 
old, 392; His teaching, 408; the 
baptism of, 423; the same with 
Christ, the. only-begotten Son of 
‘God, perfect God and perfect 
man, 440; with Him nothing 
incomplete — His time, 443; 
neither Christ nor Saviour, but 
the Holy Spirit descended upon 
Him at His baptism, 444, etc.; 
and Christ, proved from the 
writings of Paul to be one and 
the same, 445, etc.; not a mere 
man, but very God, 448; became 
-man so as to be capable of being 
. tempted and crucified, 449; His 
- birth foretold by Isaiah, 452; 
His reply to the Sadducees, 466, 
467. [See Christ.] 
John, and Cerinthus, a curious story 
relating to, 416. 
Joshua, 571. 
Judas not an emblem of the twelfth 
Eon, 388. ne 
Judgment, the future, by Jesus Christ, 
523, 556, etc. tak 
Justin quoted against Marcion, 468. 


INDEX. OF SUBJECTS. 


595 


Keltz, the, 316. 
Kingdom, the, of Christ, eternal, 556. 
the earthly, of the saints after 

their resurrection, 563, 564; the 
prophecies respecting, not alle- 
gorical, 564, 565, etc.’ 

Knee, bending the, a symbol of the 

. resurrection, 569... ‘4 

Knowledge, puffs up, 397 ;- perfect, 
not attainable in this -life, 399- 


402. 
the true, 508, 574: 


Lateinos, 559. ° 

Law, the old and the new, has but 
one author, 472, etc.; Christ did 
not abrogate the natural pre- 
cepts of, But removed the bond- 
age of, 477, etc.; man-was placed 
under, for his own benefit, 478 ; 
originally inscribed on the hearts 
of men, but. afterwards, as the 
Mosaic, made by God to bridle 
the desires of the Jews, 479-480; 
perfect righteousness not ob- 
tained by, 480-482. 

Letters and syllables, the absurd 
theories of Marcion respecting, 
339-341; absurdity of arguments 
derived from, 393; God not to 
be sought after by means of, 396, 
etc. ’ 

Levitical dispensation, the, not ap- 
pointed by God for His own 
sake, 482, etc. 

Life and death, p32 etc. 

Linus, bishop of Rome, 416. 


‘Living creatures, the symbolic im- 


port of the four, 428. 
Logos, the Aton so-called, and: Sige, 
372;- absurdity of the Valen- 
: | tinian account of the generation 
of, 381, etc., 401:. ‘ 
Lord, the, is one God, :the Father, 
' 463; testimony of Moses to, 463, 


eicl, : 

Lot and his daughters, the typical 
import of the story of, 504, 505; 
the wife of, turned ‘into a -pillar 
of salt, 504. . -- 

Luke, and Paul, 437; refutation of 
the Ebionites who tried to dis- 
parage the authority of Paul 
from the writings of, 439. 


Magic, our Lord’s miracles not per- 
formed by, 409. 


Magical practices, the, of Marcus, 


4. 

Mase the first, according to the 

Ophites, 354. oa 
God’s mercy to, after the fall, 449; 
the object of God’s long-suffer- 
ing, 450; needs a greater than 
man to save, 450, 451; why not 
at first made perfect, ‘521, etc.; 
endowed with the faculty. of dis- 
tinguishing good and evil, 522; 
the whole nature of, has salva- 
tion conferred on it, 531, etc.; 
unfruitful, without the Holy 
Spirit, 536, etc.; all things cre- 
ated for the service of, 558; 
every, either pi 2 or-full, 572. 
the threefold kind, feigned by the 
heretics, 323; ithe respective de» 


596 


IRENAZUS: 


INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 


SE sa BOCES aan mer Te 
Ogdoad, the first, of Valentihus, 316, | Ptolemy the heresiarch, the doctrines 


tinations of the threefold kind 
of, 325, 326. 

Mansions, the many, 567. 

Marcion, the doctrines of, 352; mu- 
tilates the Gospels, 352; vain 
attempt of, to exclude braham 
from Christ’s salvation, 470, etc. 

Marcionites, the, refuted, in relation 
to prophecy, §11, etc. 

Marcosians, the, absurd _interpreta- 
tions of, 341, 342; absurd theo- 
ries of, respecting things created, 
342, 343; appeal of, to Moses, 
343) 344; cite Scripture to prove 
that the Father was unknown 
before the coming of Christ, 344; 
the apocryphal Scriptures of, 
3443 pervert the Gospels, 345; 
views of, respecting redemption, 
345-347; departure of, from the 
truth, 347. 

Marcus, the deceitful arts and nefa- 
rious practices of, 334; pretends 
to confer the gift of prophecy, 
334; corrupts women, 334; hy- 
pothesis of, respecting letters 
and_ syllables, 336-338; pre- 
tended revelations of Sige to, 
339 340. : 

Mary, would hasten on Jesus, but is 
checked by Him, 443; and Eve, 
compared, 547. 

Matter, 573. 

Men possessed of free-will, 518; not 
true that some are by nature 
good, and some bad, 519. 

spiritual, 506, etc.; 533-536, etc. 
the three kinds of, feigned by the 
heretics, 323, 324. 

Menander, successor to Simon Ma- 
gus, 348. 

Mercy, not to be exaggerated at the 
expense of justice, Sor. 

Metropator, 322. 

Miracles claimed to be performed 
by heretics, 407, 408; performed 
by Christ and His disciples, 409. 

Moral faculty, the, in man, 522. 

ery the, of Valentinus, 318; 
of Ptolemy, 333. 

Monotes, 332. 

Months, the, do not fall in with the 
Valentinian theories of AZons, 


394. we 
Moses, $733 Aaron and Miriam sin 


against, 573 
Mother, the, of the 


heresy, 386. 


Valentinian 


Naaman, cleansed of his leprosy, 574. 
Names of God, different, in the 
Hebrew Scriptures, 413. 
of our Lord, 393, 394. 
New covenant, the, 512. 
Nicolaitanes, the, 351. 
Nous, or Monogenes, 317, 333) 355: 
Number of the beast, the, 558, 559. 
Numbers and letters, the folly of 
ee arguments from, 393- 
. 396. 


Oblation, the new, instituted by 
Christ, 53 


Ss 
Oblations and sacrifices, 484, etc. 


22; John asserted to have set 
orth, 328. 

Old Testament, the, everywhere 
mentions and predicts the advent 
of Christ, 473. é ‘ 

Olive, the wild, the symbolical sig- 
nificance of, 536, etc. 

Ophites, the, 354. 


Papias, quoted, 563. 
Parables, 517, 513. } 
the proper mode of interpreting, 


Paschal solemnities, differences in 
the observance of, 568. 

Passion of the twelfth Aion, how 
said to be indicated in Scripture, 

23; not to be proved from 
cripture, 387, 388. 

Passions, animal, produce, accord- 
ing to Valentinus, material sub- 
stances, 323. 

Pastors, the, to whom the apostles 
committed the churches, to be 
heard, 547, etc. 

Patriarchs and prophets foretold the 
advent of Christ, 494. 

Paul, caught up into the third 
heavens, 405; and Peter, found- 
ers of the Church of Rome, 415; 
sometimes uses words not in 
their grammatical sequence, 420; 
knew no mysteries unrevealed to 
the other apostles, 437; refuta- 
tion of the Ebionites who dispar- 
aged the writings of, 439, etc. 

Perfect, why man was not made, 


21. 

Persirocien foretold, 509. 

Pharaoh’s heart hardened, how, 502. 

Plato, quoted, 459. 

Pleroma, the, of Valentinus, 316, 
320; shown to be absurd, 362, 
379; 380. : 

Polycarp, conversed with the apos- 
tles, 416; his reply to Marcion, 
416; the epistle of, 416; Ire- 
nzus’ testimony respecting, 416. 

Predictions of the prophets, the, 507, 
508, etc.; all uttered under the 
same inspiration, 513. 

Presbyters, the, ought to be obeyed, 
497; false, 497; faithful, 497, 


498. 

Proarche, the, of Valentinus, -333- 

Production, the first order of, main- 
tained by heretics proved to be 
indefensible, 373, etc.; and ab- 
surd 379, 383. 

Prophets, the, refutation of the 
notion that they uttered their 
predictions under the inspiration 
of different gods, 412, 413, 513; 
their ‘predictions, 507, etc.; re- 
ferred all their predictions to 
Christ, 509, etc.; sent by the 
same Father who sent the Son, 
514, etc. 

Propator, the, of Valentinus, 316; of 
Ptolemy, 333: 

Protarchontes, 353. 

Providence of God, the world ruled 


by, 459. 
Prusteek tes 356. 


_ Of, 333, etc. 

Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, procures 
a translation of the Jewish Scrip- 
tures to be made, 452. 

Pythagoras, the heretics borrow from, 


377: 


Redemption, the views of, enter- 
tained by heretics, 34 , etc. 

Resurrection, the, of the dead, as- 
serted by Jesus against the Sad- 
ducees, 466; of the flesh asserted, 
§29, etc.; of the body, 530, etc.; 
various proofs of, from the Old 
Testament, 530, etc.; proved by 
the resurrection of Christ, 532, 
etc.,° §39, etc.; proofs of, from 
Isaiah and Ezekiel, 542; an ac- 
tual, 565, etc.; illustrated, 570. 

Retribution, the day of, 390. 

Ridicule, poured upon the emana- 
tions and nomenclature of Val- 
entinus, 332, 333, etc. 

Righteous, the, and the wicked, 553. 

Righteousness, perfect, not conferred 
by the law, 480. 

Rod, the, of Moses, 453- 

Roman Empire, the dissolution of 
the, predicted, 534. 

Rome, the Church of, founded and 
organized by Peter and Paul, 
415; the first bishops of, 416. 


Sabaoth, 412 and note. 

Sabbath-day, the law did not pro- 
hibit the hungry eating food 
ready to hand on the, 471. 

Sacrifices, not required by God for 
their own sake, 482, 483; further 
remarks on, 484. 

Sadducees, the reply of Jesus to the 
question asked by the, 466, 467. 

Samson, and the boy who guided 
him, types, 572; further refer- 
ence to, 575- 

Satan, 549; blasphemes God, 555. 

Saturninus, the doctrines of, Bs 

Saviour, the, asserted by the Valen- 
tinians to be derived from all the 
Eons, 321, 323; various opin- 
ions of, among the heretics, 333. 

Scriptures, the, appealed to by the 
heretics, 319; how perverted by 
the heretics, 326, etc.; refutation 
of false interpretations of, 329, 
etc.; perverted by the Marcc- 
sians to support their’ absurdi- 
ties, 343-345; perverse interpre- 
tations of the heretics, 369; 
proper method of interpretin, 
the obscure passages of, 398, © 
399; translation of the Hebrew, 
Into Greek, 451; interpreted 
with fidelity by the LXX. trans- 
lators, 452. - 

Seed, Valentinian absurdities re- 

- specting, exposed, -385. 

Seeing Gam ieee. gh 

Separatists, to be shunned, 497. 

Septuaging the story of the origin 
of, 451. 

Serpent, the, cursed, 456; specula 
tions respecting, 570,571. 


IRENAUS: 






Sethians, the doctrines of the, 354. 
Shadrach, etc., in the fiery furnace, 


531. 

Sige, 316 and note, 317; pretended 
revelation made by, to Marcus, 
339; and Logos, mutually con- 
tradictory and repugnant, 372. 

Simeon and Jesus, 441. 

Simon of Cyrene, curious opinion of 
Basilides respecting, 349. 

Simon Magus, 347; the pretensions 
of, 347; honoured with a statue, 
348; and Helena, 348; the 
priests of, 348; succeeded by 
Menander, 348. 

Sin, God not the author of, refuta- 
tion of the Marcionites, 502, etc. 

the pardon of, 544. 

Sins of former times, recorded in 

Scripture for a warning to us, 


490. 
Son, meaning of the term, 524. 

of God, the, not made man in ap- 
pearance only, 447-448; every- 
where set forth in the Old Testa- 
ment, 473, etc. 

the, reveals the Father, 468; re- 
vealed by the Father, 468 

Sons of the devil, 525. 

Soul and body, views of the heretics 
relating to the future destruction 
of, refuted, 402, etc. 

Souls, absurdity of the doctrine of 
the transmigration of, 409; ex- 
istence of, after death, 410; im- 
mortal, although they had a 
beginning, 411. 

Soter, 393 

Sophia, the AZon, so called, 317; her 
passion, 317; another name. of 
Achamoth, 320, 353; could have 
produced nothing apart from her 
consort, 372; exposure of the 
absurdity of the whole Valentin- 
ian theory respecting, 383, etc. 

Spirit, the Holy, gifts of the, 533. 

Spiritual, the absurdity of heretics 
claiming to be, while they de- 
clare the Demiurge to be ani- 

_ mal, 403. 


Spiritual men, 506, 533; and animal, 
536, etc. 

Spoiling the Egyptians, the act ex- 
amined and vindicated, soz. 

Stauros and Horos, 318, 319. 

Stesichorus, the story of, 348. 

Stone, the, cut out without hands, 453. 


Tatian, the doctrines of, 353; refuted 
in his denial of the salvation of 


Adam, 457. 

Teaching, the, of Jesus, opposed to 
the opinions of heretics, 408. 

Teitan, 559 

Temptation, the, of Christ, 549. 

Testaments, the two, God the author 
of both, 505. 

Tetrad, the first, 316; of Marcus 
reveals Aletheia, 337. 

Thamar, her labour typical, 495. 

Thelesis, 333. 

Theodotion and Aquila, their inter- 
pretation of Isa. vii. 14 refuted, 


‘451. 

Ercostation: the, of Enoch and Eli- 
jah, 530. 

Transmigration of souls, the, the 
absurdity of the doctrine of, 409, 
410. 

Treasure hid in a field, the, 496. 

Triacontad, the, of the heretics, 371. 

Truth, the, to be found in the Catho- 
lic Church, 426. 

Types, earthly, of heavenly things, 
486, 487, etc. 


Unity, the, of the faith of the uni- 
versal Church, 330. 
of God, 418, etc., 544, 550. 
Utter emptiness, the, of Valentinus, 


33%) 333: 


Vacuum, the absurdity of the, of the 
heretics, 362. 

Valentinian views of Jesus refuted 
from the apostolic writings, 440. 

Valentinians, the, their immoral opin- 
ions and practices, 324; how 
they pervert Scripture to sup- 
port their own opinions, 326, 


INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 


597 





etc.; refutation of their false in- 
terpretations of Scripture, 3209, 
etc.; quote Homer to support 
their views, 330; the inconsis- 
tent and contradictory opinions 
of, 332, etc. 

Valentinus, the absurd ideas held by, 
316; his system derived from 
the heathen, with only a change 
of terms, 376-379; recapitula- 
tion of arguments against the 
views of, 406, etc. 

Virgin, Jesus born of a, 446, 454, 
455; prophecy of Isaiah relating 
to, 451, etc. 

Virgin Mary, the, and Eve, a com: 
parison between, 547. 

Visions of God, 489, 490. 


Will, the freedom of the, in man, 
518, etc. 

Wine, and water, the mixture of, 
5273 and bread, in the Eucharist, 
2 


528. 
Woman, the, with the issue of blood, 
not a type of the suffering A®on, 


2. 

Work the, the world made through, 
362; reveals the Father, 467, 
468 ; always with the Father, 487; 
all things created by, 487, 488; 
declares God, 489; takes flesh 
to save the flesh, 541; the image 
of God, 544; the creator, 546. 

Works of the flesh, the, 536. 

World, the, not made by angels, but 
by God through the Word, 361, 
362; not formed by any other 
beings within the territory con- 
tained by the Father, 364, etc.; 
the Creator of, one, 369; ruled 
by the providence of God, 459; 
to be annihilated, 536. 


Year, the divisions of, do not really 
suit the Valentinian theory of 
Eons, 395. 

Year of the Lord, the acceptable, 391. 


Zoe, 316. 


INDEX OF TEXTS. 


PAGE PAGE 
Ts « « 0343, 303| Gen. xxxiii.3 . . . §62 
he pore Ls 343 XXXV. 22. . » 344 
se one eae Ape xxxviii, 28 . . 496 
126 sete oees tn 543 Solita enon nan AOL 
1.26. ~» 349) 355» 450, xiii, 3. 0. 3 3 6344 
463, 48: xlix. 10-12. . 474 

As 20 corns tee teen Ay A xlix.18 . . . 424 
Lint 2 eine ia rea 57, xlix.28 . . . 344 
LEGCO ke » » 454] Ex. i13,14. « . - 503 
irae ait shat ea yi Gs Gane) to Cee 
Ibo ee 531 ii,6. . 6 « - 467 
i. 16,1725 * 546, 551 iii. 7,8 . . .419, 476 
li. 25. + 6 © 455 iii,14 . 6 « « 419 
HSS Bo A ili, 1I9 . . « « §02 
MRE Rea cy 4 Sy Riese oO) Goda Cee) 
iii. 8,9.» +544) 54 vil... 2 © + 453 
iii, 13. 6 6 6 45 vill, 19. - . . 453 
HT ore od $0 1X. SG si eee cn ca kO2 
fi tg . . «+ 548 Xl.) 2 ees see ne SO2 
iii, 16. . . . 456 Kill. 2 eee eee GLO 
iii, 1g . . .544, 571 XVilj EX ceases 500 
iv.7 + + +450, 485 Xvi. 16,0212) 6 442 
iveIO . - . . S4l XiXSG:S salseo 471 
vi.2. . . « » 484 > ¢ a eee 334 
Wis Eat wept ogre S44 XX Leen 47 fo) 
Vries a r ahe 27g xxi. 6,13. . 481, 482 
ix. 5,6. . . . 541 xxiii. 7 2... 497 
ix. 27E a ois hae EATS: XXIV. 4 ceo 344 
xii.3- 492 XX. 10,17 nes 304. 
xiii. 13, 14, 1s, 17, 561 XXV. 23, 31, 32 394 
XiVir22) ee eee AOy XXV. 40. . .479, 566 
XVe) Su op 4r422,/ 470) XXVi.I,2 . 343, 344, 
XV013. . . «| 56r ' 394 
XV pLONe een oars 343 xxvi. 7,8 . . 344, 304 
XV ic 2 eee tere een 343 xxvi. 16, = « 394 
xvii.Q-11. . . 480 XXvi. 37. - 395 
xvii. 12 eee 34 3 XXVil.T 3) 395 
KVIL T 7) ope oe 400) xxviii, I,5- + » 395 
XVI ee eA 7 XXVIl, 2. . « . 344 
SQ NEIRY yg Cee) XXVill 7 on. 343 
XIXs 22 eee send OY, XXX 23) oe tes me GOd 
XIX: 24 ciee  ATS XXX. 34. « + 304 
KIX, 315: 32)93. -0.1355 xxxii. 6 . Bate SOO 
505 XXX). 2,03) enon AGO 

2S 8b Wise re OGuy E xxxiii. 20 . . 344, 490 
xxii. ors Tae dO xxxili. 20-22 . . 491 
xxiii. 2e Taha gs 2 xxxiv.6,7. . . 490 
xxiv. ie a XXXvi. 2, 8, 21 344 
XXV. 23, é Levi Xerlj2 ens cee 497 
xxvii. 27, 28, 29. ue xi. 2. oe hse 
RACKI iene sag 40 xxvi. 12 572 
Xxxi, II 4721 Num. xii. 1, 14. 573 
XXXi. 41 62 Bat BG Pat 420 


598 


IRENAAUS. 


Num. xiv. 30 
XV. 32. 


xvi. 15, 33 


xviii. I, 20 


xxi, 8. 


xxii, 12, 22, 23 


xxiii. 19 
xxiv. 17 
xxiv. 2 


e 


. 


PAGE 
502 
47i 
497 
47 
495 
572 
572 
423 
571 


xxvii. I , 20, 23, 571, 
572 
xxxi. 3,8, 13. 572, 575 
Deut.iv.14. . . . 482 
iv. 19. . . - 420 
Vaile Soa ge 7! 
Vi 2522 ween “er 
VERN ns. 6 a 
VEEL a Gad 5 
Vi. 4, 5, 13 - 464, 550 
vi. 16. + + 549 
viii. 3 « - - 481 
x. 12, iG: & 549 
xiv. 35 Peg - + 534 
xvi. 5,6. . - 473 
xvi. 16 - « 484 
XVillpT teen APT 
XXi5 23) 50 440 
xxvili.66. . . 474 
xxix.:20 .. 1); 401 
XXKoT4 ue) S74. 
Xxx. 19,20. . 482 
xxxii. I, 20 . 463 
xxxli. 4. . 44 
xxxil.6 . | 474s 505 
xxxii. 8, LXX,, 433 
xxxli.g . . - 434 
xxxiii. 9. . . 471 
Josh. iiit2. . , . 344 
IV; 3 ee ea 
Re RS or, Saye 
KE 7/ hen oer ot AOS 
Judg. vi.27.. . . 571 
Vi 37 - + 6 + 445 
xiv.6-19. . . 575 
XVil igs ees 75 
eo O66 ORS 
xvi. 26. . . 572 
ISam.ix.2z2 . . . 344 
xil. Sarre 
xy nat ia 
Xvi. IO. . . 34 
XV. eo 8 
HX 5. 6 6 «344 


"46 
2.Sam. Vay « 6 6 4 
227 + 2 + 498 
Ribs Ts ts oe 405: 
I Kings iv. 34. . . 499 
vili.27. . . 499 
KX. Eye: at ee) 499 
KL. 14 ce ies 0d99 
xi.3I. . . 344 
xiv. 10.» » 497 
xviii. 21, 36 . 419 
Xvill. 27) <9") 333 
xix. II, I2 . 490 
2Kingsv.14 . . . 574 
Vic OF G:F 545 
Xili, 21.) en Sees 4 
Ps.i.2 . 2 2 6 + 534 
il..8 [cae vs peomeneayS 
iii,5 . . . . . 510 
ili..G,Wole at eee RO 
Vill. Fics) saroeee ss 
Vill. )3' suewec eu aeons 
1X,.0 2,4 ge ee, 
XIV-!3-oe hee ead 
XV20 Meh sols MeteenAgO 
KVilis 45.20 shee 2 
XIX.)\Rige sp skewness 
xix,6\2 > ceepesI@ 
xxi. 4. ; 411 
xxii. 7, I , 18 490, 510 
xxii. 31, XX. 533. 
XXUL 4902 (2) 2 a sGo 
EXIVicT Soles sar a Sia, 
XXIV. 7.1 4-7 eee Sk 
XXVi 4s + 506 
XXXi. 15:2" 2) see 545 
xxxiii.6. . 347,421 
Xxxiil.g 5 J 362 
xxxiv. 13,14. . 484 
XXKIVs 16) Goo soe sa5Or 
XXXV. | os 475 
XXXVI. IE. . . 510 
XLS Oyevenk eared oe 
xlv.'2, 3, 45.7 - 59 523 
xivo 6... 3s. 419 
XIVOTD ct aems 25 
xivii7.2 wp ees ee 435 
MIEXIAT Sine ne around: 
Xiix, 20) ce acer essa 
XHX: 22 owas 
LL Ga eee TO 
ibe iy o 2 + 547 
PS old (ay Ag “2 
POO eR Sess i EY 


= 






Ps. li, 12 . 


Axix, 277.0 


IRENZUS: 


PAGE 
444 
482 
483 
424 

2 
388 
510 
430 
454 





Ixxvi. I. 422, 423 ye 


Ixxviii.5. . . 





ibe e 2m Wir Alesuee 438 
Ixxxhn.9). 5. . «419 
lxxxii. 1, Ghee 419 
Ixxxii. 6, Eee S22 
DEXXVS TE Ya. 417 
XXXVI5'23° 3) 7. S60 
Ixxxix. II . . . 549 
SG igh be a cis 
XCV.4 . © + 425 
KEVInnE Me) Webel. 472'|\\ 
XCVI.§ . «1. » 419 
ROVING 2ecnie tel. 424 
2 1o1b Sr en ae - > 510 
Cli. 25-27. . « 465 
Civ. 2,4. . « + 403 
civ. 2 562 
cix. ° 388, 430 
cx.I . ‘ 401, “418, 426, 
441, 509 
CXV. 3. - 422 
cxvi.2 . 518 
cxviii. 22 - «= §06 
exxiv.8 . . .425, 463 
CAM eT ol S70 
Cxxxi. . . . . 401 
cxxxii. II . .422, 440 
exlvins. ©. 7105-362 
exlviii. 5,6. . 4II 
CXHxXy 5 Se 524 
IPrOVei37 3 <<) cs 457 
th Gley, AE og ets! 
HileEQ, (20s 5) 6 450 
Vor 2Oies Ast ie 423 
villi, 15. 552 
viii. 22-25 338 
vili. 27-31 . . 488 
1XRTOIs G's Le 487 
xix. 17. 486 
xxi. I. 552 
xxii. 3 - 459 
XXVII/.E2). 459 
Canticles (Song of 
Solomon)i.15. 358 
Sainz 1 525, 
Leh 16. Same 344 
ra Racca 466 
i. 10, 16. 525 
POST a sito! 8 483 
LI4e se ee 575 
ie 719 es oe 515 
TODA od shes 475 
i. 3 3 : 464 
epg Asst ie fen S12 
H.I7. 2 6 + + $10 
VAP ACten cy 493 
LV noes nee! 5 374 
VKOMeme 445 
VERLZCMs, 0 390 
Ve20i0 «© «© © 351 
OW shuld 509 
‘vi. 5 « 490 
vi. 10. : 502 
Vials ve ‘564, 565 
vii, 4. . -'. 4501 fer, 


Isa. 


INDEX OF TEXTS. 





vii. 10-17 . 452 aes 
Vil, It.) . 453 Me *Ols cele sas 620 
Vil. 130. 449) 452 Vc 22aien teen dos 
Vil. 14 + 449, 451, 509 Ves ire ete treat on 5.34. 
Vili. 3, 4 +442, 509 v.8 . ee 0 528 
Vili Tg 6 4s 449 Vi17, 18). (0) 51S 
Xe lesriNe 571 NWIS2OSh it oe 5 483 
ix. a - 441, 449, 509 Vil. 2,32 + «+. 483 
PSI ETS 16 G 423 VIL 3s 2 6 6 © 515 
xi. ; Sanet ceeemes Ta ae Wily 20 Ger tees) 483 
PEAS 5.5 Get Vil. 25. 5 3 5 (S17 
xii. 2. anton 4 24. Wil20; 30) cde SS 
Kil Acs ees eee 400 WilljIG7. en ess) S50 
SHE Go gh dG SG Bed AG acy Gee) 
XXV. 5G or eo) OEP ag eta Lek 
XXV. + + « 537 XIE. 6 2 6 « 410 
XXV. 9 m outen AZ EME Saag: ao 483 
KKVIETO eats 565 XV.9. .« 5 510 
aie Haas $10, 542 563 xvii. 9 » 446, 49 509 
466 XML 75s 485 
acai 16D 2453 xxii. 24, 25. - 453 
EXIRG/IS chee eee 470 xxii. 28, etc. - 453 
EXE ee se Cb xxiii. 6, Techni «7 504! 
XXX. 25, 26. aie 1 504 PoC BRS GG ee Lhe) 
xxxi.Q . - « 564 XXII 20) stele 496 
XK, TS 65) 6 564 xxiil. 23. een A407 
xxxili. 20 oft om 451 xxiii. 29. « + 545 
KEKV = 13)95) Ol oo 510 XXX1503 Osumstgho enn SOA! 
Te SS ne Rox; Seeabhitg GB G eERi 
xl. 12. sd 0 chy XXX1/ 20s ye eo SOS 
dds 10 oh GS ag PEI Posehn! Sy AZ yp: 
BN. GC aaa gs OE Xxxi. 31,32. - 510 
PUES 5 gg Gg here) XXXV.I5  . - - 517 
xlii. 5 <u S3S XXXVI. 30,31 - - 454 
xlii. Io . see 472enieaMs IVs 205 fel ee 424 
wig 3 5 se 475) Ezek i.r.*. . « < 401% 
Xi TON es) op 472 il. I Se Obi ac Oh 
xllii, 19, 21. . 5SIt XX.12.°. . « 480 
KIN 23524 0 5) 403 XX. 24. eee 470) 
BS ENGG) on Joig a) hi) XXvill. 2 a? 563 
xlv. 5,6. . .323) 354 XXXVI. 20. . . 510 
X1Ve7 <0 emiepn se) S23 xxxvii. I. . 542 
Kl Vi 2ee cm emcg 403 Xxxvii. 12 » 543» 563 
xlvi.9 + + +323) 367 | Dan. ii. 33,34 - - - 555 
xlviii. 2? Gg cud Ye ll. 34 » « 453 
5b HO Sn A 5 Hes li. 41, 42, 43 « 5 OS 
LOO Om om ante a ShO li. 44, 45 . - 555 
NEG 8 & - 465 ili. 19,25. + + 521 
AG? 3 oe oo Ceie iii. 26. . - . 491 
liii. 2. . . 1391, 449 vil. 4. . - - 491 
lili. 3, 4 506, 510 vii. 8,23. +55 554 
Lili 7) nt cs 2404, S00. Vile 106 is, 3 oa Bi 
UNBONG 3 (6-0 Cee vii. 13 . 449, 506, 509 
hii. 8 + »400, 449 vil. 13, i: - « 491 
liv. Ts ss 1 323 vii. 27 . - - 564 
liv. 11-14. . . 564 viii. 12, 23 ane, 1554. 
vile koma, A 512 1X2 270 « « 554 
AVils LOM tetera 530 xii. Bh cal wret's 497 
iMptivtsy Go 483 xii. 4,7 + + + 496 
lviii.8 . . 374 xil.9,10. . « 344 
Ivili. 14. S 564 xii, 13. + + + 504 
Ixe17.. ce 4098 | Hos. i. 2,3. - + + 492 
Ixia. ake 44 446 is ams ds ae AO2 
EXic2 see 390 ii. 2302 + - + 331 
Ixiii. 9 : 451 iv.I 2 2 6 + 344 
Ixiv. 4 1. 504 vi. 6 Mewes aod 
Ixv.1. -419, 423 ix.Io. . . . 578 
Ixv.2. 510 xii. 10. . 435, 489 
Ixv. 17, | 18. 565, 566 | Joel ii. 28 + 430 
Ixv. 22 . 543 iii. 16 451, 509 
Ixvi. I 464 | Amos i. 2 451 
Ixvi. 3). 485 Vv. 25, 26. . 480 
Ixvi. 13 - 542 Vili. 9, 10 7 510 
Ixvi. 22. = 567 ix. II, 12-". = 435 
iene Shere 50 543|Jonahi.g «. . + + 450 


PAGE 
Jonahii.2 2. . 450 
Uy PEs) ce sch S31 
IL5 5,1 Ours 449 
Mic. iv.2,3. . . 512 
vii. cAeaS 451 
Hab. ii. Z. Gb. A 6 in 
lil, 2. «6 6 443 
ili. 3 ns 509 
iii. 3,5 + « + 451 
Zech. vii.9, 10. . . 483 
viii. 16,17 «484, 515 
iX.9 + ~ +449, 506 
ZECH XI). 1 Ovens a meSOO 
Malate ae sar. me 493 
TOTO E Tenet 484 
BaD Rs Pelle 574 
ii. 10 ae 488 
Wye Ur Be te eae ef 
AVON T; 8 eect cmSOG 
Ecclesiasticus iv. 31 . 497 
Hist. of Susanna, 56. 497 
Wisdom ix. 13, ve 402 
Matt.i. 1. 8 440 
i. 1, 18 eel AzS: 
i.12-16 . . . 453 
i. 18) (3) 7.) =. 440, 462 
i. 20 5 5 Lee 
1, 20, etc.. - 494 
123) a 422,452 
His 2s oe + 423 
I is on 6 ee 
1LPTON ere. 442 
iii,3 0. . s+. 422 
iii.7 . site, 422 
ng . 470, 495» 523 
Ul. 10 . 471, §10, 545, 
7 

WISI 2 cee 23 
iii, 12. - 506, 509 
iii. 16 . A oy Hee 
Iv. 3 foe 549 

iv.7 . 550 
iv.9 : 552 
iv. Io - « 549 
Vib © 64545 535 
v.06. + +472, 409 
v.12 + 506, 509 
Vv. 13 Be bg aktaly 
v. 13, 14 324 
NL eth Bon te 6 eZ YAS) 
v. 16 - 316, 519 
Vil D7 LOM meme SLT 
v. 18 319 
v. 20 ure ATT, 
v. 21 + «408, 477 
Ve 22006 - 482, 516 
Viiesedae 484 
v. 25, 26. 351 
VO eye 6 477 
WA etek 6 Byer 402 
Vv. 33 + + 477 
Vv. 34 eee dod 
Vv. 35 465, 516 
VigQ) te meme4477 512 
v. 41 477 
v.44 - «+ 447 
v.45 - 369, 390, 459 
} 477, 517, $28, 556 
vi. 3 Oy oh oe! 
vig - O Gp aeics) 
vi. 12 io om an 
vi. 19 . 481 
vi. 24 Ace ea 
vii. I, 2 a1 eb Od. 
vil. 5. s+ + 503 


Matt. vii. 7 


PAGE 
- 376, 384, 403 

Vil ct'S\ ene 315 
vii. 19. er 
vii. 25. 399 
viii. 9 . 326 
viii. 11 470 
viii. 11,12 . 518 
viii. 13 520 
ix. 2 545 
ix. 6 545 
IXVOul se eusee) 545 
yb A Were Om Lyi! 
1X5 20 feren ete) 520 
X. One 6) ee 4 37,406 
x.8. anne 325, 409 
x. 10 Sac vps 
Kor Gee COT 
X17, 16s. as 447 
Kon 20) cei weniuew ee 44.4 
Xe Lseee i 320 
X24 eee OT 
Kreme + 556 
xuce, - 316 
Xozbere 4 
X29 . 397, 551 
X- 30 panos, 
SEU AE 5 320 
xi. 9 423 
Xd E 427 
XI i2e. 520 
Xi, 190s + 50 
M2 Quad aieae 51 
X25), 464 
Xl. 25-27 345 
xi. 27 . 365, 469 
xi. 28 345 
xi. 40 S00) 
xii. 5 2 ¥, 564 
Xi, O0r ; 472 
Sabla) ir ‘ 484 
xii. 18. d23) 
xii. 25. a a. BGR 
xii. 29. 421, 448, 456 

5 
xi) 31. 5p Oe 
xii. 36. - 385, 482 
xii. 41. see SO7, 
xii. 41, 42 - 453 
xii. 43. sens 42 
xiil. et eee 502 
xili, 17 - 474, 494 
xill. 2 - 536 
xiii. 2 ct tem 
xiii. 30 «6 556 
xiii. 34 a2 Via Gey 
xiii. 38 - 496, 524 

562 
xiii. 40-43 524 
xiii. 43 408 
xiii. 44 ee OO 
xiii. 52 - 472, 497 
xiv. 19, 21 » 305 
Ves 473 
XV.3,4 - «© + 473 
xvi. 6 . 449 
xvi. 13 446 
xvi. 16 


449 
xvi. 17. 437, 453, 571 


xvi. 21, 24, 25- 447 
Xvil. I, etc. . 395 
xvii. 3, etc. . 490 
xvii. 7. 338 
Xvil. 27 552 
xviii. 8, 9. 500 
xviii. Io . 336 


IRENAUS: 
PAGE 
Matt. xviii. 12 . 348 
xix. 7,8 . 480 
xix. 17, 18 476 
Dab eek |) 477 
xix. 29 . 562 
xix. 30. 45 
S6.Gut Aig 51 
xx. I-16. . 317 
xx. 16. 455, 480, $00 
XX On ome 577 
Xx1SG75) fs » 475 
se atiigy at len 
XX1C1G ea 475 
XXI23 wee 345 
XX GU cme 402 
xxi. 33-41. 514 
xxi. 42-44 i Bi 
Be thee Ge a 1H 
AIL cles 0523 
XXIL7/< 517 
XX, 10; Diets, 575 
XXli, 13; 14. 3) 3 S17 
xxii. 21 » 421 
xxii. 29 . .466, 507 
XXli. 43 453 507 
xxiii. 2-4. . . 476 
xxiii. 9 c 463 
XXIli, 24) eu temecn 447) 
XXiil. ZO0euweE 455 
xxiii, 27,28 . . 485 
XXEGS3 BemeeaenE S25 
XXL oA eee Ay 2 
xxiii. 35. . 541 
xxiii. 37. . 518, 520 
XXIV. 15, 21 . 553, 554 
xxiv. 21 . - 510 
xxiv. 28 . 479 
XXIVIAZIe 515, 53 
xxiv. 45,46. . 4098 
XXiv. 48, 51 . 497, 519 
XXV. Zimeauees 33 
XXVi 5 6 ue 3 
XXV. 13 536 
XXV. 14 445 
XXV. 21 5 opi 
XXKVG2y SAU Sod) 
XXV. 34 . . 486, Sor 
XXV. 35,36. . 504 
xxv. 41 . 367, 408, 
; 500; 525 
xxvi. 24 . . 389, 501 
XXvi. 26 . - 484 
XV 27s - 562 
XXVE 3S 566 
Xxvi. 33, 39 - 327, 454 
XVI a S35 
xxvii. 46 . 327 
XXVii. 52 . 573 
XXVili. 19. 444 
Marki.t. . 441 
an 425 
i. 24 469 
i, 27). ‘0 
iv. 200 336 
Vv. 22 - 539 
Viushinens sgtO 
vi. 41, 44. ee O09 
vill. 31 - 482 
LX 338 
X23) es 520 
Xe 7hee 345 
x. 38. : 345 
Xili-) 320) oan Or 
retneeey Ae c 536 
xiv.2r .. » 389 


PAGE 
Mark xvi. 17,18 . . 388 
xvi. 19 . « 4260 
Lukei.2. . « «438, 362 
i.6,8. ae 0423 
i. LS Ae ae FER} 
is 17) so -agt205-427 
1020) sours, ot ema 24 
1.32. «© +432, 441 
mee oO Ge Cee 
1.35 + + +452) 527 
1s 36> s.ikon suena 55 
Lid 2 91s ie eden ASS 
1VAO Wied’ kel Mon A7O 
i. . ae alike mites (AZA 
1. < emucgtel A42 
1071; (7 5) ems 408 
1.7 Oud eecdt emeen (424 
1.78 . « +424, 545 
Tae) Go er oe ¥fe) 
HOLE % wits 425 
ii, 2O Wen tome 425 
{12226 ours 425 
iis: 2 Siete 319 
ii. 28 pastes 328 
il. 29 . 425, 441, 470 
11.30 © sitiewn ae G20 
i. 300 suet apn 425 
il, 420 ie eee teen 310, 
li. 496 es) 345 
HLS 5) siesta SOT 
aii. Ti ase eee SOs: 
dil 17s ren tonne geo 
i156 2355) elt 9175 39" 
iv. os igh 409) 
iv. OO Sl tely 
iv. 6,7. 549 551, a 
iv. 18 . nhs 
WO OF tec rm 
v. 20 saeeey 545 
V.41,32) oes 42 
v. 36,37 + - + 51 
VIL3,4 + © + 473 
ete a G Bg Buln 
vi. 24 - + « + 439 
vi. 29-31 « 477 508 
ViAO were 560 
vi. 46». 6519, 534 
Wile ce: .¢,0, a) 0 
Vil. cinied iets ee 
Vil. I2. . + « $39 
WANs 20's se cee 27 
iby rs GES eS) 
Vile 432 eee SO 
VilisAT s| ojo No, 327 
VLSI. fo os) 30S 
ix. 13,14. - - 395 
iXw2 2h sites 442 
a 57,58. + + 327 
x. 60 . = «327 
ix 61, pe ae ee 327 
5 oo sells, 300) 
x. 12 - 516, 550 
x. 1 ae 553 
XV IOS. eure eee ATs 
SCT Wo 4 NG 
x19 . 388, 457, 553 
XK. 2E. bs lenetien AO 
X./22 155 - 469, 470 
Ae gia et 
Le eae 
Xieenee 2 + 43 
Xi 20 22h ome OT) 
xi. 40 inten 40% 
XL GOsu sl aus 64K 
XH (20/6. Jerre tes 498 


INDEX OF TEXTS. 


PAGE 


Luke xii. 35,36 . - 519 
xii. 37,38 . - 564 
ap ee 4p: bigs ee a4 
xi pa open ee 
xii. 58. . - - 35 
xiii, . - «438, 439 
xiii. 6 - 518 
xiii. 15, 16 471 
xili, 16° ~-." 504, 303 
XIll. 23° Asse eta yt 
Say ea 52 
Xiil-194\ 2) ome SE 
Xivs 42,13 = «502 
XIV. 14. gs “e) ron SOG 
XIV./27) Ss. eee 320 
XV./4 eee Aopen G4 
Kv. 4),S8i50 aa se) 327 
KV OF ces ees 4 e 
XV) UE eres 517 
XV. 22;.23) 9 ee 
XVIL) Wo seed SC 
XVIWO/ > ee eee Sod 
XVi. IF Son emen 482 
XVL I6) <5: =<. 406 
xvi. I . «411, 464 
XVI. 25. 0) ss 395 
KVI3t *. 0 eee 408 
Xvils/ 4s, so teem 430) 
XVil., 5’ use ea sO 
EVil. 26. . -s 515 
xvii. 34. - . 5506 
XV. ot eee dso 
RVIn2 os 554 
xviii. 7,8. . 500 
xviii. 10. . 518 
KVL oom ere 345 
xviii.27 . 370, 480, 

6 531 
Xviil. 29, 30 . 562 
Sebo A oo 8 438 
XiXs) Scns aes 27, 
XLS Sis en 
XixX./20/5 suse ea 
KIK.42. 2 © « 345 
XXI0- Altes) He 
xxi. 34. 

Os 345 35 “515, 319 
xxii. 34 - « 

xxiv. Sass re 
XXIV, 2550s oie 0442 
XXIV. 390. genne 525 
xxiv. 44 . + 442 

John 1.3 pecs 428, 546 
i. 1, 2,3,4 + . 328 
1. 3) 04702, ee 
; 454, 508 
Wiley teat es = ets! 
1 Gin 6 ce, a7, 
i. 10,11 . .426, 546 
i113 - 441, 449, 527 
i. 13, 14 amen dat 
i. 14 . 328, 424, 426, 
i §08, 546 
115,16 ... . 424 
118. 427, 489, 491 
i.29 . 424 
LAY, Sop 3 apr ted 
1.49 oye =e aes 
i, SOmee tic meray 2 
HEN oa eto Le 
ii. 4. es OA 
Hs, 19-21) pen S32 
31.'23 Foe eel aengOO 
Re lok 65.05. obs 


fohniii.5 . 


Acts i. 


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. 


IRENAZUS: 


Acts ii4r. . 


ii, 44, 45 

iii. 6 

iii. 1 
I 


xiii. Q-11 
viii. 9, 18 


vill. 27 . 
viii. 32, 37 
ix. 15, 10 
ix 200s 
x. I-5 ° 
£3 TS" 6 
X. 26, 29 
X 34, 35 
xX. 37-44 
X47 
xiv. 15-17 


Me eh Les 


VilQ = - 
Wee) Ss A 
vi. 3,4 + 
ViGL ee 
Nights) AL 
vi. 12, 13. 
vii. 18. 

vil. 24. 

viii. 
viii. 
viii. 9 + 
viii. 10 
Vill. i 
viii. 1 
xiii. 
vill. 19. 


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We ee eee ete eo ec © © © © © © © 
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. 3 
13 419, 472, ar 


INDEX OF TEXTS. 


PAGE 
495 
485 
430 
431 
391 
431 
495 
431 
431 
432 
432 


Sor 
#80 


435 
347 
409 
347 
494 
433 
439 
433 
432 
432 
436 
432 
432 
436 


= 
uw 
Ut 

° 


PAGE 
Rom. viii. 21. . . . 567 
Wi) 34 ene 444 
viii. 36. . 390, 481 
ix; 50 sl coins) 44T 
ix. 10-13. «493 
iX.13- . 6 + 493 
1X25 (ep) omnsggl, 422 
ix. 25,26. . . 492 
X.3,/4 6 ene 476 
Xa On 7ae cme 440 
Pa Or Baye! 
XQ 2 © -« « 440 
X15 + + © «© 436 
xi 16. 6 6 © 327 
xi-I7- « «© «© 536 
Sap Hb? 1 et 
xi. 26. 6 ° a 
XL. 32. + +331, 450 
Xl. 332 6 © © 331 
XL 34-6 6 © « 526 
Xi, 30... 5 « ~ 320 
Kile Esp reste, S74 
ahh Bhs i a Ge eee! 
xii. 16. 2. . » 550 
xiliit. 2. 6 6 552 
xiii, I-7 . 6 + 517 
MENG Oy Se 
Kill. Giopmeyuel «1 $52 
ratty Ao 6 LES 
Xiv.9- « « » 446 
xXiv.15 » « + 446 
TOCOL, 11 Opes ia ss 320 
ee) io 4 oO AS 
120-20 ls moiis es 
Ib FR) a gor 
ii. 6 


» 328, 45 Es 


HOW opts 

ii, 10. . « Ae 
1. 14 + 3275 534, 574 
ii. 15 » 327, 500, 511 
bh ih A 5S 534 
jii,2 2 - 6 5 521 
hey 6 5 a fee 
Ty ry Bk a8 
NW 6G a Gee 
Lit016; 07cm ete S75 
ili, 17. . «471, 532 
IVsAM cs seme 472 
v.6,1II 2 © « 500 
vi.9, 10. »« + 500 
vi.Q-II - + + 537 
Vi. If. sae S519 
woe oo 5 OS 
Meno A oo te ORE 
Wisi 2Ore e091 540 
Vile Spl ONss tele 400 
Vil. 26 «© «6 « 450 
yaniv Go of 7. 
Vile 2 einer ee 

Vil. 316 « ‘465, 468 
Neh ea Goo a Sty 
Vill. 4,etc, « « 420 
Vill terme. A420 
bn Oe Ge a. ess) 
Xeopel ClCor wir t0) 500) 
Xi Ae vee eS 7.0) 
SoA 6) chat e! kh 
OPT Lis ake 479 
5% WO oe +446, 528 
xi. 4,5 + + + 429 
xi.10. . a Bey 
Pablo cy A ate eh) 
xii. 4,5,6 . 401 
xii. 28. =. 427, a 
Xiliy Zierie s+) 470 


601 
PAGE 
1 Cor. xiii.g. . .401, 402 
xui.9,10 . . 472 
xiii, . 2. . . 508 
xiil. 13. «399, 476 
xiv.16 . . . 336 
XiV; 20 . 5 » §02 
XV.3i4e-cueaes 446 
XV.5 . 6. 6 © 327 
XV-10. 2 « » 49% 
XVII eee 437 
XV.[IZ. © « « 446 
XV.13. 6 6 » 541 
XV. 20-22. «455 
XV. 22. « 458, 527 
Xv. 25,26 . . 567 
XY. 20,0 ese 457 
xy. 27,28. . » 507 
XV 300 ots es 533 
XY. 404 2 fs 305 
XVe42 se) eeu 533 
Borie A 3) EEE 
XV. 44. - 2387, 53 
xv. : AOmaoen S35 
xv. 48. . .327, 535 
KV. 49. . +535, 537 


+ 50+ 357 534, 536 


XV. 52. 539 
XV sie 528, 536, 540 

541 

XV 4 eet GGT 

XV. 545 * + 457 

2 Cor. ii. 15, je so Ker 
THY I Ss GO One 

he BP Sb 540 


Eph. i 


iv. 4 » 420, 502, 575 


MatieerG 5 go ets 
KAI a 6 541 
v.4 - eres 53 540 
Wil 2iane 498 
Ville Aes cnet SON 
Xs Sect uat es 2 5E7 
X1L. 2, 3,4 + 405, 531 
hE GO OD oO Lei 
xii, 7-9 . . . §28 
xli.Q. 2 « + 449 

_xdiieg 2 6 576 

by Biya 3) 46) som ely 437 

i, 15,16 . . 538, 543 

ii, 1,2 2 2 6 » 437 

Hi. 5 6 2 2 6 + 437 

helo & Oo o Oo ~eia 

ii, 12,13» « + 436 

iii. striae 492 

ill. ae oe se SOL 

Lilt 3 stents 440 

ili,16 . . . 561 

iil, TO unset 4 ZO, 4° 

Il. 24 2 2 «© 

iv. 4,5 - 441, 443, se 

WEOa- o & om o Sa 

WHO Ga Heese) 

iv.26% . 5 2°. 566 

mpeyy A & te Gee 

iv. 28 . « .470, 5601 

Wan y oF In 6 Gey 

Vv. 21 eo «© «© © 324 

Vivi 4a) eee 3cO 

ei oo 542 

i. 10. 320, 330, 443s AS 

103 abe os 

i2t. - 487, 493 

Ss a AG og. GE 

e775 : 406 

ii, 13, 15 - 446, 542 


602 IREN4ZUS: INDEX OF TEXTS. 
































PAGE PAGE | ¢ 
Eph. ii, 17. « - 418] Phil. a LOSE T tonter is 330 Tit.i. 15 . Rev.i.12. . » 491 
W020 es - 496 ie. « +417, 407 iii. 10 i. 15. ae 479 
High cs + 319 iii. eens ALY i i. 17 dad 491 
iv. 5,6. . iii. Seo o tee ils 66, oe Sar 465 
iv.6 . . 362, 488 ili. 7 ae - 540 ii. 4 8 352 
IVsS.2 tte 3 iii. 29. . - 540 ile L70e oe 536 
iv.9 + + +494, 560 iv. BG i oh oO 8 
iv.9,10 . on iv. . NVavic & oO 428 
iv. 25,29. « §19| 1 Thess. ii. v.60. 2. 6 491 
v.67. : 500 v.8. .« 484 574 
WalZ: veihe cee «(920 : rere A 493 
v. 30 vate 528 | 2 Thess. i. vil. 5-7- + 559 
Wgeiicce js +328 i xi. 19 . 486 
Wight? . wecretss 350 Alii desees + 407 
Coliisigcieem cn se 3. S25 xiii. 2 . Pere Ay) 
114,15 « © « 441 Kill, 11,14 “1s 557 
IEUGlficey oy te at) 321 XVoy XVie Ne e055 04, 
1,18. . . +391, 488 XVI. Spe - 560 
1.21. 2 2 + 541 XVii.I2. . + +» 554 
ii. g . einen 320 iii. 20. xix. II-17. . . 492 
ii. 11. + et a) 40K iv. 14. sume XIX: 20... <= 7 1557 
W174. - - 0545, 574 2 Pet. iii. 8 . + 550, 55 Xi, 2seee 457 
ii. 16. shee 575 1 Johnii.t . a 44 EX)\G) = = cieanen S04 
Hip1Ge sens 8 © 574 ii. 18. ° XX. 11,15. . 3 5 
ii.19. . « «506, 542 2 Xx. 12-14. . . 566 
iLGG@meeits: el © 530. ° XX ES cbt we 500 
WIGO% 0s eo) « 538 5 xxi. I-4 BoP ES 
iii, 10 . . 2 6 538 ° xxi. 2 - « 566 
iii, II 2 2 6 320 . xxi. 5, 6 o « 566 
We If 2 0 6 6 43 5 XXU,.17:s.0 oy eae e407, 
Phil. i. 22... . . » 538 ° xxil.IQe . « « 599 
ii. 8 . 2 433) 495) 544 iv. 10, 11 Rev.1.§ « « ° 








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